2027: I’m Ready To Step Down For Stronger Opposition Candidate – Donald Duke

The presidential candidate of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), Donald Duke, has indicated his readiness to step down from the 2027 presidential race if doing so would help produce a stronger, united opposition capable of defeating President Bola Tinubu.

Duke, a former governor of Cross River State, made the position known on Monday during an appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today, where he stressed the need for opposition parties and politicians to put their individual ambitions aside in the interest of presenting a formidable challenge to the incumbent.

According to him, the major challenge facing the opposition ahead of the 2027 election is not necessarily the political strength of Tinubu, but the possibility of opposition candidates dividing the anti-incumbency vote by contesting separately.

Duke argued that while Tinubu remains a formidable politician, the President has lost some of the public sympathy he enjoyed during the 2023 election because of the hardship experienced by Nigerians under his administration.

“I don’t think so. I think his governance has exposed the weakness of the contraption called. I don’t think he has the sympathies he had in 2023,” he said.

He said economic hardship had left many Nigerians disillusioned, noting that “hope has turned into despair.”

The PRP candidate, however, acknowledged Tinubu’s political strength, distinguishing between the President’s political skills and his record in governance.

“Give it to him, he is a formidable politician, my issue with him is governance not politics. He is weak on governance, from what we have seen over the last three years he is very weak on governance,” Duke said.

Duke warned that the opposition could only maximise its chances of defeating Tinubu if it was prepared to make difficult sacrifices, including putting individual presidential ambitions aside where necessary.

He maintained that if opposition politicians failed to unite, Tinubu could emerge victorious in 2027, although such a victory could still produce a minority president if the opposition remained fragmented.

“The important thing is that if you want a proper presidential system of government, you ought to have only two major parties: an incumbent and an opposition,” he said.

He further urged opposition politicians to anticipate possible challenges on election day instead of waiting until after the election to complain about irregularities.

“The reality is that things are bound to happen on that day; how to mitigate those things should be the major concern of the opposition,” he said.

Duke stressed that opposition politicians must learn from previous elections and recognise that unity would require personal sacrifice.

“I don’t like people who cry wolf after it has happened and all that. We have done this several times over; we should anticipate it, and united we stand. If we do it, if we don’t, then we will only have ourselves to blame because it has repeated itself,” he said.