The politics of 2026 will be less about governing than positioning. Yet the maneuvers of the year ahead may decide who rules Africa’s most populous country after 2027; and whether its increasingly hollowed-out party system can still bear the strain. Nigeria’s political calendar insists on restlessness. A year before a presidential election, the country enters what insiders call the “long primary season”: a blur of defections, elite bargaining, litigation and proxy wars in the states. In 2026 that familiar churn will be sharpened by three forces: President Bola Tinubu’s determination to entrench his dominance, the opposition’s scramble for relevance, and the unresolved question of whether Nigeria’s unwritten rules, especially regional rotation; still constrain ambition. Six developments, in particular, will shape the year.
Dynasty in Lagos
Nothing would roil the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) more than the entry of Seyi Tinubu, the president’s son, into the Lagos governorship race. Lagos is not merely a state; it is the party’s engine room and Mr Tinubu’s political estate. Since 1999 he has exercised decisive influence over who governs it and who profits from it. A filial succession would therefore be read not simply as nepotism, but as a test of whether the APC can still pretend to be a coalition rather than a court. The likely method; a “consensus” candidacy imposed from above, would squeeze out established heavyweights such as Femi Gbajabiamila, the president’s chief of staff, and Mudashiru Obasa, the speaker of the state assembly. That would invite comparisons with earlier moments when godfatherism provoked backlash in Lagos politics, and it risks reopening ethnic and class fissures that flared in the last governorship contest. Some aspirants would surely defect in protest. Whether such resistance would amount to more than noise depends on how far the president is willing to go to enforce discipline in his backyard.
An opposition primary that matters
For once, the opposition may offer genuine drama. The African Democratic Congress (ADC), long marginal, could become the arena for a heavyweight clash between Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar. Obi’s formal move into the party, accompanied by prominent figures from the south-east, signals an attempt to give his popular but previously amorphous movement a sturdier platform. Atiku, a perennial contender with deep pockets and northern networks, has been preparing for another run for years. Their contest would expose the opposition’s central dilemma. Obi brings energy, urban youth support and the logic of rotation: after a southern president, many voters expect power to move north only after 2027. Atiku brings experience and reach, but his candidacy cuts against that expectation. If he wins the ticket, he may offer Obi the vice-presidency; if Obi accepts, the ADC could mount its strongest challenge yet to Tinubu. If he declines, the party risks splintering. Either way, the convention would be the liveliest political spectacle of the year.
Security and sovereignty
Nigeria’s grinding insecurity will continue to cast a long shadow. Reports and debates about foreign involvement; particularly American support, whether through intelligence, training or more kinetic assistance, have already polarized opinion. Should such cooperation be seen to reduce kidnappings and jihadist attacks in the north, Tinubu would reap political dividends. If, however, civilian harm mounts or the violence persists, critics will accuse him of outsourcing sovereignty without results. The reaction so far hints at how combustible the issue is: some northern elites bridle at foreign intervention, while many Christian leaders and urban voters, exhausted by insecurity, welcome any help that works. In 2026 security will not only be a policy test but a cultural and political fault line.
Rivers: a proxy war
Rivers State, one of the country’s richest and most combustible, is set for another round of elite trench warfare. The uneasy truce between Governor Sim Fubara and his predecessor-turned-federal minister, Nyesom Wike, has collapsed. Wike’s vow to block Fubara’s second term, and his open mobilization across the state, turn Rivers into a proxy contest between rival power centers. Fubara is betting that loyalty to the president will secure him the APC ticket. Wike, ever the tactician, is widely expected to defect to the APC himself, daring Tinubu to absorb his formidable but disruptive machinery. The president must decide whether Wike is an asset worth the trouble; or a Trojan horse whose arrival could destabilize the party in a strategic state.
Akwa Ibom’s one-party temptation
In Akwa Ibom, the defection of Governor Umo Eno has hollowed out the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), turning a former stronghold into something close to a one-party state. Yet the PDP’s ghost still haunts the place. Udom Emmanuel, a former governor, has tried to keep the party alive through caretaker committees and national alliances, only to be thwarted by litigation and electoral regulators.
His recent conciliatory tone towards the president contrasts with his reported conversations with Mr Abubakar’s camp about a possible vice-presidential slot. Akwa Ibom thus illustrates both the PDP’s decline and the way personal ambition now floats free of party loyalty.
The great defection wave
Underlying all this is the steady erosion of Nigeria’s multiparty system. Defections to the APC continue, justified as pragmatism and denounced as betrayal. The image of the PDP’s sealed-off headquarters, and the president’s public relish at its disarray, capture the imbalance. Yet success brings its own problems. The APC is struggling to accommodate newcomers demanding tickets, offices and protection. In several states these disputes are already fierce enough to threaten the party’s prospects in 2027.
The arithmetic still favors Mr. Tinubu. The APC controls most southern states, and governors across party lines insist that the presidency should remain in the south in 2027. The president does not need to win the north outright; he needs only a broad enough spread – 25% in two-thirds of the states – to satisfy constitutional requirements. But the north-east and north-west, battered by insecurity and skeptical of southern dominance, remain his biggest headaches. By the end of 2026 Nigeria will know whether its politics is settling into a dominant-party era lubricated by defections, or whether the frictions of ambition, identity and insecurity can still produce genuine competition. What looks like rehearsal may yet decide the play.
