2027: Can Saraki ride Wike’s PDP machine back to power in Kwara?

Desperate to revive his political machinery in Kwara State ahead of Nigeria‘s 2027 elections, Bukola Saraki has aligned with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) faction led by the minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike. Despite their 2023 disagreement over the emergence of Atiku Abubakar as the party’s presidential candidate, Saraki says the Wike alliance guarantees his Kwara allies a viable platform to contest in 2027, with hopes of reclaiming power in the state.

The alliance is seen as part of Saraki’s longer-term calculations for a possible third presidential bid in 2031, when power is expected to rotate back to the North. However, fresh legal challenges by the Kabiru Tanimu Turaki faction of the PDP create uncertainties.

Despite a Supreme Court judgment, both the Wike and Turaki camps continue to operate parallel structures, selling nomination forms and screening aspirants for the 2027 elections. In the lingering legal battle, either faction could eventually lose recognition, leaving candidates aligned with it in a political dead end.

However, Saraki’s spokesman, Yusuph Olaniyonu, says the Wike bloc remains the safest option because it has secured favourable court rulings and enjoys recognition from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) – even if temporary.

“As we speak today – I don’t know about tomorrow – only the PDP recognised by INEC will field candidates in the next election,” Olaniyonu tells The Africa Report. “That is the PDP led by Abdulrahman Mohammed under Wike’s leadership. Any other thing is probability, and we will not discuss probability.”

The troubled years

Since the end of his turbulent tenure as Senate president under the Muhammadu Buhari administration in 2019, Saraki, a former governor of Kwara State, has moved from one political setback to another. He remains the only Senate president in Nigeria’s history to be denied the national honour of Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON), having emerged in 2015 against the wishes of his party leadership.

After outwitting Buhari and leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to become Senate president, Saraki hardly enjoyed a moment of peace in office. Over his four-year tenure, he battled criminal charges filed against him by the same APC coalition he had helped form alongside Buhari and Bola Tinubu in 2014 to oust Goodluck Jonathan from power.

The administration prosecuted Saraki for alleged false asset declaration and forgery, while also attempting to seize his N1.09bn ($795,000) mansion in Ilorin, claiming it had been acquired with proceeds of fraud.

By 2018, amid mounting internal pressure, Saraki dumped the APC and returned to the PDP. But the following year brought him more humiliation. He entered the 2019 PDP presidential race but lost the ticket to Abubakar. He then recalibrated to return to the Senate but was roundly defeated by APC’s Ibrahim Oloriegbe.

That year, he also suffered a heavy defeat in Kwara, where the 40-year-old political dynasty he inherited from his late father and political heavyweight Olusola Saraki was dismantled by the APC.

Through its carefully constructed ‘O to ge’ (enough is enough) campaign, the APC mobilised public sentiment against Saraki in Kwara and stopped him from installing another PDP governor to sustain his family’s hold on power.

In a symbolic assault on the Saraki family’s political legacy, the APC-led government demolished Ile-Arugbo, the building where Olusola Saraki had hosted his throng of loyal followers for decades. The state government also attempted to link Saraki to the deadly 2018 Offa bank robbery, which claimed 33 lives, including nine policemen.

The APC has since consolidated its grip on power in Kwara, frustrating Saraki’s comeback attempts in 2023 and politically cornering him over the past seven years.

Rebuilding after defeat

Recent months, however, suggest a politician attempting to rebuild momentum. The death of his influential father-in-law, Otunba Adekunle Ojora, in January seemed to allow him to flaunt his vast elite connections.

Not many missed the subtle political statement behind Saraki’s daily posting of photographs, featuring influential political and business figures who visited from across the country to condole with the family.

At home in Kwara, Saraki has resumed grassroots mobilisation, hosting PDP stakeholders, organising medical outreach programmes, and criticising the AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq administration over insecurity and governance.

However, the unresolved PDP crisis in Abuja casts doubt over the viability of the opposition platform Saraki is banking on. Yet, he says his supporters in Kwara still view the PDP as the strongest vehicle for 2027 and have ruled out defection to another party.

The Wike gamble

Saraki initially attempted to position himself as a neutral mediator in the PDP crisis, leading reconciliation efforts between the Wike and Turaki factions. Those efforts failed.

When the Turaki camp scheduled a convention in Ibadan in November 2025, despite opposition from the Wike bloc, Saraki instructed Kwara delegates to participate only if the process was monitored by the INEC. After the INEC declined to monitor the gathering and refused to recognise the outcome, Saraki gravitated towards Wike’s camp, whose position was later strengthened by court rulings nullifying the Ibadan convention.

We know that the PDP will be on the ballot in 2027

By the time the Wike faction organised a new convention in Abuja in March 2026, Saraki and the Kwara PDP openly participated. At the event, Saraki said that the INEC’s presence conferred legitimacy on the exercise. “We have a party that can present candidates in the 2027 election,” he said. “We know that the PDP will be on the ballot in 2027.”

The Turaki camp, however, continues to challenge the validity of the Abuja convention, arguing that the party’s national secretary, Samuel Anyanwu, legal adviser, Kamaldeen Ajibade, and organising secretary, Umar Bature, who convened the gathering, were under suspension at the time.

“The suspension was upheld by the Supreme Court in its judgment of 30 April 2026,” the Turaki faction said. “The judgment therefore rendered the Abuja convention, as convened by Mohammed and Anyanwu as acting chairman and national secretary respectively, a nullity.”

Despite the legal uncertainty surrounding the PDP, Olaniyonu says Saraki is positioning himself for a political comeback in Kwara by leveraging Wike’s political machinery. He adds that internal tensions within the APC in Kwara, where 16 aspirants are jostling to succeed Governor AbdulRazaq in 2027, have created an opening for the opposition.

“The APC is in disarray in Kwara,” Olaniyonu says. “They’ve wasted the momentum that brought them to power in 2019.”

But local political observers remain sceptical.

The centre still holds

Despite periodic infighting within the ruling party, many analysts say that federal alignment still shapes electoral behaviour in Kwara – an advantage that favours the APC so long as it controls power in Abuja.

“In 2023, despite the internal crisis within the party, the APC still won because of federal backing,” a Kwara-based analyst says. “The people of Kwara believe that the state must align with the federal government.”

That reality may define the limits of Saraki’s comeback strategy. But, for now, the former Senate president is convinced that survival inside a divided opposition party is preferable to political irrelevance outside it. (The Africa Report)