Makinde’s 2027 Bid Deepens PDP Rift With APM Alliance in Ibadan

2027 Election Watch, Oyo State, Politics

Makinde’s 2027 Bid Deepens PDP Rift With APM Alliance in Ibadan

Seyi Makinde has fired the opening shot of the 2027 race in the most dramatic way possible, turning an Ibadan rally into a political earthquake that may have exposed the PDP’s deepest fracture yet. By sealing a fresh alliance with the APM and openly declaring his presidential ambition, the Oyo governor has not merely entered…

Atlantic Post

May 14, 2026

4–6 minutes

2027 Election, APM Alliance, Nigerian Opposition, Oyo Politics, PDP Crisis, Seyi Makinde

Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde on Thursday stepped fully into the 2027 presidential race, using a politically loaded rally in Ibadan to announce his ambition and to formalise a new alliance between his PDP bloc and the Allied Peoples Movement.

The move immediately sharpened the battle lines inside the opposition, because it came at a moment when the PDP is still fighting over legitimacy, authority and control of its national structure.

Reports from Arise News, Vanguard, Guardian and The Nation confirm that the event, held at Mapo Hall, was billed as a “Unity Mega Rally” and that it doubled as a political unveiling of the PDP–APM arrangement.

Makinde had already been laying the ideological groundwork for a broader opposition coalition before Thursday’s declaration. At a summit in Ibadan in April, he insisted that the gathering was not designed to target any individual, saying, “It is not a gang-up against one man, and it is not about individual ambitions to be president.”

He added that the point was to preserve democracy and prevent a slide into one-party dominance. That earlier posture matters because Thursday’s rally shows the governor moving from coalition language to overt presidential ambition, with his camp now seeking a structure that can carry that ambition beyond Oyo State.

The political message from Ibadan was not subtle. Makinde’s formal declaration, as reported by TVC News and other outlets, was unmistakable in tone and intent.

“I, Oluseyi Abiodun Makinde, Excellency, announce my candidacy for the position of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” he said.

Vanguard and Arise News both reported that he framed the bid as a call to “reset Nigeria” and presented the rally as a launch pad for a wider national project. In political terms, that language is designed to project him not merely as an aspirant, but as a reformist option for a fragmented opposition searching for a new centre of gravity.

The alliance itself is the more disruptive development. According to the reports, the deal was sealed through a Memorandum of Understanding signed in Ibadan, with Seyi Bamidele signing for the PDP faction and Oladele Oyadeji for the APM, while Makinde and APM national chairman Yusuf Dantalle also endorsed the arrangement.

The practical implication is serious: candidates loyal to Makinde are expected to contest future elections under the APM platform rather than the PDP in Oyo State, a move that signals either a tactical escape route from the PDP’s internal chaos or a bold attempt to build a parallel political vehicle under a smaller party’s banner.

But the rally also exposed the scale of the PDP’s internal war. Within hours, the Wike-backed PDP national working committee disowned the Ibadan gathering and denied any alliance with the APM.

In a sharply worded statement reported by Punch, the faction said the PDP was “not part of any alliance, coalition, agreement, or political arrangement” with the APM and accused Makinde of trying to “camouflage his political intentions” through what it described as a false coalition narrative.

That response is important because it shows the Ibadan event was never just a rally. It was a direct confrontation between rival PDP power blocs over who owns the party’s future and who can speak in its name.

The legal and organisational crisis inside the PDP explains why this breakaway-style realignment has gained traction.

Premium Times reported that the party’s Board of Trustees moved to assume leadership after the Supreme Court’s ruling invalidated the Kabiru Turaki-led national working committee, while TheCable reported that the BoT said it had taken over to avoid a vacuum.

ThisDay, however, published a counter-position from the Wike-aligned side, which argued that the Supreme Court did not suspend Senator Samuel Anyanwu or order the BoT to take over the party.

In other words, the PDP is not merely divided; it is locked in a contest over the interpretation of the very court ruling that was supposed to settle its leadership crisis.

That is why Makinde’s move should be read as both ambition and diagnosis. The ambition is obvious: he is now on the 2027 presidential track. The diagnosis is sharper: he appears to believe the PDP, as presently constituted, cannot provide a stable or credible national launchpad for a serious presidential bid.

By entering into a formal arrangement with the APM, he has effectively signalled that he is willing to use another platform if that gives him room to manoeuvre, protect loyalists and keep his presidential project alive.

The Ibadan rally therefore looks less like a ceremonial declaration and more like an attempt to create a working electoral machine before the opposition’s national crisis consumes the field.

For the wider opposition, the implications are stark. If Makinde’s bloc can pull structure, discipline and candidates into the APM while still retaining influence across PDP ranks, he may have found a route around the party’s paralysis. If not, the move could further fragment the opposition just as 2027 begins to take shape.

For now, one fact is beyond dispute: Makinde has moved from a whispering candidate to an open presidential contestant, and he has done so in a way that has deepened the PDP’s identity crisis rather than resolving it. Nigeria’s opposition politics may be entering a phase where survival, not ideology, decides who controls the next ballot line.