Dr Yunusa Tanko, the former coordinator of the Obidient Movement and one of the most familiar voices of Peter Obi’s 2023 presidential run, has crossed to the Social Democratic Party and taken charge of the campaign of its candidate, Prince Adewole Adebayo. The SDP unveiled him on Wednesday as National Coordinator and Director-General of its Presidential Campaign Council at the party’s national secretariat in Abuja, a day before he presided over the council’s first strategy session.
The move is one of the sharper realignments in an opposition field that has fractured repeatedly in the build-up to 2027. Tanko served as spokesman for the Obi-Datti campaign that finished third in 2023, and he remained the public face of the Obidient Movement through much of the turbulence that followed. He was removed as the movement’s coordinator in October and reassigned as Obi’s Political Adviser for Northern Nigeria, a position he resigned on 30 October before accepting the SDP role.
At the inauguration, Tanko said his decision was rooted in a working relationship with Adebayo that dates back to the 2023 cycle and a shared commitment to equity and good governance. He described the SDP as a left-leaning, people-centred party, and said he had informed Obi and the National Democratic Congress leader, Senator Seriake Dickson, before taking up the appointment. He also tied his exit to his emergence as a leader of the National Consultative Front following the death of former House of Representatives Speaker Ghali Na’Abba. He was careful to say he had no quarrel with Obi, while making clear he did not want to remain where he felt merely tolerated.
His appointment was confirmed by the campaign council’s chief media and communication adviser, Mark Adebayo. According to the council, Thursday’s closed-door meeting ran for more than three hours and brought together the campaign’s operational heads to align the directorates and begin building a grassroots plan reaching from the geopolitical zones down through states, local government areas, wards and polling units, with door to door canvassing. The council declined to disclose the detail of its strategy and urged party members and stakeholders to unite behind Adebayo’s bid.
For the SDP, the recruitment fits a deliberate strategy. Adebayo, a lawyer, businessman and founder of KAFTAN Television who has belonged to the party since his student days in the early 1990s, was the SDP’s candidate in 2023 and was returned unopposed as its flag bearer at the national convention in Bauchi in May, with Dr Usman Bugaje as his running mate. The electoral commission has since published the Adebayo-Bugaje ticket in its final list of candidates. Adebayo has ruled out folding into any wider alliance, choosing to run on the party’s own platform under the slogan “Farewell to Poverty and Insecurity,” and has argued that change will be decided by voters at the polling unit rather than by bargaining among political elites.
The contest for the opposition vote explains why each defection is scrutinised. The parties that split the anti-government vote in 2023 have since scattered across new vehicles. Obi, who left the Labour Party amid a prolonged leadership crisis, is now the presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress alongside Rabiu Kwankwaso, while the African Democratic Congress has become the platform for Atiku Abubakar and a coalition of other heavyweights. The Labour Party itself has been hollowed out by factional disputes and steady defections.
The numbers from the last election show the size of the prize now being carved up. President Bola Tinubu was declared winner in 2023 with 8,794,726 votes, ahead of Atiku with 6,984,520 and Obi with 6,101,533, while Kwankwaso polled 1,496,687. Adebayo finished far down that field. The roughly six million votes that rallied to Obi three years ago are the clearest target of the current manoeuvring, and the SDP will hope Tanko can point some of them its way.
Whether that is achievable is open to question. Several analysts have judged that the Obidient surge of 2023 has lost much of its force and would be hard to rebuild in time, and parts of the movement have signalled they will follow Obi wherever he runs. What the SDP has secured is an experienced organiser who knows that constituency well, and a campaign structure now formally in place. The strategy the council has kept to itself, and the response of Obi’s base, will determine how much the appointment is worth.