Okey Ikechukwu: Influencing Tinubu’s 2027 Running Mate Is Dangerous For APC
Political analyst and public affairs commentator Dr Okey Ikechukwu has warned that efforts within the All Progressives Congress (APC) to predetermine or influence the choice of a vice-presidential candidate ahead of the 2027 general election pose a serious threat to internal party cohesion and democratic principles.
Ikechukwu said this in an interview after fresh cracks erupted within the APC following a chaotic stakeholders’ meeting in Gombe, where Kashim Shettima was conspicuously excluded from a proposed 2027 joint ticket with Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The omission triggered outrage among party loyalists, leading to a breakdown of order, physical confrontations, and visible signs of a deepening rift in the party’s Northeast bloc.
Reacting to the incident, Ikechukwu, described the development as a dangerous signal of internal collapse.
He warned that the growing pattern of public defiance and disunity especially over core leadership decisions undermines party discipline, erodes trust in the presidency, and raises troubling questions about whether the president still retains the freedom to choose his running mate.
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“Then there was a meeting of the Northern Governors, or was it the, I think, Council of State chaired by the Vice President. This is the party in power. This is the substantive president in the absence of the president if he travelled. And what we had was opposition to that bill. How does that make the member of the presidency, who’s from the North, look? So when you have that and you have this again, you ask yourself, are they really helping the Vice President?
“Are they suggesting, for instance, that the president cannot choose another candidate? So this is very bad at three levels, at the level of party cohesion and party discipline and party leadership, at the second level of solidarity within the presidency, and at the third level of the question of trust between the two people who hold the reign of power, one substantively, the other in a supporting capacity. It’s a very dangerous development.”
Ikechukwu criticised the open defiance within APC ranks, where disagreements over leadership choices have played out publicly with “insults and stone-throwing,” saying, “Party discipline should make it possible for party members to know when the party has taken a decision, there can not be an alternative point of view in the public domain coming in the form of insults and throwing of stones.”
He also cautioned that these public disputes not only risk damaging the Vice President’s reputation but may be perceived as orchestrated moves to undermine him politically, saying “I think the person who should be concerned and alarmed about this is not just the Vice-president but local government chairman, chairman in the world, state chairman of the party.”
