Former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, says the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is not part of the opposition coalition being formed ahead of the 2027 presidential election.
Speaking in an interview, Babachir said discussions among opposition figures, including Atiku Abubakar and Nasir El-Rufai, have focused on forming a new political party or joining an existing one—not merging with the PDP.
According to him, the PDP has been completely absent from all coalition talks. He described the party as “an incurable virus” and said stakeholders believe the PDP cannot be reformed.
Even when some governors suggested rebuilding the PDP, he said the situation kept getting worse.
“I can speak on behalf of Atiku. But every time we had discussions with members of other groups working toward a coalition, the name PDP never came up. Everybody we talk to about PDP, the answer we get is that it is an incurable virus. I have attended almost all the meetings of all the groups. But I have never attended a meeting where the PDP was one of the parties up for consideration among those of us discussing the merger. Of course, Atiku is a whale in the PDP. I don’t know whether his plans would have been to bring the PDP into the merger. But you know the modalities we have been discussing are whether we could form a brand new political party, that’s one option, or we could all as a group join an existing party. That has been our direction. As we analyse the parties that we could join, I have never had anyone mention PDP,” he said.
Babachir confirmed that former Vice President Atiku is deeply involved in the merger talks and plays a leading role in uniting various groups. He admitted that Atiku may have personal political ambitions, but insisted that the main goal of the coalition is to create a strong political party where candidates will emerge through democratic processes like conventions and primaries.
He also mentioned that while the Social Democratic Party (SDP) has come up in discussions, it is not the coalition’s main focus. Other options are still being considered, including the Labour Party (LP), which already has members participating in the merger talks.
His words: “We have never looked at the SDP as a stand-alone option. As I said earlier, we analyse the parties. There are conditions among the parties that we need to see. First of all, the party constitution must allow for the mass entry of certain groups and it must allow for the accommodation of the interests of those groups. If, for example, a particular party has a constitution that says you must be a member of the political party for four years before you can contest. Obviously, that rules out that party. So we look at all these small issues and look at their constitution and things like that. So, SDP was one of those that kept coming up. Whatever you might say about it, the SDP is the oldest surviving political party in Nigeria now. So it has been around for many years.”
When asked if Atiku might leave the PDP, Babachir said joining a new party would automatically mean he is no longer a PDP member.
Reacting to a comment by PDP chieftain Bode George, who said Atiku would be denied the PDP ticket in 2027, Babachir dismissed his political influence. He said George should retire from active politics, adding that he had never delivered significant results for the PDP in Lagos.
