President Bola Tinubu just picked up another serious challenger for 2027: the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) has cleared Donald Duke, the former Cross River governor, as its presidential candidate.
The party’s National Working Committee (NWC) approved Duke after reviewing the Primaries Appeal Committee report, Muhammed Ishaq, the PRP national publicity secretary, said in a statement in Abuja on June 6. The NWC also ratified the party’s governorship, senate, House of Representatives and state assembly primary results. All PRP candidates are cleared to run — except for the Tarauni Federal Constituency in Kano, where the primary is yet to be nullified.
The PRP is trying to make noise again. It’s one of the old parties, tracing its roots to the late Mallam Aminu Kano, and has been rebuilding in parts of the north. Recently Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi and two senators, Shehu Buba Umar and Sama’ila Dahuwa, left the APC for the PRP — a tidy boost for Duke’s ticket.
Tinubu already faces big names: Atiku Abubakar, now the ADC candidate who pushed for an opposition coalition, and Peter Obi, who is the NDC’s presidential candidate with Rabiu Kwankwaso as his running mate. The coalition push fell apart after Obi and Kwankwaso split off to chase their own bids — they’d earlier run on Labour and NNPP platforms before moving to the ADC and then the NDC.
And on a separate note, Senate President Godswill Akpabio has denied promising return tickets to senators who lost in APC primaries. His spokesperson, Eseme Eyiboh, clarified on June 6 that Akpabio neither made nor authorised such a promise.
