In Nigerian politics, defections are often viewed as routine realignments — brief migrations by politicians seeking relevance or survival. Some produce little lasting change. Yet occasionally, a calculated shift reveals deeper fractures and signals the reordering of power.
The defection on Tuesday of Almustapha Saulawa, former director of protocol to ex-Governor Aminu Masari, from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to the African Democratic Congress (ADC) is one such moment.
Mr Saulawa’s exit completes a puzzle that has been assembling quietly for months. By joining an ADC roster that already includes former Secretary to the State Government Mustapha Inuwa and two former senators, Ibrahim Tsauri and Ahmad Kaita, he has helped cement a formidable “Megaparty” coalition.
The ADC in Katsina is no longer a fringe platform. It is rapidly becoming a significant force, staffed by the very architects who once shaped the system they now challenge. To appreciate the threat this poses to Governor Dikko Radda’s 2027 re-election, one must move beyond headlines to the underlying numbers and networks.
The ‘Almost Governor’
At the coalition’s core stands Mr Inuwa. The 2022 APC governorship primaries provide clear evidence of his influence: Mr Radda secured 506 delegate votes, while Mr Inuwa polled 442 — a margin of just 64 votes.
His defection carried more than his personal brand; it brought a dense web of loyalists embedded in local government structures and ward machinery. Fused with Mr Saulawa’s administrative insight, this has effectively reconstituted the APC’s former runner-up faction into a cohesive opposition force.
The Insider Factor: Saulawa and Institutional Memory
While Mr Inuwa supplies grassroots strength, Mr Saulawa contributes institutional memory and operational insight. As the former director of protocol in the Masari administration that paved the way for the current government, his departure carries symbolic weight.
“I was part and parcel of the ruling APC… I decided I’m no longer going with them,” Mr Saulawa stated. This narrative equips the opposition with intimate knowledge of patronage networks, civil service grievances, and internal fault lines. His assertion that the APC is now dominated by “sycophants” further erodes morale among those who remain.
The National Tailwind: Peter Obi Factor
This Katsina realignment is not occurring in isolation. It coincides with significant national developments in January, including the defection of former Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi to the ADC to forge a “National Third Force.”
Mr Obi came third in the 2023 presidential election. He joins Atiku Abubakar, who came second in the election, in the ADC. The political realignment in states like Katsina shows that the ADC is not just growing at the federal level, but also in states.
Katsina In 2023
One critical factor complicating the ADC’s 2027 ambitions is recent electoral history. While Katsina is often described as an APC stronghold, the 2023 presidential election told a more nuanced story.
In that contest, the APC lost Katsina at the presidential level, with the opposition narrowly edging the ruling party. The margin was slim, but politically significant: it demonstrated that voter loyalty in the state is neither fixed nor unconditional.
Importantly, it showed that the opposition’s appeal—particularly among urban voters and sections of the youth—was already substantial before the current wave of defections.
Yet that momentum failed to translate into victories at the governorship and other subnational levels, where the APC retained control. The divergence highlights a persistent pattern in Katsina politics: voters often distinguish sharply between national protest voting and state-level power calculations.
Presidential elections allow for symbolic choices and ideological expression; governorship elections are more transactional, shaped by local networks, incumbency power, and candidate familiarity. Any opposition coalition seeking to upend the status quo in 2027 must therefore explain not only why voters rejected the APC nationally in 2023, but why they still trusted it locally.
The Security Heavyweight: Lawal Daura’s Entry
The coalition received a significant boost on Wednesday when former Director-General of the State Security Service (SSS), Lawal Daura, formally declared his intention to contest the 2027 governorship on the ADC platform. Speaking at a youth sensitisation and mobilisation programme in Katsina, Mr Daura — a figure long associated with Nigeria’s national security architecture — described the moment as one demanding “openness and commitment.”
Party insiders view Mr Daura’s entry as a strategic masterstroke: it brings high-level intelligence experience and national stature to a coalition already hammering the APC on banditry and security failures. Mr Daura urged unity, discipline, and respect for leadership, expressing confidence that the ADC could “reclaim its lost glory” in Katsina.
The declaration coincided with further momentum: Mr Inuwa revealed that 71 APC members had recently defected to the ADC. At the same time, the Labour Party structure in parts of the state is in advanced talks to decamp en bloc. Separately, the ADC claimed to have registered over one million members across all 34 local government areas, although political parties are known to brandish unprovable membership figures. The party’s 2023 governorship candidate, Ibrahim Aminu-Trader, who is also eyeing the 2027 ticket, described the influx of youths, women, and defectors as evidence of growing demand for alternatives.
The PDP Question: Where Does the Old Opposition Go?
The second unresolved variable is the fate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)—the platform that anchored opposition strength in Katsina during the 2023 elections.
While the ADC has attracted high-profile defectors from the APC, it remains unclear whether it is also absorbing the PDP’s organisational base, or merely overlapping with it. In 2023, it was the PDP—not the ADC—that served as the primary vehicle for anti-APC sentiment in the state, mobilising structures that delivered a competitive presidential showing.
If significant segments of that PDP base remain outside the ADC coalition, the opposition risks repeating a familiar mistake: fragmentation. A divided opposition—ADC on one flank, PDP on another—would almost certainly favour the incumbent APC, even in a politically competitive environment.
The unanswered question, therefore, is whether the ADC can evolve from being a magnet for elite defectors into a true umbrella capable of consolidating legacy opposition structures, particularly those loyal to figures such as Yakubu Lado. Without that consolidation, the coalition’s arithmetic becomes far less threatening.
Ambition versus Cohesion: The Candidate Congestion Dilemma
There is also a more delicate internal challenge: ambition management.
Many of the political heavyweights gravitating toward the ADC are not merely power brokers—they are potential candidates. In a system where only one governorship ticket exists, the question is not whether the ADC has strong aspirants, but whether it can survive the process of choosing one.
Recent Nigerian political history is littered with coalitions that collapsed at the point of ticket allocation, as disappointed aspirants defected, undermined campaigns, or quietly worked against their own party. If the ADC’s internal contest becomes acrimonious, today’s unity could quickly unravel.
The coalition’s durability will therefore depend less on who joins it now, and more on how it manages exclusion later. Whether unsuccessful aspirants remain committed—or exit in protest—may ultimately determine whether the ADC becomes a viable alternative government or another short-lived alliance of convenience.
The Hubris Test: Confidence Meets Consolidation
The timing of Mr Saulawa’s defection — now reinforced by Mr Daura’s high-profile entry — also undercuts Governor Radda’s recent political assessment. During his tour of Katsina’s 34 local government areas last month, the governor declared that his “visible developmental achievements” had rendered the opposition “completely silent,” predicting their imminent defection to the APC.
Mr Saulawa’s exit demonstrates the opposite: the opposition is consolidating, not dissolving. The belief that infrastructure alone would guarantee loyalty has been tested against the stronger forces of political survival, ambition, and grievance.
Weaponising Policy: The Bandit Release Controversy
Beyond personalities, the ADC is framing its challenge in terms of policy, particularly security. The party has mounted sustained attacks on the Radda administration over the planned release of 70 suspected bandits, portraying it as a betrayal of victims in frontline communities.
In rural local government areas such as Funtua and Malumfashi, where the human cost of banditry remains visceral, this message is potent. The ADC poses a blunt question to voters: Does the government stand with citizens — or with criminals?
Government’s Defence: Law, Strategy and Results
The Radda administration firmly rejects the “amnesty” label. Officials describe the release as a strategic prisoner exchange, legally authorised under the state’s Administration of Criminal Justice Law and aimed at saving lives.
According to the Commissioner for Internal Security, Nasir Mu’azu, the approach has secured the freedom of over 1,000 abducted persons across 15 local government areas. The government maintains that while the opposition appeals to emotion, the government is making the complex, often unpopular decisions required to reduce suffering.
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APC leaders further characterise the defections as “shedding dead weight,” attributing exits to discomfort with the administration’s strict financial discipline and refusal to sustain the “business-as-usual” patronage system.
‘Internally Displaced Politicians’: The Firebrand Response
The governor’s media team has responded sharply. Maiwada Dan Mallam, director-general of media to the governor, dismissed the ADC coalition as a gathering of political refugees rather than a genuine threat.
“What makes them different from random defectors? They are as random as they come,” Mr Dan Mallam stated. “These are frustrated people who have long defected from local communities and have no option but to mutate into freeloaders whose idea of politics is purely self-serving.”
Challenging their heavyweight status, he urged verification at the grassroots: “These are people who, on a good day, cannot deliver their polling units — if they are lucky not to be chased away for their anti-people tendencies.”
He concluded: “ADC is a mere tent for ‘Internally Displaced Politicians’ (IDPs) whose actions and ambitions are not worth public debating.”
The Hard Reality: Power of the Treasury
Momentum alone does not guarantee success. Governor Radda has signed an ₦898 billion budget for 2026 — one of the largest in the state’s history, heavily weighted toward capital projects. In Nigerian politics, such fiscal control enables incumbents to dominate the narrative through visible infrastructure, contracts, and state resources. If the ADC has the people, the APC retains the naira.
The “spoiler risk” persists: failure to absorb the remnants of the PDP, led by Yakubu Lado, could fracture the opposition vote and allow Mr Radda to prevail through division, as in 2023.
Conclusion: A Changed Political Equation
Taken together, these factors suggest that while the ADC coalition has altered Katsina’s political equation, momentum alone will not determine the outcome in 2027.
The political arithmetic in Katsina has nonetheless shifted. Governor Dikko Radda is no longer confronting a fragmented opposition, but a coalescing coalition that brings together experienced political operators, grassroots networks, institutional memory, a growing security profile, and expanding national linkages.
The 2027 election is therefore shaping up as a contest between two governing philosophies: the ADC’s promise of moral and political rescue versus the APC’s emphasis on pragmatic, results-driven governance. Whether the emerging megaparty can translate momentum into victory will depend on its ability to maintain unity, manage a crowded primary field, and avoid the ego-driven fractures that have undone similar alliances.
