|
Listen to article
|
Senator Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, a former Speaker of the House of Representatives and two-term Governor of Sokoto State, formally resigned his membership of the Peoples Democratic Party on Thursday and announced his defection to the African Democratic Congress, the opposition coalition that has absorbed a growing number of prominent PDP figures ahead of Nigeria’s 2027 general elections.
In a resignation letter dated March 11 and addressed to his ward chairman in Tambuwal/Shinfiri, Sokoto State, the senator representing Sokoto South in the upper chamber said the PDP’s deterioration as an institutional force had become impossible to ignore.
“The leadership disagreements and divisions within the party at various levels have made it increasingly difficult for me to continue my active participation and commitment as a member,” his letter read. “The ongoing conflicts have, unfortunately, weakened the unity and direction that once defined the party.” Tambuwal confirmed his departure on his official X account, saying the decision had followed “deep reflection and consultations” and adding that the PDP had been “a significant part of my political journey” for which he remained grateful.
The move was not unexpected. ADC’s Sokoto state chairman, Alhaji Bello Isiyaku-Keegan, confirmed as recently as January that Tambuwal was already a registered member of the party, though Thursday’s formal PDP resignation letter brings the defection into public legal clarity.
Tambuwal’s alignment with the ADC coalition had been visible for months: he was among the senior politicians present in Enugu in late December 2025 when former Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi publicly reaffirmed his participation in the ADC-led coalition, alongside a gathering that included former Senate President David Mark, former governors Achike Udenwa and Sam Egwu, and a cross-section of opposition figures drawn from across Nigeria’s geopolitical zones.
Tambuwal’s political biography is one of the most consequential in Nigeria’s post-2003 democratic era, shaped above all by a willingness to switch parties at moments of maximum political pressure, and to emerge stronger from each transition. He was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2003 on the PDP platform and rose to become Speaker in 2011, a position he held until 2015 when he defected to the All Progressives Congress ahead of that year’s general elections, a move that was central to the political realignment that delivered Muhammadu Buhari’s presidential victory over Goodluck Jonathan. Tambuwal then won the Sokoto governorship on the APC ticket in 2015. He subsequently returned to the PDP in 2018, contesting and winning a second gubernatorial term in 2019 under that party’s banner. He unsuccessfully sought the PDP presidential nomination in the 2023 cycle before endorsing former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and serving as Director-General of his presidential campaign — a campaign that resulted in defeat to the incumbent APC. His election to the Senate from Sokoto South in 2023 marked the most recent chapter in a career that has spanned all three arms of the federal legislative and executive framework.
Thursday’s defection to the ADC is therefore Tambuwal’s fourth party in a national political career now spanning more than two decades. That pattern, while unusual by the standards of many democracies, is familiar within Nigeria’s political class, where constitutional protections for cross-carpeting in certain circumstances and the structural weakness of party ideology relative to personality-driven politics have made defection a routine instrument of ambition.
The ADC itself has undergone a significant transformation in its political weight since mid-2025. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who had been the PDP’s standard-bearer in both the 2019 and 2023 presidential elections, resigned his PDP membership in 2025 and joined the ADC as part of a coalition of opposition forces explicitly designed to prevent what ADC leaders described as the institutionalisation of one-party rule under the APC ahead of the 2027 cycle.
Read Also: Kano: Gov Yusuf Meets Tinubu, Defects To APC Today
Former Senate President David Mark, a figure with deep institutional knowledge of Nigeria’s political machinery, was installed as ADC national chairman following the departure of its long-serving first chairman Ralph Nwosu during the coalition-building period. The party, which had been a peripheral force in Nigerian electoral politics since its formation in 2005, has been repositioned by its new membership as the vehicle for a broad-based opposition challenge.
Peter Obi, whose 2023 Labour Party presidential campaign attracted unprecedented urban support particularly among young voters, has publicly declared his participation in the ADC coalition.
However, he has not formally registered as an ADC member with INEC, a distinction that has become a source of internal tension within the coalition as disagreements grow over whether Obi’s Obidient supporters will stay within the ADC framework if he does not receive a clear presidential ticket commitment. The raw material’s description of Obi as having “officially switched to the ADC” overstates his current formal status with the party. No INEC-registered membership by Obi has been publicly confirmed.
Read Also: My Son’s Defection To APC Personal To Him – Atiku
Tambuwal’s defection, framed in his statement as a matter of principled political conviction, also lands in a wider context of accelerating PDP institutional decay. The party, which governed Nigeria at the federal level from 1999 to 2015, has since 2023 been locked in competing factional claims to its national chairmanship and has been unable to present a unified public face. Several state governors, senators, and House of Representatives members have crossed to the APC or to the ADC coalition over the preceding eighteen months. In Sokoto State specifically, Senator Abubakar Gada, another senior ADC coalition figure, announced in January 2026 that he was returning to the PDP, citing structural and leadership challenges within the coalition — an indication that even the ADC is not immune to the volatility that defines Nigerian inter-party movement at this stage of the electoral cycle.
Tambuwal, who chairs the Senate Committee on Housing, said his conviction that the ADC offered a more credible platform for national development drove his decision.
“I am convinced that this decision is guided by my belief that Nigeria needs a stronger political platform built on integrity, accountability, inclusiveness, and a clear commitment to national development,” he said in his social media post confirming the defection. He made no reference to specific electoral ambitions or to whether he intends to contest the 2027 presidential nomination.
The ADC marked Tambuwal’s 60th birthday in late February with a formal colloquium attended by party national chairman David Mark and described by the party as an occasion for “discussions on democratic governance, national unity, and leadership in Nigeria.” The event was widely interpreted as an early public signal of his ADC alignment prior to the formal resignation of his PDP membership.
The PDP’s national secretariat has not issued a formal statement on Tambuwal’s departure. The next significant political milestone for the ADC coalition is expected to be a national consultation scheduled for later in March at which the question of presidential ticket allocation ahead of 2027 is expected to surface formally.
