Although former President Goodluck Jonathan hasn’t formally declared his intention to run for president, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu appears to be already worked into a frenzy by the mere prospect of it, at least judging from the sensation of fright that drips from the statements of his spokespeople and close supporters.
Bayo Onanuga, Tinubu’s official spokesperson, described the proposal to draft Jonathan into the 2027 race as ‘delusional!’ As if he somehow embodies the Nigerian electorate, Onanuga warned that the Jonathan administration’s record on the economy and governance would constitute an insurmountable obstacle on his path to the presidency. He also raised questions about Jonathan’s eligibility for a third term and cautioned that those promoting his run may abandon him midstream.
The Lagos State branch of the APC, perhaps the most strategic APC branch in Nigeria at the moment given that Lagos is Tinubu’s home base, has also mocked the idea of Jonathan’s comeback, arguing that he would need ‘an overdose of good luck’ to be competitive. It framed the push for his return as rooted more in nostalgia than in competence and questioned internal democratic practices within the opposition.
I told a reporter who interviewed me a few days ago that the apparent panic in the Tinubu power circles over Jonathan’s rumored entry into the presidential race is puzzling to me for at least two reasons.
One, at the moment, Jonathan has no political base. The PDP, on whose platform he is likely to run (should he decide to run), is vastly enervated and riven by what seems like irresolvable dissension. The Southeast, which used to be a solid, reliable support base for him, is now seduced by the charm and promise of its own son, Peter Obi.
Without a strong grassroots structure, a solid party platform, or the support of governors, a Jonathan comeback bid would be a damp squib. If anything, the presidency’s statement inflates his relevance more than his actual political strength warrants.
Second, if I were in Tinubu’s inner circles, I would actually encourage, even slyly sponsor, Jonathan’s participation in the 2027 election since he appeals to the same demographic slice as former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi. His participation in the 2027 election, along with Atiku and Obi, would ensure that the opposition self-cannibalizes, just as it did in 2023.
If Jonathan isn’t a real threat – if Jonathan would, in fact, be a boon to Tinubu – why does Tinubu seem terrified at the prospect of a Jonathan comeback bid? Here’s what I think.
When Onanuga pointed to Jonathan’s abysmal record on the economy and governance as a reason the electorate would not want him back in the saddle, he unintentionally gave vent to deep-seated but unacknowledged anxieties about Tinubu’s own record. Despite different contexts, Jonathan and Tinubu converge on their style of governance and economic policies.
Tinubu is pursuing the exact same economic policies that Jonathan attempted, which he was compelled to roll back after Tinubu and several people who later constituted the APC joined forces with ordinary Nigerians to fight back.
As most people can recall, Jonathan’s New Year ‘gift’ to Nigerians in 2012 was an attempted full petrol-subsidy removal. After mass protests, he was forced to implement a partial price rollback, but he paired the watered-down version of the subsidy-removal policy with SURE-P to cushion its effect on ‘vulnerable’ households and to fund social and infrastructure projects.
On Inauguration Day, May 29, 2023, Tinubu also announced the end of petrol subsidy. But thanks to the success Muhammadu Buhari had achieved in taming any consequential, sustained opposition to unpopular government policies (and, of course, the integration of several careerist protesters into the government), Tinubu’s announcement didn’t attract any mass protests. Nigerians have learned to accept their piecemeal incineration with equanimity.
But like Jonathan’s SURE-P claimed it did, Tinubu restarted cash transfers to millions of ‘vulnerable’ households as ‘palliatives,’ although most Nigerians I have read and spoken with haven’t had the luck to benefit from these palliatives.
The very economic policies Onanuga invokes as a major reason why Nigerians will resist Jonathan’s return to the presidency are the policies the Tinubu regime not only defends but celebrates as an unprecedented, all-time-high achievement which, though biting and bitter, they insist will birth an El Dorado at an indefinite future.
And this is where Lagos APC’s reference to nostalgia for Jonathan is important. At the core of their consciousness, Tinubu’s honchos know that Tinubu and Jonathan are basically indistinguishable in their policies and philosophy of governance, with Tinubu only being luckier than Jonathan in the quality and virility of the opposition that confronts him.
This kind of rhetorical inversion draws on a well-documented psychological mechanism known as projection. In projection, individuals or groups unconsciously attribute their own flaws, motives, or behaviors to others as a way of deflecting scrutiny and avoiding accountability. When accused of what they are themselves guilty of, they attempt to confuse the moral ledger by shifting attention outward, creating a smokescreen that redirects blame.
Politically, this tactic is especially potent: it muddies the waters, preempts criticism, and rallies supporters around a narrative that appears to expose an opponent’s failings, when in reality it is a mirror image of their own.
In this case, APC operatives attack Jonathan’s economic record not only to tarnish him but also to mask the uncomfortable resemblance between his policies and those Tinubu now implements.
And nostalgia can be a powerful winning tool in elections. Donald Trump benefited from it. The American electorate remembered that prices of eggs were lower when he was president, not minding that the lower prices had nothing to do with him. In fact, the prices have tripled since his return.
In Malawi, 85-year-old former President Peter Mutharika defeated incumbent Lazarus Chakwera in the 2025 presidential election partly because of nostalgic feelings about his time in office and hopes that he can recreate that time in place of the hell Malawians are going through now, although as Boniface Dulani, an associate professor of political science at the University of Malawi, told The Guardian, ‘If there was an election that one would want to lose, then maybe this was one election to lose for Chakwera, because I don’t really think they are going to be able to turn things around.’
In my August 16, 2025 column titled ‘Jonathan’s Entry Would Radically Shake the 2027 Election,’ I conceded that ‘there are some genuinely praiseworthy things Jonathan did when he was in power, which many of his critics, including me, acknowledge only with the benefit of hindsight. For instance, his willingness to back down from unpopular policies after sustained outcries and protests, which we took for granted but which none of his successors has replicated, has stood him out.’
That is precisely why Tinubu’s people may be deeply unsettled by the prospect of Jonathan’s return. In the midst of the economic torment Nigerians are enduring, the memory of Jonathan’s era, however imperfect, can take on a golden hue.
The danger for Tinubu is not that Jonathan has a magic formula to solve Nigeria’s crises, but that Nigerians, weary of hardship, may cling to the relative stability, tolerance for dissent, and responsive governance they now retrospectively associate with Jonathan’s presidency.
Even if Jonathan cannot turn things around, nostalgia doesn’t need to be rational to be politically potent; it only needs to resonate emotionally with a suffering electorate.
This latent power of memory is, perhaps, what keeps Tinubu’s camp on edge – particularly in the unlikely event that Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi decide to forgo their ambitions and unite behind him.
Tinubu’s fear of Jonathan says less about Jonathan’s actual political strength and more about the fragile legitimacy of Tinubu’s own policies. When a government mirrors the past it once condemned, it risks empowering nostalgia as a political force. And in a country battered by hardship, memory can be as decisive at the ballot box as manifestos.