One of Nigeria’s most senior opposition voices has urged former president Goodluck Jonathan to resist mounting pressure to return to active politics, warning that dragging him into the 2027 electoral contest would diminish rather than enhance his standing.
Sule Lamido, former governor of Jigawa state and a longstanding chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, made the intervention in a statement published on his Facebook page on Wednesday — joining a debate that has grown louder in recent weeks as political realignments accelerate ahead of next year’s general elections.
Lamido’s message was unsparing. The calls for Jonathan’s return, he wrote, were not the product of any coherent political vision but of “helplessness and hopelessness” — a reflection of public despair over Nigeria’s political and economic condition rather than a serious programmatic appeal. He described them plainly as a “desperation call lacking in any depth beyond being a ventilator of frustration.”
The former governor argued that Jonathan has long since moved beyond the terrain of partisan contest and now occupies a position among globally respected former heads of state — a circle whose members, in his view, deserve to have their dignity preserved rather than exposed to what he called a “murky political arena populated by unserious, self-seeking and self-serving characters.”
The remarks reflect a broader anxiety within sections of the Nigerian political establishment about the condition of the country’s parties, which Lamido accused of lacking ideological direction and pursuing power for its own sake. In that environment, he suggested, Jonathan’s name risked being exploited rather than honoured.
Lamido urged the former president to be wary of what he termed “ego-caressing” appeals from actors seeking to leverage his reputation for their own advantage, and called for any future role Jonathan might play to be considered carefully rather than seized upon in the heat of an election cycle.
Jonathan, who conceded defeat to Muhammadu Buhari in the 2015 presidential election in a moment widely praised across Africa as a rare and graceful transfer of power, has since taken on international mediation roles and remains a significant symbolic figure in Nigerian public life. He has not publicly indicated any intention to return to partisan politics.
