2027: Peter Obi Lacks Northern Support Base — Keyamo

…Defends ₦712bn Airport Project

Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, has said that Labour Party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Peter Obi, will not be able to break into northern Nigeria ahead of the 2027 polls.

Speaking during an interview on Channels Tv last night, the minister dismissed the chances of the opposition coalition formed on the platform of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), insisting that the alliance between Obi and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar would not yield results.

“They are going nowhere in terms of demography,” Keyamo said.

He explained that Obi’s performance in the 2023 elections was driven by three key factors like religion, ethnicity, and youth sentiment which he said would not favour him if he is made a running mate in 2027.

According to him, Obi benefited from being the only Christian candidate in a field dominated by Muslims, the South-East rallying behind an Igbo man, and the support of disenchanted young people popularly known as “Obidients.”

“The other candidates were Muslims, and so there was only one Christian candidate, and the Christians went to one candidate.

“The South-East felt cheated, so the South-East went to one point because of the Igbo man and the third demography: the Obidients, young Nigerians who felt they were angry, they wanted a younger person and all of that because the other candidates were older than him,” he said.

Keyamo insisted that the All Progressives Congress (APC) has strong structures in the North and that Obi lacks the capacity to make a significant impact in the region.

“If you put Peter Obi this time as president, he cannot penetrate the north. We have our structures in the north. We have governors and our structures in the north,” Keyamo said.

His comments follow the formal adoption of the ADC as a common political platform by leading opposition figures, including Atiku, Obi, former Senate President David Mark, ex-ministers Rauf Aregbesola and Rotimi Amaechi, and former Kaduna State governor Nasir El-Rufai.

The group, which believes that the combined 12 million votes Obi and Atiku received in 2023 could unseat President Bola Tinubu, has accused the current administration of economic mismanagement, pointing to rising inflation and worsening cost of living.

Keyamo, however, said the opposition’s arithmetic is faulty and cannot override APC’s political base.

On the state of Nigeria’s major airport, the minister also defended the Federal Government’s decision to demolish and rebuild Terminal One of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos at a cost of ₦712 billion.

He said the terminal, commissioned in 1979, is outdated, unsafe, and unfit to serve as a modern aviation hub.

“The roof of the airport is leaking; the place is decrepit and smelly. You see people selling Indomie and all kinds of kiosks erected there. The ceilings are failing, and the carousels are not working because their parts are not in the market anymore,” he said.

The announcement of the project has drawn criticism from many Nigerians who see it as a misplaced priority amid widespread hunger and economic hardship. But Keyamo argued that the reconstruction would not be funded from the national budget, but from a special infrastructure fund sourced through the savings from subsidy removal and naira unification.

“This government promised Nigerians major infrastructural upgrades across Nigeria, from the savings we are having now,” he said.

He disclosed that the reconstruction, which will span 22 months, is not a simple renovation. According to him, only the pillars and basic framework of the terminal will remain.

“It is not a refurbishment; we are tearing it down. Only the pillars will remain, the carcass, the decking. Everything will go.”

Keyamo warned that continued neglect of aviation infrastructure could result in foreign airlines exiting Nigeria’s routes.

“Some international airlines will threaten to stop flight to your country when you don’t have a good airport, a good runway,” he said, noting that aviation safety concerns also affect airline insurance and international trust.

He added that the goal is to turn Lagos into a regional hub capable of competing with major African airports in Ethiopia and South Africa. Presently, he said, it is impossible to land at Lagos’ domestic terminal and connect to an international flight—an inefficiency he blamed on the outdated layout.

“What we are trying to do in Lagos now is to make Lagos a very modern airport and create a proper hub to begin to compete with other hubs in Africa,” he said.

2027: Peter Obi Lacks Northern Support Base — Keyamo is first published on The Whistler Newspaper