The 2027 Nigerian presidential race has 18 confirmed candidates cleared by INEC Most Nigerians could name three of them, some maybe four.
Here is the full picture.
The names you already know
Bola Tinubu is the incumbent. He is 74 and running for a second term under the APC with Kashim Shettima as his running mate. Whatever your view of the first term, he goes into 2027 with the machinery of incumbency behind him: access to state resources, an established party structure, and the advantage of being the person who controls what the next four years look like if he wins again.
Atiku Abubakar is running. Again. He is 79. This is his sixth attempt at the presidency. He is under the ADC this time with Rotimi Amaechi as his running mate; a pairing that carries its own history of internal APC politics, federal appointments, and the kind of political calculations that take more than one article to fully unpack. Atiku’s core argument has been consistent across every campaign: that he understands the economy and that Nigeria needs a president with his experience. Whether that argument lands differently in 2027 than it did in 2019 or 2023 is a separate question.
Peter Obi is also running. He has moved from the Labour Party to the Nigerian Democratic Congress, where he will be running with Musa Kwankwaso as his vice-presidential candidate. This is a significant political realignment. The Labour Party itself is fielding Sunday Chibuzo Okereke, a 43-year-old who many people reading this are encountering for the first time. The Obidient coalition from 2023 is now, by definition, having to make a choice about what it was actually about: the party, or the man.
The names worth knowing
Sandy Onor is the PDP candidate. The Peoples Democratic Party, which governed Nigeria from 1999 to 2015, is running Onor; a former Cross River State governorship candidate and political figure from the South-South with Umaru Babangida as his running mate.
Seyi Makinde, Oyo State Governor, is running under the Allied Peoples Movement. He is 58, widely regarded as one of the more effective state governors currently in office, and his entry into the presidential race means the 2027 election has at least one candidate whose governance record in a major state can be examined concretely.
Omoyele Sowore is running under the African Action Congress. His platform is broadly anti-establishment and he has a loyal base, particularly online.
Donald Duke, former governor of Cross River State, is running under the Peoples Redemption Party. His name carries recognition in a way that most of the other smaller-party candidates do not.
The full list
INEC’s confirmed candidates, in full:
- Omoyele Sowore — African Action Congress (AAC)
- Bola Tinubu — All Progressives Congress (APC)
- Atiku Abubakar — African Democratic Congress (ADC)
- Peter Obi — Nigerian Democratic Congress (NDC)
- Sunday Chibuzo Okereke — Labour Party (LP)
- Sandy Ojang Onor — Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
- Rufai Adekunle Omo-Aje — African Alliance (AA)
- Aliyu Abbas-Bin — Action Democratic Party (ADP)
- Kabiru Yusuf — Allied Peoples Party (APP)
- Seyi Makinde — Allied Peoples Movement (APM)
- Sunday Adenuga — Boot Party (BP)
- Moses Olusoji Adebisi — Democratic Leadership Alliance (DLA)
- Ada Elizabeth Fredrick Okwori — National Democratic Party (NDP)
- Nkem Esther Okereke — National Rescue Movement (NRM)
- Donald Duke — Peoples Redemption Party (PRP)
- Adewole Adebayo — Social Democratic Party (SDP)
- Peter Ada Agada — Young Progressive Party (YPP)
- Daniel Nwanyanwu — Zenith Labour Party (ZLP)
Two of the 18 candidates are women: Ada Elizabeth Fredrick Okwori and Nkem Esther Okereke. This is the first time in recent electoral cycles that two women have made it onto the final presidential list.
Where the race actually stands
The honest answer is that it is early. Campaigns are technically underway despite INEC’s warnings about premature electioneering, and positions are shifting. The Obi-Kwankwaso pairing is being read by analysts as a strategic attempt to consolidate the North-East and South-East vote in a way that the 2023 Labour Party campaign could not achieve. Atiku’s ADC move signals a willingness to try a different vehicle after failing with the PDP in back-to-back elections. Tinubu’s re-election campaign will be shaped heavily by the economic conditions Nigerians are living under by the time voting begins.
The national conversation has not fully started yet. It will.
If you want to see where Nigerian public opinion is already moving, Octupus is running prediction markets on the 2027 presidential race, where people back their actual read of the situation.
You can see what other Nigerians are predicting, or back your own call, at octupus.xyz.
