Political Editor at Arise News, Sumner Sambo, has warned that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) may be stretching its political strategy too far ahead of future elections.
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Speaking on The Morning Show on Monday, Sambo cautioned against what he described as rising overconfidence within the party, noting that the last general election results reflected a tightly contested race.
He argued that it would be a strategic miscalculation for the APC to assume an easy path to victory in upcoming polls, stressing that its current approach could backfire politically.
According to Sambo, the APC’s strategy may have unintentionally pushed opposition figures toward greater unity.
He pointed to major opposition leaders such as Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, and Rabiu Kwankwaso, whose support bases, he said, collectively performed strongly against President Bola Tinubu in the previous election.
Sambo added that a more effective political approach for the ruling party would have been to maintain divisions within the opposition rather than allowing conditions that encourage potential coalition-building.
Sambo said: “I will just ask that they be not too overconfident of the political process. Because if you look at the results of the last election, I think it will be bad politics on their part for them to confidently think that President will just win. I’m thinking that they are over strategizing in the APC, and they are pushing their luck too far.
“I mean, if not over strategizing, talk to me how you would be a very strong political strategist and then you allow all your opponents who had votes much more closer to you in the last general election to all be in one political umbrella, one political platform.
“I thought that the best of politics that will come out of President Tinubu is to ensure that these groups, the Peter Obi group, the Atiku group, and the Kwankwaso group will still remain wherever they are.
“It may look like it will become much easier for President Tinubu to coast home, but whatever politics that the presidency and the APC led federal government are playing that have led all the opposition to coalesce together and be in the same umbrella, for all the three key opposition leaders to come together and be in the same platform, including the smaller ones that they don’t want to coalesce together, to be thinking of coming together all against the APC.
“I’m thinking that the APC has overplayed itself. I’m thinking that President Tinubu has skillfully done politics in such a way that if he’s not careful, it may affect his figures in the next election.
“Because if you look at how close the figures were, you will know that it was more of like a narrow escape for President Tinubu in the last elections. And I would think he wouldn’t have allowed a situation whereby all these persons and these other groups coming together.
“I’m thinking the tactics, you know, is being overstretched. So APC strategists need to have a rethink and not be too confident.”
