For Peter Obi, Atiku Abubakar and the wider opposition, there is a lesson here that cannot be ignored: you cannot build a serious presidential challenge without building a serious grassroots political structure.
The opposition’s problem is not necessarily a lack of popular personalities. Nigeria has several opposition figures with national recognition, established political histories and millions of supporters. The problem is the gap between national visibility and grassroots organisation. That gap can become decisive.
Politics does not begin on television. It does not begin on X, Facebook, TikTok or YouTube. It begins in the wards, the polling units, the local governments and the communities where politicians build relationships with the people long before election season arrives.
A presidential candidate may have millions of followers online, but those followers do not automatically become polling-unit agents, ward coordinators, party members, community organisers or voters who will turn out on election day.
This is why the Enugu result should concern the opposition.
It is particularly significant because Peter Obi’s political movement has demonstrated considerable national appeal since the 2023 presidential election. But national enthusiasm must eventually be converted into political structure. The same applies to Atiku, whose decades of political experience and national network must contend with an increasingly competitive and fluid political environment.
The reality is that presidential politics in Nigeria is not simply a contest between personalities. It is also a contest between structures.
The APC currently has governors in 31 of Nigeria’s 36 states. That gives the party a significant presence across the country and a network extending through state and local political structures. The Enugu local government election is another example of the party’s ability to compete at the grassroots.
The opposition therefore has to ask itself a difficult question: where is its equivalent structure?
Where are the people building the party at ward level?
Who is organising the polling units?
Who is maintaining relationships with communities when there is no election?
Who is recruiting young people into political structures?
Who is building relationships with traditional institutions, community leaders, women and youth groups?
These questions may not trend on social media, but they are at the heart of electoral politics.
Recent political developments make the situation even more interesting. In Osun State, Ademola Adeleke won the 2026 governorship election on the platform of the Accord Party, defeating the APC candidate. Yet Adeleke subsequently endorsed President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for the 2027 presidential election.
That development demonstrates just how fluid Nigerian politics has become. A politician can defeat the APC at the state level and still support the APC presidential candidate at the federal level.
Alex Otti’s position also illustrates the complexity of the current political landscape. The Labour Party governor has spoken positively about some policies of the Tinubu administration while maintaining his own political position ahead of 2027.
All of these developments should force the opposition to rethink its strategy.
The lesson is not that the APC is unbeatable. Elections remain contests, and local government victories do not automatically determine presidential outcomes. But the lesson is that political organisation matters enormously.
The opposition cannot afford to spend the next election cycle primarily arguing about who has the biggest following online or who generates the most excitement among politically active Nigerians. The real work is much less glamorous.
Build the ward. Build the local government. Build the state. Build the national structure.
That is how political movements become political parties capable of competing nationally.
Peter Obi, Atiku and other opposition figures have different political histories, constituencies and strategies. But they face a common structural challenge: converting individual popularity and national visibility into an organised political force capable of operating from the polling unit upward.
The APC’s growing political footprint should therefore be studied rather than simply mocked or dismissed.
Because the presidency is not won on social media.It is not won by hashtags. It is not won by online popularity.
It is won through people, structures, organisation and votes, and all of those things ultimately begin at the grassroots.
The opposition has spent enough time talking about taking power.
The bigger question is whether it has done enough work to build the structure required to take it.
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