The Director-General of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) Presidential Campaign Council, Ibrahim Abdulkarim, has urged former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and other opposition leaders to join the alliance backing Peter Obi and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso ahead of the 2027 presidential election.

Abdulkarim said the opposition needed to unite behind a common platform to improve its chances of defeating the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the election.

Speaking on Arise News, he said the coalition was already taking shape within the NDC, with Obi emerging as its presidential candidate and Kwankwaso agreeing to work with him.

“The opposition has to come together for us to win. The opposition have already come together. Nobody said the coalition must happen on ADC. It can happen in NDC, and Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso has already dropped his ambition,” he said.

Abdulkarim said Atiku and other opposition figures were welcome to join the alliance to broaden its national reach.

“What we are asking for is for other people to join us, including former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, to join all of us, so at least we will have the spread that they think they can add,” he added.

The NDC campaign chief also dismissed criticism of the party’s campaign structures, arguing that its organisation should not be compared with the Obidient movement and other support groups backing Obi.

“How can you compare a party with a support group? We don’t have any problem. They’re all part of the NDC party. We have more than a thousand support groups like that,” he said.

On concerns about electoral fraud, Abdulkarim urged Nigerians who feared their votes might not count to support the NDC, promising that the party had developed measures to protect votes during the 2027 elections.

He said the party would campaign peacefully across the country and mobilise voters who had lost confidence in the electoral process.

“We are going to do our campaign peacefully. We are going to go into every corner,” he said.

Abdulkarim added that the party would reassure voters before the election that their votes would be protected.

“I can promise anybody, anybody that feels he wants his vote to count, we have a very, very unique and serious programme that we have put in place,” he said.