By joshua 
2027 Race: Can Kogi West’s ADC ‘Landlord’ Zacchaeus Jonathan Finally Break PDP, APC Grip?
… After 18 years of building the party from scratch, backers say Surveyor Zacch is ADC’s most battle-tested card for Senate
In the shifting chessboard of Kogi West politics, loyalty is currency. And by that measure, few in the African Democratic Congress, ADC, are richer than Surveyor Zacchaeus Jonathan.
His ADC story didn’t start with a defection of convenience. It began in 2007, after he was shut out of the PDP ticket for Lokoja II House of Assembly. He pitched his tent with ADC, carrying a direct charge from the party’s national leader, Chief Ralph Nwosu: “Establish this party in Kogi.”
He ran that same year. Faced what supporters call a “rigged process.” Took it to the Tribunal, secured a re-run, and won. That victory made him one of ADC’s earliest elected voices in the state — and he’s been the party’s anchor since.
While political winds swept others in and out of ADC, Jonathan stayed put for nearly two decades. In 2018, he bankrolled and commissioned the party’s Lokoja office, declaring ADC would “sweep aside the ruling APC.” When internal storms hit and high-profile figures drifted, he didn’t. Instead, he deepened grassroots networks, erecting youth and women structures across Lokoja and Kogi LGAs.
Party elders now frame him as the stabilizing founder. The contrast became sharper in 2023 when ADC House of Reps member Leke Abejide openly endorsed President Bola Tinubu. Jonathan, they note, “held the line” and kept ADC’s identity intact in Kogi.
Jonathan’s pitch isn’t built on promises but on private-funded interventions, executed without a government budget. Residents point to the Ganaja junction bridge he financed to stop perennial erosion. In Igahachi, he built a primary school for displaced Bassa and Gbagi families. At GSS Agbaja, he equipped the ICT lab with laptops. He’s bankrolled Google and Jobberman digital skills training for Lokoja youths and supplied materials to prevent a community mosque from collapsing.
“I sponsored Empowerment Training for youth… I paid the bills,” he said in 2023, a quote his supporters recite as proof of “personal sacrifice, not public funds.”
Across three election cycles and three party platforms — ADC in 2019, NNPP primaries in 2022, Labour Party in 2023 — one pattern held: his base moved with him. In 2019, the group Inspired Youths described him as “synonymous with excellence” because of his philanthropy. His campaign lexicon has stayed constant: “Competence, commitment, character, compassion and capacity.”
Now back in ADC, Jonathan calls 2027 “a different ballgame.” With the party navigating factions nationally, his camp argues that only the man who “built the house” can keep it from cracking under pressure in Kogi West.
His resume blends technocrat and street fighter: professional surveyor, GIS expert, former lecturer, ex-union leader, tribunal veteran, and project-financier.
For an ADC seeking to end PDP and APC’s senatorial dominance in Kogi West, the strategy taking shape among loyalists is blunt: put the landlord on the ballot.
Two tests now face him. First, will ADC, in a moment of internal realignment, hand its ticket to the man who gave it 18 years of unbroken loyalty? Second, will Kogi West voters convert years of goodwill into a Senate mandate?
The answer will help decide whether 2027 is the year ADC moves from party-builder to seat-winner in the district.