By Clifford Ndujihe, Politics Editor, Bashir Bello, Omeiza Ajayi, Ibrahim Hassan-Wuyo & John Alechenu

ALTHOUGH, the February 20, 2027 presidential election is exactly 715 days away, the polity is already aflutter with posturing and permutations.

Potential aspirants and their foot soldiers are already consulting and networking in search of votes-delivering alignments and re-alignments.

Mid-last month, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje, the National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, said the North would back President Bola Tinubu’s re-election in 2027 and return to power in 2031 in accordance with the North-South power rotation principle.

Minister of State for Defence and former Governor of Zamfara State, Dr.Bello Matawalle, echoed the same views, stressing that the North would rally round Tinubu to continue his developmental projects across the country till 2031.

The comments of Ganduje and Mattawalle are eliciting mixed views from Northern leaders at a time sources said that President Tinubu is wooing South-East and South-South leaders to shore up his votes in 2031.
As it is, the APC 2027 presidential ticket can be considered to be in Tinubu’s kitty unless he declines to run.

According to the constitution, to win a second term, he needs to win a majority of votes and achieve one-quarter of votes cast in at least two-thirds of the nation’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

In the 2023 election, President Tinubu lost in Lagos, Osun and FCT, Abuja. He did not get 25 per cent of votes cast in Abuja, which was a major ground his opponents cited at the courts to invalidate his election.
Although Tinubu hails from the South, he did not get the majority of southern votes. He won his native South-West but lost South-South and South-East. Indeed, his worst performance was in the South-East where he scored a miserly 127,605 votes or 5.8 per cent of the 2,187,599 valid votes cast.

However, Tinubu, who ran on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, APC, won three of the nation’s six zones, North-West, South-West and North-Central of which he got his highest votes in North-West.
Tinubu’s main challengers were Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP; Mr Peter Obi of the Labour Party, LP; and Dr Musa Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria People’s Party, NNPP.


https://www.vanguardngr.com/2025/03/2027-north-divided-as-tinubu-woos-south-east-south-south/