President Bola Tinubu’s campaign for the 2027 election will launch in Kaduna on October 24, his campaign Director-General Senator Abdulaziz Yari said Friday, arguing that the president’s support across the north and south would give him an advantage over opposition figures Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi.
Senator Yari, former Governor of Zamfara State and Director- General of the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council, announced the timetable after a closed-door meeting with President Tinubu at the Presidential Villa.
He said the President had approved the proposed itinerary following a briefing on preparations.
The campaign council will hold its inaugural meeting on October 14 at the State House banquet hall.
After the Kaduna launch, the campaign plans to move to Port Harcourt and then Maiduguri, Yari said.
A full schedule of state visits will be released after the council’s inauguration.
“The President asked for me to come and brief him on where we are, and to discuss the timetable for the state visits,” Yari told State House correspondents.
“We are going to hit the ground running by the 24th of October.”
The announcement set out the campaign’s immediate organisational plans.
Yari’s case for Tinubu’s re-election rested largely on geography: a candidate, he argued, needs substantial backing in both northern and southern Nigeria, rather than overwhelming support in one region.
He questioned whether Atiku, a former vice president, or Obi, a former Anambra State governor, could assemble that breadth of support.
He also challenged whether an African Democratic Congress candidate could claim control of a southern state, without identifying the candidate he meant.
“I don’t think Peter Obi, who used to be my colleague, can beat his chest,” Yari said, questioning whether Obi could claim control of a northern state.
“Even if you have control of 80% of the south, if you don’t have anything in the north, you cannot make it,” he said.
A candidate with overwhelming northern support but no southern foothold would face the same problem, Yari said.
He cited former President Muhammadu Buhari’s unsuccessful presidential bids, attributing those defeats to insufficient southern backing despite a strong northern base.
Tinubu, by contrast, could count on support in more than 10 states in the south and more than 10 in the north, Yari said.
He described his southern estimate as conservative but provided no polling figures or state-by-state assessment to substantiate either claim.
“This is calculation. It is not rocket science,” he said.
Yari also said Tinubu would campaign on his record, arguing that the president had improved the conditions he inherited and kept the economy moving.
He cited no specific policies or economic indicators to support that assessment.
The campaign had enough achievements to make its case to voters and challenge its opponents, he said.
“We are not promising,” Yari said. “We are doing it, and we are going to continue.”
