2027 elections: Tinubu okays state visits as campaign DG Yari speaks

The Director-General of the Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Abdulaziz Yari Abubakar, said Friday that the campaign in support of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu second term will flag off in Kaduna on October 24, 2026, following the President’s approval of a timetable for state visits.

Yari disclosed this while fielding questions from State House correspondents after meeting with the President.

He said an inaugural meeting would hold on Wednesday, October 14, 2026 at the State House Banquet Hall ahead of the Kaduna event.

He said the President invited him to provide a progress briefing and discuss arrangements for the visits, adding that the proposal had been considered and approved.

“The President asked for me to come and brief him on where we are, and to discuss the timetable for the state visits. His team, I, and Mr President himself, we have agreed on how it’s going to be done,” he said.

According to him, the inaugural meeting will precede the commencement of the campaign and subsequent visits across the country.

“On the 24th of October, we’re going to do our flag-off campaign in Kaduna. We outlined our state visits to each and every place where we will go, and the President has approved them. So we are going to hit the ground running by the 24th of October,” he said.

Asked about destinations beyond Kaduna, Yari identified Port Harcourt and Maiduguri as the next stops, saying the full itinerary would be released after the inauguration.

“The next … is going to Port Harcourt. From there, we will be in Maiduguri. We have the timetable, and we’re going to make it available after the inauguration,” he said.

Yari dismissed the prospects of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and former Anambra State governor Peter Obi unseating the President, arguing that the President possessed a broader political support base across northern and southern Nigeria.

“They cannot bring him down,” he said.

Yari questioned the opposition figures’ nationwide reach, maintaining that dominance in one region would be insufficient without substantial support in the other.

“Even if you have control of 80 per cent of the South, if you don’t have anything in the North, you cannot make it,” he said.

He argued that a candidate with overwhelming northern support but little political presence in the South would face a similar difficulty
Referring to Obi as a former colleague, Yari questioned whether the former Anambra governor could claim political control of any northern state.

He also cited the electoral experience of the late former President Muhammadu Buhari, arguing that his strong northern following had been insufficient to secure the presidency in his earlier attempts without broader support.

He said Tinubu commanded political control of more than 10 states in the South and more than 10 in the North.

“This is calculation; it is not rocket science,” he said.

He said the President had supported Atiku and Obi at different times, expressing confidence that neither would succeed in bringing him down politically.

Defending the administration’s performance, Yari said the President had improved the situation he inherited and maintained economic momentum.

He said that the government had recorded enough achievements to answer its critics and make a case for continued support.

“We have done enough that we can tell our opponents about what we did. We are not promising. We are doing it, and we are going to continue,” he said.