President Bola Tinubu will kick off his 2027 re-election campaign in Kaduna on October 24, the Director-General of the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council, Senator Abdulaziz Yari, has said.
Yari made this known to State House correspondents on Friday evening, shortly after updating Tinubu on the council’s campaign preparations at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa in Abuja.
According to him, the president requested the meeting to get an update on the council’s status and to talk over the schedule of state visits planned for the campaign.
Yari announced, “By God’s grace, his team, I, and Mr. President himself, we have agreed on how it’s going to be done.
“We have put forward a proposal. The inaugural meeting [of the campaign council] is going to be done on the 14th of this month. That’s next Wednesday at the State House banquet hall, and by God’s grace, on the 24th of October, we’re going to do our flag-off campaign in Kaduna, inshallah.
“Then 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, inshallah.”
Speaking on which states the campaign would visit after Kaduna, Yari said the next stop would be Port Harcourt, Rivers State, followed by Maiduguri, Borno State.
He stated that the full timetable would be released after the council’s inauguration.
“We have the timetable, and we are going to make it available after the inauguration. But this has all been understood and approved by the team of Mr. President and me,” he said.
When questioned about the challenge presented by the presidential candidates of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, Peter Obi and the former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Yari contended that Tinubu could not be removed from office, since God had previously used the President to assist both of these men.
“We are talking of the President of the country, and this President, who, by God’s grace, Almighty God, used him to support Atiku some time back and at the same time to support Peter Obi.
“So if Allah uses me to support you, there is no way Allah will use you to bring me down,” he said.
The former governor of Zamfara State also contended that no candidate could secure the presidency without support in both the North and the South.
He stated, “Can the ADC candidate today in the southern part of the country beat his chest and say he has control of one state in the South? And I don’t think Peter Obi, who used to be my colleague, can beat his chest. Can he say he has control of one state in northern Nigeria?
“So this calculation shows us that even if you have control of 80 percent of the South, if you don’t have anything in the North, you cannot make it.
“If you have 80 percent of control of the North, if you don’t have any state in the South, you can’t make it, and that’s what it is.”
He mentioned the late former President Muhammadu Buhari, saying he “had control of over 70 percent at that time, over 11 states in the North, and had no control of one in the South,” and “couldn’t make it all the way.”
By contrast, Yari mentioned that Tinubu controls “more than 10 states in the South, in the conservative estimate” and more than 10 states in the North.
“This is calculation; it is not rocket science,” he affirmed.
He also stated that Tinubu “has turned around the situation that he met on the ground, and the economy is moving.
“So I think 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.”
On August 22, 2026, Tinubu appointed Yari as Director-General of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, with Imo State Governor Hope Uzodimma serving as secretary.
The council is chaired by the president, while Vice President Kashim Shettima and APC National Chairman Nentawe Yilwatda serve as vice chairmen.
The Independent National Electoral Commission has scheduled the presidential and National Assembly elections for January 16, 2027. Under its timetable, campaigns may run from August 19, 2026 until January 15, 2027.
According to INEC, 18 candidates are contesting the presidency. Atiku, the African Democratic Congress candidate, is among them, with former Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi as his running mate.
Obi, a former Anambra State Governor, is running under the Nigeria Democratic Congress.
