ABUJA — Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke danced. Nyesom Wike, the Federal Capital Territory minister whom the State House statement calls the leader of the PDP, told President Bola Tinubu that he had tackled Nigeria’s problems “from Day One.” The same statement lists both men under other parties, not Tinubu’s All Progressives Congress (APC), yet both were in the hall on Wednesday when the president inaugurated the campaign council for his 2027 re-election bid.
Nigeria votes for president on January 16, 2027, according to the Independent National Electoral Commission’s website. Tinubu told the council that “no one gets credit for an incomplete assignment until you deliver the next election, until you deliver your electoral wards, until you deliver the votes.”
APC National Chairman Nentawe Yilwatda, the statement says, called the presence of Adeleke, Anambra Governor Chukwuma Soludo of the All Progressives Grand Alliance and Wike “a testimony to the laudable policies” of his party. The guest list is the story: three men the statement places outside the APC sat inside its campaign launch, in the host’s own telling.
Tinubu said Imo Governor Hope Uzodimma’s advice not to let campaigning distract him from governing was timely, the State House statement says, and then added: “We have bills to pay. The American creditors cannot wait.” The statement does not say who those creditors are.
Uzodimma, who is the council’s secretary, lauded tax and other reforms that, in the statement’s words, “drove the economy’s growth to 4.43%, up from 4.23% a year earlier.” It names no one who calculated either figure and gives no period or measure. He did concede that nobody in the hall “pretends that these reforms did not bring some hardship.”
Vice President Kashim Shettima went after Tinubu’s challengers. The statement says he berated Atiku Abubakar, the ADC’s presidential candidate, for belittling the office of the president, and quotes him telling the hall: “You can call him Bola, if you like, call him Adekunle, but he is the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.” It adds that he accused Peter Obi of peddling bogus statistics. Neither challenger is heard in the statement, which is the host’s own account of the day.
The formal campaign flag-off is set for October 24 in Kaduna, Voice of Nigeria reported. What no document from the day answers is whether Wike’s PDP, which the statement says he leads, shares his endorsement, or what Soludo’s and Adeleke’s parties will do on January 16.
