President Bola Tinubu is scheduled to flag off his 2027 re-election campaign in Kaduna State on October 24, according to the Director-General of the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council, Senator Abdulaziz Yari.
Yari disclosed this to State House correspondents on Friday evening after briefing Tinubu at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on preparations for the campaign.
He said the President had requested an update on the council’s activities and discussions on the proposed timetable for visits to states across the country.
Yari said the campaign council’s inaugural meeting would hold on October 14 at the State House Banquet Hall, ahead of the planned campaign launch in Kaduna.
“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,” he said.
Yari identified Port Harcourt, Rivers State, and Maiduguri, Borno State, as the next destinations after Kaduna.
He added that the full campaign timetable would be made public 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 I,” he said.
Asked about the challenge posed by opposition figures, including Peter Obi and former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, Yari expressed confidence in Tinubu’s prospects, citing what he described as the President’s past support for both politicians.
“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 Zamfara State governor also argued that a presidential candidate would struggle to win without a political base in both northern and southern Nigeria.
He questioned the extent of opposition candidates’ influence across the two regions, saying they would need support beyond their existing strongholds to mount a successful presidential challenge.
The APC campaign council is expected to provide further details of its activities and state visits following its inauguration on October 14.
