The National Secretary of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Ajibola Basiru, has stated that President Bola Tinubu has strong support from party stakeholders for a potential re-election bid in 2027. However, he clarified that discussions regarding his running mate have not yet commenced.
Basiru, a former Senate spokesperson, explained that the decision on Tinubu’s running mate would be made following the party’s convention, typically held approximately a year before the general election.
“As far as we are concerned, the national summit held in the Presidential Villa has endorsed Mr President based on his track record and a large spectrum of stakeholders in our party have also overwhelmingly given endorsement to Mr president,” the lawyer said on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief programme on Friday.
“The question of running mate is not yet onboard and nobody has come to say that the president has made any adverse decision as regards the present vice president.”
On Sunday, June 15, 2025, a summit for APC stakeholders from Nigeria’s North-East geopolitical zone became rowdy in Gombe State after APC North-East Vice Chairman, Mustapha Salihu, named Tinubu as the party’s sole candidate for re-election without mentioning Vice President Kashim Shettima.
The omission triggered protests from some members, who insisted that the vice president be included in the endorsement.
The APC national secretary said he was physically present at the summit and what happened wasn’t strange as “people in a democratic setting are born to have different opinions”.
Basiru, an Osun-based politician, said, “As far as I am concerned, there was no issue. I was physically present in Gombe State. After the summit, we had a reception at the Government House.
“Some people in the North East felt that it suffice to give endorsement to the president and then the president will be in a position to decide who would be his running mate in 2027.
“Some other people are of the view that it is also important that since the summit is being held in the North East, the vice president, coming from the North-East, should equally have an endorsement.
“What I know is that even at the national convention where a candidate for the presidential election will emerge, it is only the presidential candidate that will emerge at the convention.
“The running mate issue will be done after that. As far as our party is concerned, we have not made any statement or got ourselves involved in the politics of the North-East.”
In the 2023 presidential election, former Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu ran alongside former Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima, representing the North-East zone. The duo emerged victorious and assumed office on May 29, 2023.
On May 22, 2025, all 22 APC governors unanimously endorsed Tinubu as the party’s candidate for the 2027 election. Notably, the endorsement did not address the position of the vice president.
However, Borno South Senator Ali Ndume publicly opposed the endorsement of Tinubu for a second term. Expressing concern, Ndume drew a parallel to the 2015 election, where former President Goodluck Jonathan, despite being endorsed by 22 governors from his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), lost his re-election bid to Muhammadu Buhari of the APC.