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From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
The contest for 2027 has entered a more organised phase. By collapsing the many women’s support groups that gathered around President Bola Tinubu in 2023 into a single campaign structure under the All Progressives Congress (APC), First Lady Oluremi Tinubu has signalled that the party intends to fight the next election with a disciplined machine in place of a loose coalition of goodwill.
The move was made public on Monday at the Bola Ahmed Tinubu International Conference Centre in Abuja, at the inauguration of the APC Presidential Women Campaign Council and the rollout of the party’s women’s mobilisation and empowerment campaign. Women leaders, political office holders, wives of senior government officials, female appointees, former lawmakers and party supporters filled the hall. The message that bound the gathering together was brief and deliberate: “Tinubu is coming back again.”
Mrs Tinubu left no doubt about the logic of the new arrangement. “We have collapsed every other women support group into one, from Tinubu Again, Torch Bearers, etc. What you will see on the ballot box is APC. We’re here to promote APC, nothing less,” she said. The council, she explained, will work for candidates at every level, from the presidency and governorships to the National Assembly and the State Assemblies.
That distinction carries considerable weight. Support groups built around a personality or a slogan can generate energy, but they do not necessarily deliver loyalty to a party’s full list of candidates. By placing every group under one council and one party label, the APC is attempting to ensure that the enthusiasm created around the President travels down the ballot to the governorship, legislative and state assembly contests.
The plan is supported by a clear structure. The council will organise six zonal mega rallies, a series of state campaigns and a grand finale in Abuja. Mrs Tinubu and the wife of the Vice President, Hajia Nana Shettima, are expected to take part in the zonal campaigns. At state level, the wife of the Senate President, the wife of the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Chairperson of the Nigeria Governors’ Spouses Forum will represent the First Lady.
The seriousness of the undertaking was underlined by the presence of senior party figures, among them the Director General of the Presidential Campaign Council, Senator Abdulaziz Yari, Imo State Governor Hope Uzodimma and former APC National Chairman Abdullahi Ganduje. Former lawmakers, including Senator Binta Masi Garba of the 8th National Assembly and Senator Abiodun Olujimi, a former Deputy Governor of Ekiti State, also addressed the gathering.
The message the women have been asked to carry is anchored on the Renewed Hope Agenda 2.0, themed “From Reforms to Prosperity”. Mrs Tinubu insisted that the theme is “not just a slogan” but “our reality”. She cited a stabilising economy, falling inflation, growing foreign reserves, returning investors, greater support for farmers and access to student loans through the Nigerian Education Loan Fund. She urged the women to tell voters that they have a leader bold enough to take difficult decisions at the beginning, and one who can be trusted to lead the country into prosperity. Her appeal ended with a call for unity, that Nigerian women should speak with one voice and vote APC again so that the foundation already laid can be built upon.
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Empowerment was woven into the politics throughout the event. The First Lady presented a motorcycle to one beneficiary, while other speakers pointed to interventions under the Renewed Hope Initiative for women, older persons, people living with disabilities and young people. The Chairperson of the Nigeria Governors’ Spouses Forum and First Lady of Kwara State, Olufolake Abdulrazaq, said governors’ wives had seen the effects of those grants in their states. She told the gathering that delegates had come from all 36 states and over 774 local governments, and that the women were ready to “mobilise, mobilise, mobilise”. Mrs Shettima said the initiative had reached every state in the federation, with the exception of Anambra and Rivers in the past three years, and she asked the women to take the message back to their localities. “It’s the time for us to pay back to our dear President,” she said. The pairing of welfare delivery with campaign mobilisation was unmistakable, and it presents the administration’s social programmes as a political asset as well as a public service.
The speakers who followed turned the rhetoric into targets. The APC National Women Leader, Dr Mary Alile Idele, urged the women to move from mobilisation to measurable action, with clear responsibility, grassroots structure, regular engagement and accountable results. The Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, described the President as “easy to sell” and called for a door to door campaign reaching every layer of society.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Sustainable Development Goals, Princess Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, asked every woman present to return home and mobilise 100 others, and to help reconcile differences within families and communities. The wife of the Speaker, Hajia Fatima Tajudeen Abbas, pledged that the wives of House members would mobilise 20,000 women in each constituency. Speaking for 40 female chief executives appointed by the President, the Director General of the National Identity Management Commission, Bisoye Coker-Odusote, commended him for placing women in leadership positions and called for greater representation of women at federal and sub national levels.
Behind these commitments lies a calculation about votes. Senator Yari described women as the loyal workers of the party and asserted that they account for 60 per cent of the total vote in any presidential election in Nigeria. He said the Campaign Council would support the women’s effort and expressed confidence that what is being built on the ground will be reflected at the polling booths in January 2027.
The mood of the gathering was as telling as its content. Formal speeches repeatedly gave way to singing, dancing and drumming, as popular Nigerian songs were adapted with lyrics celebrating Tinubu, the APC and his bid for a second term. The political peak came when the wife of the Senate President, Mrs Ekaette Akpabio, led senators’ wives in the refrain: “Go and tell them, Tinubu is coming back again.” Mrs Abdulrazaq captured the spirit of the event when she declared that all the First Ladies were present and ready for every campaign in every state and zone.
With the support groups now folded into the party structure, the women have been handed a precise assignment: to carry the campaign from Abuja to wards, communities and polling units, and to convert the energy of the conference hall into votes. Whether the enthusiasm displayed on Monday can be sustained and translated into ballots will become clear as the campaign unfolds.
I kept the names that contain hyphens (Taiwo-Obalonye, Sulaiman-Ibrahim, Orelope-Adefulire and Coker-Odusote) because they are part of the names. The claims on the economy and the 60 per cent women’s vote are attributed to the speakers, so the piece carries the event’s lens without endorsing them. I also dropped your sign-off block, and I can add it back.
