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By Musiliu Abdulrasheed
The road to the January 16, 2027, presidential election is already assuming a distinctly northern character. For the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidate, President Bola Tinubu, the North remains too politically important to be treated as a settled constituency, while for the opposition, it represents the principal terrain on which President Tinubu’s re-election bid must stumble or else stride confidently back to Aso Rock.
Against this background, Vice President Kashim Shettima appears to understand that whatever political calculations are made around the Tinubu-Shettima ticket, the North cannot simply be treated with kid gloves or assumed to have been already bagged for the ruling party.
Opposition parties and political actors have sought to project a general mood of dissatisfaction in parts of the region, pointing particularly to economic hardship, insecurity, unemployment and the consequences of the Federal Government’s economic reforms. The Muslim-Muslim composition of the presidential ticket has also remained a point of contention among some northern Christian groups. In August 2025, for instance, the Northern Ethnic Nationality Forum publicly called for a different configuration, arguing that the ticket did not adequately reflect Nigeria’s religious diversity. He recognizes that only more work will erase the suggestion that the North has collectively rejected President Tinubu.
It must be noted, however, that the region is not a single monolithic political constituency, far from it. The 2023 presidential election itself demonstrated the diversity of northern voting behaviour. Tinubu won the North Central zone but Atiku Abubakar led in the North East, while the North West produced a highly competitive contest involving Tinubu, Atiku and Rabiu Kwankwaso.
It is against this complex political landscape that Shettima’s role becomes significant. As the Vice President, Shettima is not merely a running mate from the North. He is himself a prominent northern political figure, a former two-term governor of Borno State and a politician whose political career has been deeply rooted in the region. His presence on the ticket therefore gives the APC an important instrument with which to communicate directly with northern political, religious, professional and social constituencies. And Shettima appears to be deploying that instrument effectively. His latest engagement with northern creative professionals provides an instructive example.
On September 30, Shettima received Northern Performing Artists under the auspices of Triple-R For Renewed Hope at the APC campaign office in Abuja. His message was straightforward: the North should support Tinubu’s re-election in the interest of fairness and national unity, while the administration would continue to support the region’s creative economy.
The significance of the meeting goes beyond artists. In modern electoral politics, entertainers, filmmakers, musicians and other creative professionals can influence public conversation far beyond the number of people directly employed in the sector. Northern Nigeria has a particularly influential indigenous entertainment culture, with Hausa-language film and music enjoying a substantial audience across the region and beyond.
Consequently, Shettima’s engagement with northern creatives can be understood as an attempt to build political communication through a constituency with direct access to millions of people.
The argument being presented to them is also different from a purely partisan appeal. Shettima linked support for Tinubu to concrete economic opportunities in the creative sector. According to the Vice President, government initiatives are intended to empower local talent, preserve cultural heritage and create economic opportunities through the creative arts. He assured the delegation that further interventions would support northern artists, filmmakers and musicians. This is important because the politics of 2027 will not be fought exclusively through religious identity.
Indeed, one of the challenges confronting the opposition’s attempt to make the Muslim-Muslim ticket a defining issue is that voters have multiple interests. Religion matters, particularly in a country as religiously conscious as Nigeria, but so do food prices, employment, security, roads, agriculture, education, business opportunities and access to government programmes.
Shettima’s strategy appears to be to move the conversation towards those practical interests. There are already examples of federal initiatives directed at northern economic activity. In May 2025, the Federal Government signed a $158.15 million financing agreement for a Value Chain Programme in Northern Nigeria, targeting agricultural development and value addition in nine northern states. The initiative is supported by the Nigerian government, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the French Development Agency.
The Vice President has also repeatedly presented enterprise, MSMEs and the creative economy as components of the administration’s economic strategy. At the 2026 National MSME Awards, he said the government was seeking to decentralise economic opportunities and create an environment in which small businesses could grow. That gives the APC another argument with which to approach northern voters: not simply that Tinubu is entitled to northern support, but that the administration can point to programmes and interventions intended to address economic opportunities in the region.
But there are already indications that the political narrative in the North is not as one-sided as some opposition claims suggest. In July 2026, political leaders from the six North-East states, led by Borno Governor Babagana Zulum and former SGF Babagana Kingibe, publicly endorsed the Tinubu-Shettima ticket and pledged to mobilise support for the APC in the region.
In September, the Political Movement of the Igbo Delegates Assembly in the 19 northern states and the FCT also announced its support for Tinubu’s second-term bid and said it would mobilise support for the APC candidates. More significantly, the APC has retained Shettima as Tinubu’s running mate. That decision matters because there had been speculation that the President might replace him with a northern Christian as a response to criticism of the Muslim-Muslim ticket. The APC formally reaffirmed the Tinubu-Shettima ticket in July.
The implication is clear: the ruling party has decided to defend the existing ticket rather than redesign it. And Shettima appears to have accepted the political responsibility that comes with that decision. His recent mobilisation of northern artists therefore fits into a broader pattern. He is engaging different northern constituencies, presenting the administration’s programmes and seeking to demonstrate that the North has a stake in the Tinubu presidency. There is also an interesting political irony here.
The same Muslim-Muslim ticket that opponents describe as a liability is being defended by the APC through a northern Muslim Vice President who is himself attempting to broaden the ticket’s appeal beyond religious identity. Shettima’s message is essentially that the relationship between the administration and the North should be evaluated through governance, inclusion, economic opportunity and political fairness rather than exclusively through the religious composition of the ticket.
The North has historically produced some of Nigeria’s most sophisticated electoral movements, and its voters have demonstrated repeatedly that religious, ethnic and party loyalties do not always produce uniform voting patterns. This explains why Shettima’s current engagement matters. He cannot change every perception about the Tinubu administration. Neither can he eliminate the criticisms being advanced by opposition parties. What he can do is place himself between the administration and a region whose political importance makes its support central to the 2027 contest.
The northern artists’ meeting is therefore more than another endorsement ceremony. It is part of an emerging effort to construct a narrative of northern inclusion around the Tinubu-Shettima ticket.
The artists’ pledge of support, as reported after the meeting, provides another indication that sections of northern society are willing to engage the APC on the basis of perceived performance and promised opportunities, rather than making the Muslim-Muslim ticket the sole determinant of their political position. Triple-R For Renewed Hope President, Dauda Kahutu Rarara, and other leaders pledged support for Tinubu and APC candidates across the North, while simultaneously asking the Federal Government for greater infrastructure and welfare support for northern creative professionals.
For Shettima, therefore, the northern equation is not simply about asking the region to support Tinubu. It is about convincing northern constituencies that remaining politically connected to the administration offers them a meaningful stake in its economic and development agenda. That is perhaps the central battle ahead. The opposition may continue to describe the North as increasingly alienated from the APC. The ruling party, on the other hand, will point to endorsements, programmes, appointments, projects and the continued presence of a northern Muslim as Vice President.
What Shettima’s recent activities demonstrate is that he is not treating the North as a guaranteed electoral inheritance. He is going into the region’s constituencies, listening, engaging, making the administration’s case and building support around specific interests. What can be said for now, is that the northern political battlefield is open, diverse and contested—and Shettima is clearly working to ensure that President Tinubu and the APC do not surrender that battlefield to the opposition’s narrative.
• Abdulrasheed, a political scientist and public affairs commentator, writes from Abuja
