2027: Tinubu’s Northern Campaign Gathers Momentum as Katsina Mobilises
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s 2027 re-election machinery is gathering momentum in the North as Katsina State formally activates a grassroots mobilisation structure aimed at taking the President’s campaign directly to voters across communities, wards and households.
The development signals an early attempt by Tinubu’s political forces to consolidate support in one of the most strategically important states in northern Nigeria ahead of what could become a fiercely contested presidential election.
Katsina State Governor, Dikko Umaru Radda, declared the state firmly behind Tinubu during the inauguration and flag-off of the Katsina structure of the PBAT Door-to-Door Movement at the People’s Square in Katsina.
Radda expressed confidence that Tinubu would record a decisive victory in the state in 2027, describing Katsina as a stronghold of the All Progressives Congress.
The governor said the APC maintains a united political structure across the state’s 34 local government areas and assured the President that Katsina would not abandon him when Nigerians return to the polls.
The political significance of the development goes beyond the inauguration of another support group.
Katsina is the home state of late former President Muhammadu Buhari, whose enormous political following across northern Nigeria played a major role in the emergence of the APC as a formidable national political force.
Tinubu’s ability to retain substantial support within Buhari’s traditional northern political base could therefore become an important factor in his re-election calculations.
The PBAT Door-to-Door Movement is seeking to make grassroots engagement a major part of that strategy.
Its Grand Patron, High Chief Government Oweizide Ekpemupolo, popularly known as Tompolo, urged residents of Katsina to reciprocate what the movement described as Tinubu’s confidence in the state.
Represented at the event by Kestin Pondi, Tompolo argued that the President had demonstrated political inclusion by appointing several Katsina indigenes to positions in the Federal Government.
Among those highlighted by the movement were presidential adviser Ibrahim Kabir Masari, Minister of Art, Culture, Tourism and Creative Economy Hannatu Musa Musawa and other Katsina indigenes occupying federal positions.
The movement believes such appointments demonstrate that Katsina remains strategically important to the Tinubu administration.
But rather than relying solely on endorsements from political leaders, the campaign is expected to move directly into communities.
Coordinators across the state’s 34 local government areas have been tasked with taking the Tinubu re-election message from village to village, ward to ward, market to market and household to household.
Campaign vehicles and other mobilisation equipment were also handed over to local government coordinators, effectively setting the grassroots machinery in motion.
National Coordinator of the PBAT Door-to-Door Movement, Sunday Asuku, said the organisation intends to engage individual voters and explain what it considers the achievements of the Tinubu administration.
Radda, meanwhile, linked his support for Tinubu to the administration’s economic reforms, arguing that increased resources available to states have strengthened the capacity of governors to undertake development projects.
He also pointed to greater financial autonomy for local governments as another development that could bring government resources closer to communities.
The Katsina governor further recalled historical political relationships connecting Tinubu with prominent northern political figures, including the late General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua and former President Buhari.
For the Tinubu camp, such historical alliances could prove important as political calculations intensify ahead of 2027.
The launch in Katsina suggests that the battle for northern votes may increasingly shift from elite endorsements and political declarations to direct grassroots mobilisation.
With opposition forces also preparing for the election, Tinubu’s political strategists appear determined to consolidate traditional APC territories before the presidential contest enters its most intense phase.
Katsina could consequently serve as an important test of whether the political coalition that helped bring the APC to national power can remain intact after Buhari’s death.
Radda believes the answer is clear.
His declaration that Katsina remains an APC state and his prediction of a landslide victory for Tinubu indicate that the President’s allies are determined to preserve the state as a major northern stronghold in 2027.
Whether that confidence translates into votes will ultimately be decided by the electorate.
For now, however, the distribution of campaign vehicles, establishment of structures across all 34 LGAs and commencement of door-to-door mobilisation show that the race for Katsina’s 2027 presidential votes has effectively begun.
