2027: APC Secretary reveals when running mate issue will be settled

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Ajibola Basiru, the national secretary of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), claims that although party stakeholders have overwhelmingly endorsed President Bola Tinubu to compete for reelection in 2027, talks to select his running mate have not yet begun.

Tinubu’s running companion would be chosen following the party convention, which is typically held around a year before the general election, according to Bashiru, a former Senate spokesman.

“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.”

Following the announcement of Tinubu as the party’s sole candidate for re-election by APC North-East Vice Chairman Mustapha Salihu without mentioning Vice President Kashim Shettima, a conference for APC stakeholders from Nigeria’s North-East geopolitical zone turned chaotic in Gombe State on Sunday, June 15, 2025.

Some members objected to the omission and demanded that the vice president be included to the endorsement.

According to the national secretary of the APC, who attended the meeting in person, “people in a democratic setting are born to have different opinions,” thus what transpired wasn’t unusual.

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.”

Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos, and Shettima, a former governor of Borno State, ran together in the North-East zone for the 2023 presidential election. On May 29, 2023, the two were sworn in after winning the election.

Tinubu was unanimously accepted as the APC’s 2027 candidate by 22 APC governors on May 22, 2025. During the endorsement, the governors also made no reference to the vice president.

Ali Ndume, a senator from Borno South, however, disassociated himself from Tinubu’s support for a second term.

He claimed to feel sorry for Tinubu. He claims that although Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) defeated former President Goodluck Jonathan in the 2015 election, Jonathan received the support of 22 governors from his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

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