Since February 6, 2013, when the All Progressives Congress (APC) was formed, the party has been the darling of the North. In the 2015, 2019, and 2023 presidential elections, the North was instrumental in bringing and maintaining the APC in power at the center. However, today, in President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s just two years in power, the north is aggrieved against the Tinubu government. This is surprising, and not surprising as well.
Out of the 8.7 million votes that brought President Tinubu to power, the North collectively contributed 5.6 million votes, about 64% of his total. In contrast, the South contributed 3.2 million votes, or 36%. Given this overwhelming support, it is surprising that the President has allowed the North to so easily slip from his political grip.
To be fair to Tinubu, every President seeks to reward close associates, loyalists, and political allies including his own way of governing. However, Tinubu appears to have gone too far in prioritizing his inner circle, often at the expense of the region that gave him his strongest mandate.
The good news is that Tinubu still has ample time to regain the North’s confidence. But to succeed, he must act based on facts, not emotions, nor the filtered narratives he hears from those around him.
Broadly, Tinubu must focus on four urgent actions, grouped under two components: one political and three socioeconomic.
First, the President has done fairly good in building elite consensus, but he must expand the net to persuade some politicians and elites, some just want to feel recognized, some want to be talked to, some want to be relevant, some want appointments, while others want contracts. These are things Tinubu can do in minutes and are not insurmountable as well; with a telephone he can talk to some people, with pen and paper he can give appointments to some people and contracts. For example, there is space for more Advisers, Special Assistants, while the ambassadorial positions are also there.
Furthermore, he should establish a Presidential Advisory Council in each state, a small team of respected voices who can meet quarterly to brief him directly on the needs and aspirations of their people. This will give Northern leaders a sense of inclusion and shared ownership in governance.
The second component: socioeconomic, which has three things: agriculture, livestock, security and infrastructure.
This is where Tinubu must be most deliberate. Socioeconomic issues directly affect the masses, the real voters. The August 16, 2025 by-election has already shown that money politics will have limited influence by 2027.
Tinubu has tried to stabilize food prices, but the cost of farm inputs has skyrocketed. The North urgently needs a dedicated agricultural recovery program. Past initiatives, such as the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme, the Presidential Fertiliser Initiative (PFI), Youth Farm Lab, Paddy Aggregation Scheme, Agricultural Trust Fund, PEDI, and the Food Security Council, were well-conceived. Yet implementation failures meant that benefits rarely reached genuine farmers.
For instance, under the PFI, fertilizer blenders made fortunes, but farmers, who should have been the real beneficiaries, still buy fertilizers at ₦45,000–₦52,000 per bag, far above the ₦5,000 target price.
Tinubu must ensure that agriculture is reconnected to ordinary farmers, not just middlemen. The Ministry of Agriculture should recalibrate its projects and programs to directly target real farmers.
The creation of the Federal Ministry of Livestock Development was a brilliant and forward-thinking step. Yet, it has so far made little impact.
With proper funding and direction, this ministry can transform nomadic herders into more settled, educated, and productive citizens; address the farmer-herder conflict that has claimed thousands of lives; reduce cattle rustling, banditry, and kidnapping, while vices often linked to herder communities.
If effectively managed, the ministry can become one of Tinubu’s most enduring legacies in the North.
Security remains the North’s most pressing concern. The kinetic and non-kinetic strategies being coordinated by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) are yielding some positive results, but much more is needed.
Tinubu should expand the non-kinetic approach through security communications, with massive public relations and grassroots outreach, especially in Hausa and Fulfulde languages. Talking directly to communities and even to at-risk groups will deepen trust, reduce misinformation, and weaken extremist recruitment.
Another way to rewin the North is through concerted efforts to make sure the ongoing and stalled infrastructure projects are fast-tracked, especially the ongoing rehabilitation of the Abuja-Kaduna expressway, some deplorable roads in the Northeast especially along the Gombe-Adamawa axis , the Mambila hydroelectric project, Sokoto-Badagry Freeway/Highway, Kaduna-Kano Standard Gauge Rail Project, and Kano-Maradi Rail Link.
The North gave Tinubu his strongest mandate in 2023. Losing its trust would be politically costly in 2027. To recover lost ground, the President must move beyond token gestures and adopt a deliberate, structured engagement strategy, balancing elite consensus with grassroots socioeconomic transformation.
Zayyad I. Muhammad, Abuja
