The Director-General of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, Senator Abdul’Aziz Abubakar Yari, has appealed to northerners to allow President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to complete an eight-year tenure, arguing that Nigeria’s longstanding political understanding on power rotation should be respected.
Yari made the appeal on Saturday while speaking with journalists at the Kano Government House after a closed-door meeting with Kano State Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf.
The former Zamfara State governor said the North should recognise the political arrangement that resulted in the presidency moving to the South in 2023 after eight years under former President Muhammadu Buhari.
According to him, political stability requires all regions to understand and respect the informal arrangements that have shaped the sharing of political power in the country.
“66 years ago since independence, the country was led by northerners for 47 years,” Yari said, urging Nigerians to appreciate the importance of national unity.
He noted that Buhari governed from 2015 to 2023 before Tinubu emerged as President in 2023.
“Having said this, this country, Nigeria, from 2015 to 2023 was led by a northerner, and now from 2023 to 2026 it is led by a southerner,” he said.
Yari urged northerners not to seek to overturn the existing political arrangement because of the region’s population.
“If we say we want to uproot the zoning arrangement because of our numbers, then my call for northerners is to understand how it works,” he said.
He acknowledged that Tinubu’s administration, like every government, had faced challenges, but argued that similar difficulties had confronted previous administrations.
“Nobody is perfect. The southerners have also experienced what we are complaining about today when President Buhari was in power,” Yari said.
The APC campaign council chief also maintained that insecurity was a challenge faced by countries around the world and could not be attributed exclusively to one administration.
“No problem of a country is solved by any government, including even in the United States. They are managing insecurity as we are managing it,” he said.
He cited gun violence in Chicago as an example of the security challenges confronting other countries.
On the economy, Yari urged Nigerians to assess the Tinubu administration by comparing key economic indicators from 2023 with the current situation.
“When you look at when Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu came to power in 2023, go and check what was the state of our reserves and what it is today, and what was the rate of inflation in 2023 and what it is today,” he said.
He said both federal and state governments were working to address the country’s economic and security challenges.
Yari further argued that the North would have an opportunity to produce the President after Tinubu’s tenure if the rotational arrangement was maintained.
“I am calling on northerners to note that by the time Bola Ahmed Tinubu finishes in 2031, it will definitely come back to the North. This is how the arrangement is,” he said.
The comments come as political parties and major political figures intensify preparations for the 2027 general elections, with questions over zoning, regional representation and the future direction of the presidency becoming increasingly prominent.
