An Oblong Media Global Intelligence Political Analysis
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s reported choice of former Zamfara State Governor and serving Senator Abdulaziz Yari to coordinate his 2027 presidential campaign deserves examination beyond the conventional explanation of loyalty and northern political reach.
The more interesting question is this:
Why Yari, and why not one of the powerful serving APC governors?
The answer may lie in one of the oldest problems confronting incumbent presidents seeking re election: how to build a national campaign organisation without handing excessive political power to another ambitious centre of influence.
THE GOVERNOR PROBLEM
Serving governors are extraordinarily powerful actors in Nigerian presidential politics. They control or substantially influence state party structures, patronage networks, political appointments, local mobilisation machinery and, in many cases, relationships extending through local governments and wards.
That makes governors indispensable.
It does not necessarily make one of them the ideal person to command the entire presidential campaign.
Appointing a serving governor as campaign director general could immediately create several complications.
First is divided attention. A governor still has a state to administer. Some will also be managing governorship succession battles, legislative contests and internal APC disputes simultaneously with the presidential election.
Running a serious nationwide presidential campaign is effectively a full time executive assignment.
Yari does not have that burden.
More importantly, however, is the question of political neutrality within the ruling coalition.
Selecting one serving governor potentially elevates him above his colleagues. Suddenly, one governor becomes the operational gatekeeper between the presidential campaign, party hierarchy, donors, governors and hundreds of candidates seeking access to the presidential machinery.
That creates power, and potentially resentment.
Tinubu has every reason to want APC governors mobilising their respective states while keeping overall command of the presidential operation outside their immediate rivalry.
In effect:
Let governors control their battlefields; let someone else coordinate the war.
YARI OCCUPIES AN INTERESTING MIDDLE GROUND
Yari offers something structurally different.
He possesses gubernatorial experience without currently being a governor.
He governed Zamfara for eight years and chaired the Nigeria Governors’ Forum. Consequently, he understands how governors think, how state political machines operate and how competing gubernatorial interests must be negotiated.
Yet he is no longer competing with those governors for control of their individual states.
That distinction matters.
He can potentially speak the political language of governors without being one of the serving governors fighting for supremacy within their club.
His Senate membership also keeps him firmly inside the current political establishment rather than turning him into a retired politician resurrected solely for campaign purposes.
THE NORTHERN CALCULATION
There is another unavoidable dimension: geography.
Tinubu’s principal political identity remains rooted in the South West. Vice President Kashim Shettima comes from the North East.
Yari brings the North West directly into the operational architecture of the campaign.
That region is electorally enormous and potentially decisive.
But Yari’s usefulness cannot simply be measured by Zamfara votes. His previous chairmanship of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum exposed him to political relationships across Nigeria.
The strategic calculation would therefore be straightforward: choose someone who understands northern politics but possesses relationships beyond the North.
THE 2023 SENATE PRESIDENCY BATTLE MAKES THE CHOICE MORE INTERESTING
There is also an important historical wrinkle.
Yari was not simply an unquestioning Tinubu lieutenant.
In 2023, he challenged the APC establishment’s preferred arrangement for Senate President and contested against Godswill Akpabio. Akpabio eventually won.
That episode demonstrates that Yari possesses an independent political network.
Yet he remained within the APC afterwards.
From Tinubu’s perspective, that combination could be valuable: a politician sufficiently independent to command his own relationships, but sufficiently integrated into the party to operate within the presidential coalition.
Campaign directors who possess no independent political capital become little more than administrators.
Those possessing too much independent ambition can become alternative power centres.
The art is finding someone somewhere between both extremes.
WHY NOT GOVERNORS UZODIMMA, SANWO OLU OR THE OTHER APC HEAVYWEIGHTS?
The decision not to place a serving governor at the head of the campaign could also prevent unnecessary regional and personal competition.
APC governors have different ambitions.
Some will be fighting for political succession at home. Others will be seeking greater influence within the party after 2027. Some may have national ambitions extending beyond Tinubu’s second term project.
Giving any one of them control of the presidential campaign could unintentionally strengthen that governor ahead of the post Tinubu succession struggle.
That matters because every presidential second term campaign contains another campaign hiding underneath it:
the battle over who inherits the political structure afterwards.
If Tinubu wins in 2027, attention almost immediately begins shifting toward 2031.
A serving governor who successfully manages Tinubu’s national campaign could emerge from the election commanding relationships with governors, legislators, donors, party officials and grassroots organisations nationwide.
That individual could become enormously powerful.
Choosing Yari may therefore accomplish something politically elegant: mobilise the governors without creating a super governor.
GOVERNORS REMAIN CRITICAL
None of this means serving APC governors become unimportant.
Quite the opposite.
They will likely constitute the campaign’s most important state level commanders.
Governors possess something Abuja strategists cannot manufacture: existing political infrastructure.
But there is a difference between using governors as engines of mobilisation and allowing one governor to command all the others.
A Yari led structure potentially allows the Presidency to coordinate them from a relatively neutral position.
THE BIGGER STRATEGY
Viewed this way, Yari’s reported selection is less surprising.
He offers Tinubu several potentially useful attributes simultaneously:
Northern reach. Gubernatorial experience. National political relationships. Legislative experience. Familiarity with party machinery. Freedom from the administrative burden of governing a state. And, crucially, sufficient political stature to negotiate with governors without being a serving member of their competitive fraternity.
There is also symbolism.
A South Western president seeking another mandate while placing a prominent North Western politician at the operational centre of his campaign can present the arrangement as evidence of a broader national coalition.
But symbolism will not win the election.
Yari’s real challenge would be converting relationships into votes.
OBLONG MEDIA GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE ASSESSMENT
The most significant element of the Yari calculation may therefore not be why Tinubu chose Yari, but why he apparently chose not to hand the campaign to a serving governor.
Presidential campaigns require governors, but presidents are understandably reluctant to manufacture alternative centres of power.
Tinubu needs APC governors strong enough to deliver their states, but perhaps not one governor powerful enough to dominate the national campaign structure.
Yari potentially solves that equation.
He has been a governor, understands governors, has chaired governors, understands the legislature and possesses extensive northern political connections, but he is not currently a governor.
That gives Tinubu something politically valuable: a national coordinator who can potentially work across competing state interests without immediately disturbing the delicate hierarchy among serving APC governors.
And beneath everything sits the approaching succession question.
If Tinubu secures another term, the struggle for the post Tinubu APC will eventually become ferocious.
Giving a serving governor control of the 2027 presidential machine could amount to giving one potential successor a substantial head start.
Seen from that perspective, the Yari appointment may be less about rewarding an individual and more about controlling the architecture of power around the President.
That is where the real political intelligence in this decision may lie.
Duruebube Chima “Oblong” Nnadi-Oforgu
For
OBLONG MEDIA GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE
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