There is something intriguing about President Bola Tinubu’s approach to the 2027 presidential campaign. He appears determined not to conduct the election as though the business of governing Nigeria can be suspended for the sake of campaigning. Rather than carry his campaign physically from one rally to another, he is placing considerable responsibility on governors, party officials, ministers, legislators and political allies to take the message into the country.
At first glance, this could look like a candidate stepping back from the electorate. I see something more calculated. Tinubu may be testing whether the political organisation he has spent decades building is now strong enough to campaign on his behalf.
That is the real question.
The 2027 election may be the first major test of whether Tinubu can turn a presidential campaign from a candidate-centred operation into a system-wide political enterprise. If he can, it would say something important about the sophistication of his political organisation. But it would also expose the limit of political engineering: an organisation can carry a message into every state, but it cannot determine whether citizens believe the message.
Tinubu is not an accidental politician. He has spent decades learning the mechanics of power, from the difficult years of opposition politics to the construction of the Lagos political machine, the coalition that eventually became the APC, the struggle against an incumbent federal government and, finally, the presidency. He understands something many politicians learn too late: a serious political organisation cannot depend entirely on the physical presence of one man.
The APC’s latest campaign structure suggests that this is precisely the calculation. The revised presidential campaign council places all 32 APC governors in charge of the presidential campaign in their respective states. It also reaches beyond the APC itself, assigning campaign responsibilities to Nyesom Wike in Rivers and the Federal Capital Territory, Chukwuma Soludo in Anambra and Ademola Adeleke in Osun. Tinubu remains at the centre of the structure, with Vice President Kashim Shettima and APC national chairman Nentawe Yilwatda as his principal deputies.
This is more than a distribution of campaign duties. It is an attempt to make the campaign a network rather than a procession behind one candidate.
The President governs from Abuja. Governors take the political argument into the states. Ministers defend the administration. Legislators mobilise their constituencies. Party officials coordinate the structure. Political allies outside the APC widen the coalition. Tinubu is effectively asking whether the political system he has assembled can do much of the campaigning traditionally expected of the presidential candidate himself.
There is historical precedent for such an approach, but the lesson from history is more nuanced than the simple proposition that delegation works.
Richard Nixon’s 1972 re-election offers the closest parallel. His campaign allowed him to spend substantial time governing while surrogates carried the message across the country, and he went on to win 49 of 50 states. But the organisation worked because it was operating in a favourable political environment. Jimmy Carter’s defeat in 1980 showed the reverse. His limited campaigning during the Iran hostage crisis was only one element in an election already shaped by economic dissatisfaction, political fatigue and Ronald Reagan’s challenge. Four years later, Reagan benefited from an improving economy that allowed his record to become a powerful campaign argument in its own right.
Nigeria has its own cautionary history. Shehu Shagari’s 1983 re-election demonstrated the reach of incumbency and party organisation, but the controversy surrounding that election remains a reminder that political strength and democratic legitimacy are not interchangeable.
The lesson is simple: political organisation can amplify a favourable political environment. It cannot manufacture one.
That is where the Nigerian reality becomes decisive for Tinubu.
A governor can explain the administration’s reforms. A minister can defend its policy choices. Party officials can mobilise supporters and political allies can broaden the coalition. But Nigerians will not assess the 2027 election solely through political speeches. They will also assess it through the cost of feeding their families, moving to work, paying rent, keeping the lights on, sending children to school and dealing with insecurity.
This is where public hardship deserves careful treatment.
Hardship is politically powerful, but it is not politically deterministic. Nigerians can endure painful reforms if they believe the pain is temporary, necessary and producing visible results. They can also reject an administration that tells them the future will be better when their experience of the present offers little evidence of improvement.
The real political question, therefore, is not whether Nigerians have suffered. They plainly have. It is whether enough Nigerians will believe that the suffering is producing a destination worth reaching.
That is why the President’s own argument about reform matters. Tinubu has repeatedly maintained that Nigerians have endured necessary sacrifices and that the foundations for a stronger economy are being laid. He has also acknowledged the crucial next step: the benefits of reform must increasingly be felt in the daily lives of ordinary Nigerians.
By 2027, that will no longer be merely an economic argument. It will be an electoral proposition.
Are Nigerians better off?
The answer will not be determined by how convincingly the governors explain the reforms. Nor will it be determined simply by how angry critics are about them. It will be determined by whether citizens can see and feel enough improvement to conclude that the sacrifice was worth it.
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