The Presidency has said the rousing welcome and air of tranquility in Kaduna during the recent visit of President Bola Tinubu is a sign that the All Progressives Congress (APC) is still well loved in the north.
Sunday Dare, the Special Adviser on Media and Public Communications, in a post on X on Sunday, said Tinubu went to Kaduna amid claims that the region hates him and will not vote for him in 2027.
The President had traveled to Kaduna on a one-day working visit where he attended a wedding ceremony and visited the widow of the late former President Muhammadu Buhari, Aisha, in her residence.
However, Dare said Tinubu stepped into Kaduna despite the uncertainties from the rumours that have been peddled.
“This is the city that birthed the famed Kaduna Mafia, a loose but powerful network of northern technocrats, politicians, military brass, and businessmen who quietly shaped policy and leadership recruitment in Nigeria, while also defending northern interests across decades,” the statement read.
“Kaduna is also the city of the Sardauna, Sir Ahmadu Bello, and his contemporaries: Ali Akilu, Hassan Katsina, R. B. Dikko, and later, the erudite historian Bala Usman. It is the spiritual base of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) and the political launch pad of late President Muhammadu Buhari, whose reach across the North and indeed Nigeria was unmatched in modern times.
“Time and again, Kaduna has been the place to which the North retreats to recalibrate and relaunch, whether during the military era when key decisions were hatched in smoky rooms, or in the democratic dispensation when alignments and re-alignments found their root. From crises resolved within its walls to alliances born in its corridors, Kaduna’s pedigree as the lodestar of northern politics remains unchallenged.
“It was into this charged political environment, months after opponents had fanned narratives of hostility to him, that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu chose to walk boldly. Whispers of ‘a no-go area’ hung in the air: the opposition had spread a conspiratorial message that the North ‘hated’ Tinubu and the APC support base would abandon him in future elections. But the President, true to his character, came unafraid, carrying with him the fruits of loyalty to old friendships and the evidence of sound policies beginning to touch lives.”
