2027: It’s Premature to talk about Tinubu’s running mate now-APC Scribe, Ajibola Basiru

The National Secretary of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Ajibola Basiru, Friday, declared that though President Bola Tinubu currently enjoys an overwhelming endorsement from party stakeholders to run for re-election in 2027, discussions for the choice of his running mate are somewhat premature.

Bashiru, a former Senate spokesman, said the issue of President  Tinubu’s running mate would be decided after the party’s convention, which is usually held a year to the general election. He made the declaration during an interview on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief programme.

“As far as we are concerned,” Basiru, a lawyer, declared, “the national summit held in the Presidential Villa has endorsed Mr. President based on his track record and a large spectrum of stakeholders in our party have also overwhelmingly given endorsement to Mr. President.

“The question of running mate is not yet onboard and nobody has come to say that the president has made any adverse decision as regards the present vice president.”

Cracks within the ruling party began to appear on Sunday, June 15, 2025, during a summit for APC stakeholders from the North-East geopolitical zone in Gombe. The summit had begun on a promising note until when the Vice Chairman (North-East), Alhaji Mustapha Salihu, declared President Bola Tinubu as the party’s sole candidate 2027 presidential election.

He made the declaration without mentioning Vice President Kashim Shettima. And all hell was let loose as some stakeholders vehemently protested the omission, insisting that  that the vice president, a son of the soil, be included in the endorsement.

But the APC national secretary, who claimed to have attended the summit, said he didn’t see anything unusual about the omission of the Vice President’s name. What happened, he insisted, wasn’t strange because, according to him, “people in a democratic setting are born to have different opinions”.

“As far as I am concerned, there was no issue,” Basiru, an Osun-based politician, declared with a note of finality. “I was physically present in Gombe State. After the summit, we had a reception at the Government House.

“Some people in the North East felt that it suffice to give endorsement to the president and then the president will be in a position to decide who would be his running mate in 2027.

“Some other people are of the view that it is also important that since the summit is being held in the North East, the vice president, coming from the North-East, should equally have an endorsement.

“What I know is that even at the national convention where a candidate for the presidential election will emerge, it is only the presidential candidate that will emerge at the convention.

“The running mate issue will be done after that. As far as our party is concerned, we have not made any statement or got ourselves involved in the politics of the North-East.”

It would be recalled that Tinubu, former Lagos governor and candidate of the APC in the 2023 presidential election, ran on a joint ticket with Shettima, a former governor of Borno State, in the North-East zone. They won the election decisively and were sworn in on May 29, 2023.

However, on May 22, 2025, 22 APC governors unanimously adopted Tinubu without a word about Shettima. This has provoked the biggest animosity so far against the President within his own party. A party stalwart and senator representing Borno South Senatorial District, Ali Ndume, abstained from endorsing Tinubu for a second term in office.

Rather, he said he pitied the President and warned him against hubris. For, according to him, former President Goodluck Jonathan secured the endorsement of 22 governors of his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in the 2015 poll, yet, he lost his re-election bid to then candidate Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC).