Tinubu, Akintola, El-Rufai: Why the North Cannot Trust Southwest in 2027 By Mohammed Bello Doka When Nasir El-Rufai stood before the world in June 2022 and declared that 12 out of 14 northern APC governors had agreed to cede presidential power to the South, he was hailed as a statesman, a unifier, a northern leader with the courage to put national interest above regional ambition. He told reporters that day that a super majority of northern governors had taken a decision and that everyone, including the defiant Yahaya Bello, was bound by it . It was a moment of rare political sacrifice from a region that had grown accustomed to holding the reins of power. Today, as El-Rufai languishes in the detention facilities of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), the question that every thinking northerner must ask is this: What did the South do with that sacrifice? The answer is as devastating as it is simple. Silence. Complicity. Continued support for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu from southern political elites who have paid their media houses, their data boys, and their influencers not only to denigrate El-Rufai but to paint the entire North as a region of power-hungry traitors. And now, these same southern voices expect the North to trust zoning again in 2027. They expect northerners who can see, who can think, who have not been blinded by tribal sentiment, to once again hand over power to a region that has demonstrated exactly what it thinks of northern loyalty. Let us rewind to the beginning. Professor Ishaq Akintola, the founder of the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), has been remarkably candid about his role in this saga. In a press release dated March 23, 2026, Akintola confessed that MURIC was the first to demand a Yoruba Muslim president as far back as February 2021 . He and the Concerned Yoruba Muslim Scholars met and persuaded Tinubu to run. But they quickly realized that Yoruba Muslims alone could not deliver the presidency. They needed a handshake across the Niger. So they networked with northern Muslims and specifically sought out El-Rufai, whom they described as the only northern politician with the necessary political acumen to bring the North together behind Tinubu . The meeting between Akintola, other southwest leaders, and El-Rufai was not a casual affair. It was a strategic intervention. And here is the detail the southern establishment does not want you to remember: When Akintola and his delegation came to El-Rufai, the former governor was not on good terms with Tinubu. They were, by El-Rufai’s own admission, political adversaries. Akintola pleaded with El-Rufai to reconcile with Tinubu and to support the Yoruba Muslim project. And El-Rufai, against the wishes of many in the North, agreed . But where were the other southwest leaders? Who else from the region spoke out in that critical moment? The truth is, aside from Akintola and his small team of Islamic scholars, the southern political establishment was conspicuously quiet. They were happy to receive the North’s gift. They were ecstatic to watch El-Rufai publicly champion power shift, to watch him rebuff the naira redesign shenanigans that threatened Tinubu‘s election, to watch him accompany the candidate to Chatham House and defend the Muslim-Muslim ticket before an international audience . They were silent then because they were winning. They are silent now because silencing El-Rufai serves their purpose. MURIC warned of this betrayal as early as August 13, 2023, when the Senate first withheld El-Rufai’s ministerial nomination. In an emergency statement after its Central Think Tank meeting, MURIC declared that the non-confirmation was a major threat to future alliance between the North and the South-West. The group issued a chilling prophecy: "The North may not hobnob with the South-West again if the champion of the North-South alliance is shabbily treated" . Today, that prophecy is being fulfilled before our very

Projects in Lagos, Campaign in Kaduna Amid Insecurity: What Will Tinubu Promise Now? By Mohammed Bello Doka 11 October, 2026. On December 3, 2023, a Nigerian Army drone struck Tudun Biri in Igabi Local Government Area of Kaduna State, killing at least 85 civilians who had gathered for a religious celebration. Among the dead were women, children, and the elderly. President Bola Tinubu did not visit. On September 2024, another military airstrike hit Giwa Local Government Area, killing at least 24 more civilians in what the military called a mistaken targeting of bandits. President Tinubu did not visit. In September 2025, bandits descended on Kachia Local Government Area and abducted 152 people in a single operation. President Tinubu did not visit. In July 2025, windstorms and heavy rainfall devastated five local government areas, displacing 6,172 people and killing six. President Tinubu did not visit. In August 2024, bandits attacked communities in Kajuru Local Government Area, killing four, injuring three, and abducting thirty-seven. President Tinubu did not visit. In September 2025, floods submerged parts of Zaria Local Government Area, affecting 476 people. President Tinubu did not visit. Now, after three and a half years of blood, tears, and silence, the APC has chosen Kaduna as the launchpad for its 2027 presidential campaign. The same Kaduna where 85 people were buried in a mass grave after a Nigerian drone bombed them. The same Kaduna where 152 people were carted away into forests by bandits while the president was in Lagos commissioning buses. The same Kaduna where communities have been orphaned by airstrikes, emptied by kidnappings, and drowned by floods. What exactly is Tinubu coming to tell the people of Kaduna? What is he coming to promise again? Since May 29, 2023, President Tinubu has visited Kaduna exactly twice. The first was a one-day working visit in June 2025 to commission a vocational training institute, a 300-bed specialist hospital, and 100 CNG buses, most of which were state government projects. The second was a private visit in September 2025 to attend a wedding and condole with the widow of a former president. Two visits in three and a half years. Not one of those visits was to console the victims of Tudun Biri. Not one was to visit the families of the 152 abducted in Kachia. Not one was to assess the damage in Giwa after another military misfire. Not one was to stand with the flood victims in Zaria. Not one was to confront the bandits in Kajuru. Instead, he flew to Kaduna for a wedding, shook hands, took photographs, and flew back to Abuja. Compare that to his attention to Lagos. In Lagos, Tinubu has commissioned the first 30 kilometres of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, a project estimated at over one trillion naira. In Lagos, he has rehabilitated the Third Mainland Bridge at a cost of 43 billion naira and built a 2.5 billion naira CCTV monitoring centre. In Lagos, he inaugurated the Red Line Rail, a 37-kilometre project costing over 135 million dollars. In Lagos, he commissioned CNG infrastructure in Ojota, part of a 100 billion naira national rollout, with four major projects in a single day. In Lagos, the Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano road, a project inherited from Buhari, was revoked and re-awarded at a higher cost, while the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway received 43 billion naira for phase two. Lagos is where the president's heart beats. Kaduna is where his promises go to die.