Kaduna Campaign Flag-Off: You Betrayed North, Makinde Tells Tinubu
The presidential candidate of the Allied People’s Movement (APM) and Oyo State Governor, Engr. Seyi Makinde, has accused President Bola Tinubu of betraying the North.
New Telegraph reports that Tinubu will, on Saturday, October 24, flag off his 2027 presidential campaign in Kaduna, Nigeria’s North West region.
However, Makinde, in a statement by Director, Strategic Communications of Makinde-Daura Presidential Campaign Organisation (MDPCO), Richard Ihediwa, said Tinubu’s policies are affecting people in the region.
“Nigerians do not expect anything from Tinubu’s campaign flag-off beyond the usual spewing of lies, deceit, vague promises and false performance claims by discredited and rejected APC leaders and fraudulent political gamblers clobbered together by greed and lust for power,” the statement said.
It challenged the president to explain what the North West gained from his administration beyond bloodshed, crushing economic hardship, broken promises and shattered public trust.
The MDPCO recalled that at the All Progressives Congress (APC) that at North West campaign rally in Kaduna on December 13, 2022, Tinubu promised troublemakers, kidnappers, killers who had been troubling the security of Kaduna and Northern Nigeria, that they would be eliminated if he becomes president.
According to the presidential organisation, Tinubu further promised that every inch of Nigerian territory would be secured and defended.
“Three and a half years later, under his watch, bandits and terrorists continue to kill, abduct and displace citizens across the North-West and other parts of Nigeria,” MDPCO stated.
It alleged that since Tinubu assumed office in 2023, about 13,000 Nigerians have been killed in the northern parts of the country, with many more abducted, and accused President Tinubu of doing nothing other than issuing statements from the villa and “without any corresponding concrete presidential action to tackle insecurity in the region and other parts of Nigeria.”
MDPCO added that beyond the killings and mass abductions, an estimated 3.7 million people have been internally displaced, and described the president’s assurance in Kaduna that Northerners would ‘never regret voting him’ as an irony.
Makinde’s campaign said nothing exposed APC’s misplaced priorities more than reports that its campaign billboards were under protection by security agencies while vulnerable communities remain at the mercy of bandits.
“Under Tinubu, political advertisements appear better protected than human lives.
“Besides, the marginalisation of the North in appointments to strategic sectors of the federal government reinforces the perception that President Tinubu regards the region as nothing more than a convenient reservoir of electoral votes, courted at election time and sidelined thereafter,” the campaign organisation stated.
