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How Tinubu Betrayed the Muslim North: A Diagnosis of Promises, Power, and Political Backstabbing

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4 months ago

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By Mohammed Bello Doka

We have been hearing funny questions in recent months, asked with a mix of sarcasm and denial: How exactly did Bola Tinubu betray the Muslim North? This article is a response to that question. Not emotion. Not sentiment. Not hatred. This is politics, reduced to its bare essentials: numbers, choices, consequences, and survival. If accusations are anything to go by, they are not inventions; they are reactions to observable facts. And facts, once assembled honestly, do not care about comfort.

The 2023 presidential election marked a deliberate rupture with Nigeria’s post-1999 conventions. Bola Tinubu chose a Muslim–Muslim ticket, fully aware of its implications. This was not accidental, nor was it imposed on him. It was defended vigorously across the North as a necessary sacrifice in the national interest. Muslim voters in the North were told, directly and indirectly, that competence mattered more than sentiment, that religion should not divide them, and that the ticket was a strategic gamble that would pay off in influence, inclusion, and protection. The Muslim North accepted this argument and delivered.

The numbers are not disputed. According to INEC’s final, state-by-state results, the North-West and North-East—Nigeria’s core Muslim-majority zones—produced close to ten million valid votes in the 2023 election. In Kano alone, a Muslim-majority stronghold, Tinubu secured over 517,000 votes, while Peter Obi managed barely 28,000. In Jigawa, Tinubu polled more than 421,000 votes; Obi did not reach 2,000. Katsina gave Tinubu about 482,000 votes to Obi’s roughly 6,000. Kebbi delivered nearly 250,000 votes for Tinubu; Zamfara close to 300,000. In Yobe and Borno, Tinubu again outpolled Obi by margins so wide they require no embellishment. When votes from Muslim-leaning North-Central states such as Niger, Nasarawa, Kwara, and Kogi are added, Tinubu’s support base in Muslim northern communities rises to between 3.8 and 4.9 million votes. That bloc alone formed a decisive pillar of his national victory.

Now compare this with what happened in Northern Christian-majority areas. In Plateau State, Peter Obi polled about 466,000 votes, while Tinubu secured roughly 307,000. In Benue, Obi’s 308,000 votes nearly matched Tinubu’s 310,000, despite Benue never having been a Labour Party stronghold. In the Federal Capital Territory, a demographically mixed but largely Christian-leaning territory, Obi recorded 281,717 votes against Tinubu’s 90,902—more than a three-to-one margin. In southern Taraba, voting patterns followed the same logic. These are not anecdotes; they are consistent results pointing to a clear pattern: Muslim northern communities voted overwhelmingly for Tinubu, while Christian northern communities aligned electorally with Christian-majority southern zones.

This pattern did not emerge by accident. For decades, Northern politics subsumed religious differences under a broader regional consensus. Christians and Muslims in the North often voted together, driven by shared interests in federal power, security, and economic leverage. In 2023, that consensus fractured. Christian-majority areas of the North no longer voted as part of a Northern bloc; they voted as part of a national Christian alignment. That fracture did not begin at the grassroots. It followed elite political decisions that elevated religious identity from a background factor into a central organising principle of national power.

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Having delivered the votes, the Muslim North expected returns. In politics, expectations are not moral demands; they are transactional realities. What followed instead was a growing sense of exclusion. Vice-President Kashim Shettima, presented as proof of northern inclusion, has exercised no visible institutional power commensurate with the region’s contribution. Unlike Atiku Abubakar, who as vice-president chaired the National Economic Council and drove privatisation policy, or Yemi Osinbajo, who chaired key reform committees and acted as president multiple times, Shettima has no defining portfolio. He does not control economic policy. He does not lead the national security architecture. He does not arbitrate party power. His presence is symbolic, not structural.

Appointments have reinforced this perception. Power in Abuja is not measured by the number of northerners in government; it is measured by where decision-making authority sits. Since May 2023, strategic economic and fiscal power has been perceived—rightly or wrongly, but persistently—to be concentrated within a narrow circle outside the Muslim North’s political reach. In Nigerian politics, sustained perception becomes reality. Regions do not rebel because they are ignored once; they react because they feel ignored consistently.

Insecurity has deepened this sense of betrayal. According to data from ACLED and corroborated by local security analysts, the North-West remains the epicentre of banditry and mass kidnapping. Thousands have been killed or displaced since Tinubu assumed office. Farmlands across Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, and Niger states remain unsafe, directly threatening food security. Yet there has been no decisive break from past security failures. No doctrine shift. No overwhelming show of force that signals a new era. Instead, communities are left to negotiate survival, often informally, while the federal response remains incremental and cautious.

The handling of negotiations with armed groups has compounded the anger. Several northern states continue to engage bandits through intermediaries, amnesty offers, or ransom-mediated releases. These practices predate Tinubu, but the absence of a clear federal prohibition or framework under his administration has consequences. In security studies, this creates moral hazard. Violence becomes a bargaining tool. The blunt question many northerners ask is unavoidable: what incentive does a young man have to farm or trade when picking up a gun attracts dialogue, attention, and concessions?

Supporters of the president often dismiss northern grievances as religious intolerance. That argument collapses under scrutiny. The same logic used to explain Obi’s landslide in the South-East and his strong showing in Lagos—identity mobilisation—explains voting behaviour in Northern Christian zones. Lagos itself exposes the hypocrisy. Tinubu lost Lagos, his political base, where he polled 572,606 votes against Obi’s 582,454. Ethnicity did not save him there. Identity politics did. If identity voting is a valid explanation in Lagos, it cannot be dismissed as hatred when the North responds politically to perceived exclusion.

Underlying these grievances is history. Nigeria’s constitution speaks of democratic choice, but Nigeria’s politics practises managed succession. Obasanjo’s role in installing Yar’Adua in 2007 is undisputed. The consolidation of APC power ahead of 2023 advantaged Tinubu decisively. Against this backdrop, fears in the North that incumbency could again be used to shape future political outcomes are not paranoia; they are historical inference.

This is why rumours of fragmentation or political marginalisation resonate so deeply in the North. The region is landlocked, security-fragile, and economically interconnected. Any national rupture—formal or informal—would hurt the North first and hardest. When trust erodes between a region and the centre, fear fills the vacuum. Silence from power does not reassure; it amplifies suspicion.

Beyond Islam and Christianity lies a more fundamental issue: survival as a political force. Divide the North internally, weaken its bargaining unity, and its influence diminishes without a single dramatic announcement. History shows that fragmented regions lose leverage quietly and permanently. Once cohesion is gone, recovery is generational.

This is not an emotional argument. It is a political diagnosis. Betrayal, in politics, describes unmet expectations after commitments are honoured. The Muslim North delivered votes in unprecedented numbers. It absorbed political risk. It defended an unconventional ticket. What it sees in return is limited influence, persistent insecurity, and a fracture in its internal cohesion.

The question, therefore, is no longer whether the accusation exists. It clearly does. The real question is whether it will be confronted honestly while there is still time to repair trust—or whether denial will harden grievance into something far more dangerous. Politics rewards foresight. It punishes complacency. The Muslim North is not asking for sympathy; it is demanding recognition of facts that are already on record.

Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via bellodoka82@gmail.com

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Hon. Nazir Alhassan Bachirawa Former UGG/MJB Rep APC Aspirant, Commends  H.E. Gov. Abba Kabir Yusuf on Three Years of People-Oriented Administration

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5 days ago

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June 4, 2026

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His Excellency,
The Executive Governor of Kano State,
Engr Abba Kabir Yusuf

A TRIBUTE TO HIS EXCELLENCY ON THE OCCASION OF HIS 3RD YEAR IN OFFICE*

Your Excellency Sir,

On this milestone of your third year as Executive Governor of Kano State, I and my team join millions of Kano people in celebrating a journey defined by purpose, resilience and measurable impact. The mandate entrusted to you in 2023 has matured into visible progress across every sector.

You have governed like a master builder, not chasing applause, but laying foundations. The roads you revived now pulse with commerce. Classrooms you rebuilt now echo with the voices of tomorrow’s leaders. Health facilities you upgraded now stand as refuges where dignity is restored alongside healing.

What distinguishes your leadership most is your commitment to those who came before us. By settling outstanding gratuities and severance entitlements, you honored the service of retirees and former office holders. That act did more than clear arrears, it restored faith. It reminded every public servant that service to Kano will never be forgotten.

Let us also place on record, our profound respect for one of the most difficult sacrifice, yet far-sighted, decisions of your administration: embracing APC, the party of the central government, in the interest of Kano people. Political alignment at that level requires courage. You chose principle over politics, unity over division and development over discord. By bridging Kano with the center, you positioned our state to attract resources, partnerships and opportunities that would have been out of reach. History will record that as statesmanship, not convenience.

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We also hold in deep respect the political courage you demonstrated by wielding the broom to sweep away entrenched “wall Geckos”, that is, by releasing office holders whose loyalty lay elsewhere so that your government could move forward with one mind and one direction. It was a decisive, difficult act. But history teaches that a house divided cannot stand. By clearing space for men and women who share your vision, you ensured that governance would not be held hostage by inertia. That was statesmanship.

Your Excellency, the choice of *Alhaji Murtala Sule Galadima Garo as your deputy* was a brilliant decision that grounded your administration in Kano. As a grassroots politician, he understands our markets, our wards, and the daily realities of our communities. Like strong roots that keep a tall tree firm in a storm, his close connection to the people gives your government depth, balance, and wider reach. With him by your side, the distance between Government House and the last compound in every local government is shorter, and the voice of ordinary citizens reaches the table of power.

Your Excellency, I and my team believed that your swift response to the security challenges in Gwarzo, Shanono and Tsanyawa proves that the safety of Kano people is not just ink in a manifesto, it is the heartbeat of your administration. Like a vigilant shepherd who moves before the wolf scatters the flock, you acted with urgency to shield lives and property before fear could take root. That same resolve extended to the victims and families shattered by bandit attacks, and to the frontline security personnel standing in harm’s way. You looked beyond the numbers and saw grieving families. You looked beyond duty and saw brave men and women at the frontline. Like a father who binds the wounds of his children while strengthening the hands that guard the gate, you chose to comfort the broken and fortify the brave. In that dual commitment, to protect Kano and to heal Kano, governance is revealed not merely as power, but as humanity.

Accordingly, Your emergence unopposed in the APC primaries and the calm wisdom with which you guided fellow aspirants, further affirmed your role as a unifier. You understood that when leaders contend without restraint, the people bear the cost. You chose consensus. Kano is better for it.

Your Excellency, you carry leadership like the baobab carries its crown, not for show, but to shelter all who stand beneath it. You wear responsibility heavier than any title.

As I write this, I do so as an APC aspirant for UGG/MJB Federal Constituency who, through the party’s consensus process, yielded the ticket in deference to party unity. That decision does not diminish my commitment. It strengthens it. My pledge to the good people of UGG/MJB and to this administration remains unshaken.

May Allah SWT continue to guide you, grant you strength and crown your efforts with success that outlives your stewardship. May your name be etched among those who turned vision into heritage.

Kano is moving. Kano is grateful.

With highest regards,
Naziru Alhassan Bachirawa – Ungogo

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14.2 Percent: The Electoral Arithmetic That Exposes the Fundamental Fragility of Peter Obi’s 2027 Northern Strategy

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5 days ago

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June 4, 2026

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By Aliyu Mohammed Idris, PhD,

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There is a particular kind of political optimism that refuses to be corrected by evidence. It is the optimism that survives a catastrophic electoral performance, reinterprets the catastrophe as a near-miss, constructs an elaborate narrative of stolen victory to explain away the margin of defeat, and then proceeds to the next electoral cycle with essentially the same strategic assumptions, the same candidate, and the same fundamental misreading of the political landscape that produced the catastrophe in the first place. It is the optimism currently driving Peter Obi’s 2027 presidential campaign under the banner of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, and it is an optimism that the verified electoral arithmetic of the 2023 presidential election exposes, with the cold and irrefutable precision of numbers, as a strategy built on a foundation that the facts of Nigerian political geography simply do not support.
The numbers are not in dispute. They are drawn from the official records of the Independent National Electoral Commission, verified by multiple fact-checking organisations, and confirmed by the Africa Report’s real-time election coverage. Peter Obi secured 43.0 percent of votes from the South in the 2023 presidential election and only 14.2 percent from the North. That 14.2 percent figure is not merely a disappointing performance or a correctable underachievement. It is a structural indictment of a campaign that presented itself as a genuinely national movement while failing to build anything resembling a genuinely national electoral coalition. In Gombe State, he polled 26,160 votes against Atiku’s 319,123. In Sokoto, he managed 6,568 votes. In state after state across the North-West and North-East, his performance was so marginal as to be politically irrelevant in the context of a contest governed by the constitutional requirement that a winning presidential candidate must secure not merely the most votes nationally but at least 25 percent of votes cast in no fewer than 24 of Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
The constitutional arithmetic is the most devastating dimension of this electoral reality. Nigeria’s presidential election is not won by national popular vote alone. It is won by a combination of national plurality and geographic distribution, a system specifically designed to ensure that the president of a federation as diverse as Nigeria cannot be elected on the strength of a single region’s enthusiasm, however overwhelming that enthusiasm may be. In 2023, Peter Obi won the South-East with majorities that were, in several states, greater than 90 percent of votes cast. In Anambra, his home state, he polled 584,621 votes. In Enugu, he secured 91.42 percent of total votes cast. These were extraordinary performances. But they were extraordinary performances in a geographically concentrated region that, however impressive its margins, could not on its own satisfy the constitutional distribution requirement that makes a presidential victory mathematically possible. The 25 percent threshold in 24 states is not a formality. It is the architectural expression of Nigeria’s federal character, and Peter Obi’s 2023 campaign failed to meet it not because of electoral malpractice alone, as his supporters persistently claim, but because the underlying electoral coalition he had built was geographically insufficient to satisfy a constitutional standard that any serious presidential campaign must plan from the outset to meet.
The question for 2027 is whether the Obi-Kwankwaso ticket has credibly addressed this structural deficiency. The honest answer, when examined against the current political landscape of Northern Nigeria, is that it has not, and that the specific political assets that Kwankwaso was expected to bring to the ticket have been substantially eroded by the events of the past two years in ways that the NDC’s campaign strategists appear to be either unaware of or unwilling to acknowledge. Kwankwaso’s political capital in the North was always most concentrated in Kano State, where the Kwankwasiyya movement had built a formidable grassroots organisation over more than a decade of investment in community mobilisation, welfare distribution, and political education. That organisation delivered Kano State for the NNPP in the 2023 governorship election, producing the administration of Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf, the man who was supposed to be the institutional expression of Kwankwaso’s continued relevance as a northern political force.
But Governor Yusuf is no longer Kwankwaso’s man. He decamped to the APC earlier in 2026, taking with him the 36 members of the Kano State House of Assembly and all 44 local government chairmen, in one of the most consequential political defections in Kano’s recent history. The Kwankwasiyya movement, which was already showing signs of internal stress before the defection, has been structurally fractured by the departure of the governor it helped elect. The political organisation that Kwankwaso was counting on to deliver Kano’s substantial electoral weight to the Obi-Kwankwaso ticket in 2027 is now a significantly diminished force operating in a state whose government, whose legislative machinery, and whose local government structures are all aligned with the APC and the federal administration of President Tinubu. Beyond Kano, Kwankwaso’s influence across the wider North-West and North-East was always more aspirational than organisational, more a function of his national profile than of the kind of ward-level mobilisation infrastructure that actually moves voters on election day.
The one-term promise that Obi has repeatedly deployed as a tool for managing northern political anxieties about southern presidential dominance adds a further layer of analytical complexity to the electoral arithmetic question, because it highlights the extent to which the NDC’s northern strategy is built on political arrangements rather than genuine political support. A presidential candidate who needs to offer a constitutionally unenforceable promise to serve only a single term in order to persuade northern stakeholders to consider supporting him is a candidate who is acknowledging, in the most direct possible terms, that the northern support he is seeking is contingent rather than organic, transactional rather than ideological, and dependent on political calculations that could shift dramatically between now and the February 2027 polling date. Political opinion across Northern Nigeria, as Vanguard’s reporting confirmed, remains sharply divided over the one-term promise, with many stakeholders describing it as politically strategic but lacking enforceable guarantees. That assessment is correct. And a northern electoral strategy built on a promise that cannot be legally enforced, delivered by a candidate whose history of party-switching has demonstrated a consistent willingness to abandon commitments when political conditions become inconvenient, is a strategy whose foundations deserve the most rigorous scrutiny.
The electoral mathematics of 2027 are not fundamentally different from those of 2023. The constitutional threshold is the same. The geographic distribution requirement is the same. The northern political landscape, far from having been transformed in Obi’s favour by the Kwankwaso alliance, has in critical respects shifted against him, with Kano State, the single most important northern electoral prize, now firmly within the APC’s political architecture following Governor Yusuf’s defection. The 14.2 percent that Obi secured from the North in 2023 was not a floor from which he will inevitably rise with the right running mate and the right messaging. It was a ceiling built by a combination of the IPOB credibility deficit, the geographic concentration of the Obidient Movement’s energy, the constitutional distribution requirement’s structural demands, and the deep cultural and political instincts of northern voters whose relationship with presidential candidates is governed by a set of expectations and requirements that Peter Obi’s campaign, in 2023 and so far in 2027, has not demonstrated the capacity or the willingness to genuinely meet. The numbers said it clearly in 2023. They are saying it still. The question is whether anyone in the NDC’s campaign structure is listening

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How DSP Barau and the FUDMA VC shielded Barau Scholars Amid Study Centres Relocation

Published

6 days ago

on

June 3, 2026

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By Abba Anwar

The possibility of life without challenges is zero point zero. As His Excellency, Deputy Senate President, Barau I Jibrin, PhD, CFR, rightly observed and amplified.

It was during an interactive session, that was held at Convocation Arena of Bayero University, Kano, Tuesday, with the students he sponsored under Barau I. Jibrin Foundation, to study at the Study Centres of Federal University Dutsin-Ma (FUDMA), in six local governments from his constituency, Kano North. These are Bichi, Dambatta, Dawakin Tofa, Gabasawa, Gwarzo and Tofa.

The session was attended by the management of the university, FUDMA, under the leadership of the Vice Chancellor, Prof MK Usman, the students of the Centres and their parents. It was meant to discuss the relocation of the affected students from these Study Centres, back to the main campus of the university, in Dutsin-Ma.

According to the Vice Chancellor Prof Usman, the directive was from the federal ministry of education, that these Centres must relocate to the main campus of the university. Meaning, all students would relocate from their respective local governments here in Kano and move to Dutsin-Ma town of Katsina state.

During the session, after prolonged discussion of the situation on ground, by the Vice Chancellor, DSP urged all the affected students to take this as part of the challenges of life. He was live virtually during the session.

He narrated how he intervened between the university and Minister of State, Education, on how the situation could be handled without the relocation. Believing that relocation could be disturbing to students. As many students complained. Citing extra spendings and insecurity as their main reasons against the new development.

DSP Barau narrated in details, how he requested for another option instead of the relocation. Explaining that, the Minister said, there was no room for any arrangement different from the relocation exercise.

One needs to see the humane face of the DSP when he was making his remarks to the students. When he realised that, the faces of the students were requesting for reversal of the new policy, he instantly changed their mood, as he promised to take care of their transportation, keep-up allowances and adequate provision of security escorts for their trips, to and fro.

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Apart from all other responsibilities, to encourage them face their studies with all seriousness and commitment. A standing ovation greeted the Senator, during and after his remarks. Human capital development, as he believes and amplified at the session, is the mainstay of any meaningful development. Reason why he believes in investing in the education of his people. For the development of the society.

Fear of living in new environment, due to accommodation problem was allayed, as the Vice Chancellor promised that, all the relocated students would be accommodated freely in the university. It also appears here, the issue of accommodation, that both DSP Foundation and the university would work hand in hand to make the students comfortable.

A standing ovation greeted the entire hall when DSP said, “I will arrange for your transportation to and from Federal University Dutsin-Ma. I will give you resources to help you stay there comfortably. So also security will be provided.”

Among the students who were enrolled in the FUDMA’s Study Centres, some are in their final year, some in level Three, and so on and so forth. The Vice Chancellor assured all the students that, quality would not be compromise. Praising the Deputy Senate President for his unrelenting effort for the betterment of the students.

Even after the interactive session, there were handful few, who still insisted that, they would rather seek for transfer to other institutions, citing family issues as their main reason for rejecting the relocation policy. They are mostly married women. But it appears there could be other arrangement for this category of students.

Many parents who attended the interactive session, commended Senator Barau for being that magnanimous and caring for their wards. Ensuring that, they would aid in the successful relocation exercise.

Highlighting that there were many people out there who could not have similar opportunity to further their studies. Believing that, DSP’s interest in the development of his people, was what made the intervention successful from day one.

Many students and their parents, pointed out that, they were privy to leaked information that, some unpatriotic elements from Kano North were trying to politicize the new development. They further challenged that, the development was not DSP’s making or design. As a result, they vehemently reject any possible political attack of the DSP over the situation.

While acknowledging that, His Excellency, Senator Jibrin did his best through the Minister of State, Education, to see the possibility of policy reversal, but that couldn’t be possible, as revealed by the Senator, the majority of students and their parents, including well wishers, further revealed that, the students benefiting from the scholarship scheme were not members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) only, they cut across party boundaries. So according to them, linking the relocation issue to politics is baseless, needless and uncalled for.

Anwar writes from Kano
Wednesday, 3rd June, 2026

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