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The National Executive Council of the Agbekoya Solidarity Movement has formally declared the group’s solidarity and unwavering support for the re-election of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the 2027 presidential election and the gubernatorial ambition of Senator Sharafadeen Alli as Oyo State Governor.

In a solidarity visit to the Okanlomo Oodua and Gbonka Olubadan of Ibadanland, Jubril Dotun Sanusi, at Ilaji Resort, Ibadan, said the delegation was at Ilaji Resort to demonstrate its commitment to the Tinubu 2027 project and to reaffirm the group’s readiness to mobilise support for the President.

Led by its National President, Ahmed Bankole, the movement said it would remain resolute in its support for President Tinubu and would continue to engage its structures across its areas of operation.

‘We are here today, alongside our state chairmen from across our areas of operation, to declare our unrelenting support for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu ahead of the 2027 elections. We are prepared to defend our territory before, during and after the elections,’ Akinpelu said.

He added that the movement would continue to mobilise its members and stakeholders in support of the President’s political agenda while promoting peaceful and responsible political participation.

Bankole stated that the movement comprised seven state chairmen from the 10 states currently covered.

Speaking during the meeting, Olaolu Akinpelu, the National Chairman, said the delegation was at Ilaji Resort to demonstrate its commitment to the Tinubu 2027 project and to reaffirm the group’s readiness to mobilise support for the President.

Responding to the delegation, Jubril Dotun Sanusi appreciated the Agbekoya Solidarity Movement for the visit and its confidence in his leadership.

The Okanlomo Oodua and Gbonka Olubadan of Ibadanland acknowledged the importance of grassroots mobilisation and the role of organised groups in strengthening political participation ahead of the 2027 elections.

He urged the group to maintain unity, discipline and peaceful engagement as the political process progresses.

Sanusi also stressed the importance of ensuring that political mobilisation remains focused on the interests and development of the people.

Others at the meeting included the National Secretary Agboola Idris, and state chairmen of the movement, including: Olatunji Taiwo – Oyo State, Olufemi Odebode – Ondo State, Gbadamosi Wale Joseph – Kogi State, Kolawole Olodo – Kwara State, Oyelami Abiodun – Lagos State, Asimiyu Buniyamin – Osun State, Mukaila Asebebe – Ogun State, Moses Gbenga Awe – Edo State.

The meeting further underscored the growing political mobilisation around the 2027 elections and the increasing involvement of grassroots and community-based organisations in the electoral process.

APM Terminals has signed an agreement to explore the development of the proposed Badagry Deep Seaport in Lagos, potentially bringing one of the world’s largest container-terminal operators into the long-delayed greenfield project.

The agreement was signed Monday in Copenhagen between APM Terminals, part of A.P. Moller-Maersk, and Badagry Port Development Ltd., during a visit by Adegboyega Oyetola, minister of Marine and Blue Economy, to Denmark.

Under the memorandum of understanding, the parties will enter exclusive negotiations on the development of the port, according to the ministry.

Badagry, on the Lagos-Benin border, is planned as a deepwater facility capable of handling larger container vessels and serving as a transshipment hub for cargo moving across West Africa. The Lekki port in Lagos is currently the only port in the country capable of handling such.

APM Terminals already operates container facilities at Apapa and the West Africa Container Terminal in Onne, Rivers State. The company also discussed extending its concessions at both terminals with the Nigerian government during the Denmark visit.

The 14-year timeline

The Badagry Deep Seaport has been in the works for at least 14 years.

In 2012, when the project was first conceived, APM Terminals was among investors that launched plans for a greenfield port in the area. The Federal Government and Lagos State subsequently moved to formalise the project, with an APM Terminals-led consortium signing a concession agreement in 2014.

The plan at the time envisaged construction beginning in 2015 and operations by 2019, but those timelines were not met and the project did not progress to completion.

The project was revived under a different framework in 2022, when the Federal Executive Council approved a $2.5 billion concession to develop the port under a build-operate-own-transfer model.

Seyi Makinde, the Oyo State Governor and Presidential candidate of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), has said Nigeria’s crude oil resources must translate into ‘real and measurable benefit’ for Nigerians, insisting that domestic crude supplied to local refineries should not be priced as though the country does not produce oil.

Makinde spoke on Monday at the inauguration of the APM Presidential campaign office in Abuja, where he also unveiled his ‘Reset Nigeria’ agenda ahead of the 2027 general elections.

He said his position should not be misconstrued as a call for a return to the old petrol subsidy regime, arguing instead that any benefit from Nigeria’s crude production should be transparently reflected in the cost structure of refined petroleum products.

‘If Nigeria produces crude and that crude is supplied domestically to Nigerian refineries, we cannot continue to price that crude as though Nigeria does not produce crude oil,’ Makinde said.

According to him, the government must make the entire petroleum value chain transparent, from crude production and allocation to refining, transportation, distribution, taxes and retail margins.

‘Government must show its workings,’ he said, stressing that Nigerians should know what they are paying for, who receives what and where inefficiencies are responsible for driving up the final cost of petroleum products.

Makinde said the objective of his campaign was to build a citizen-driven movement capable of engaging Nigerians across different sectors rather than relying solely on conventional political structures.

‘This is our country. These are our resources. We count. And together, we will Reset Nigeria,’ he said.

Makinde, maintained that the ultimate strength of his campaign would not be measured by the size of its political machinery but by the number of Nigerians who identify with its message.

‘They may discount one candidate. But they cannot discount millions of Nigerians united behind a better future,’ he said.

Meanwhile, Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Nigerian Democratic Congress (NDC), who attended the event, declared that Makinde was qualified to contest the presidency, while urging Nigerians to freely choose their preferred candidate in 2027.

‘Yes, Seyi Makinde is qualified to contest for President,’ Obi said.

He said the essence of the political process should not be desperation for power but the opportunity for Nigerians to make their choice and subsequently unite behind whoever emerges through a credible election.

‘What we are doing today is to show you that, for us, we don’t have desperation. We want the people of Nigeria to make their choice. Whoever they choose, all of us will come together to build a new Nigeria,’ he said.

Obi said Nigeria could no longer afford to continue along its current trajectory, given the worsening economic hardship and insecurity confronting citizens.

‘We can’t all continue the way we are going today. Our people are hungry. Our people are poor. Our people are insecure,’ he said.

He urged politicians to make the 2027 contest about solving Nigeria’s problems rather than personal attacks.

‘We don’t want policies of quarrel, politics of disagreement. Let our quarrel be to feed our people. Let our quarrel be to pull our people out of poverty,’ Obi said.

He added that the goal should be to create a country where social mobility was not determined by connections.

‘We want a Nigeria where a child of nobody can be somebody without knowing anybody,’ he said.

Also, Bala Mohammed, the Bauchi State Governor and APM leader, also threw his weight behind Makinde, warning political opponents against underestimating the party ahead of the 2027 elections.

‘Whoever disregards us is doing it at his own peril,’ Mohammed said.

He described Makinde as ‘one of the best human capital Nigeria has ever produced at the sub-national and national level,’ praising his experience in managing resources and his record as Oyo State governor.

‘He is the mobiliser, the manager of resources, an engineer by excellence, somebody who used little resources and did so much,’ Mohammed said.

The Bauchi governor said Makinde’s background in the oil and gas sector and the private sector, combined with his governance experience, humility and respect for others, made him capable of leading the country.

He also described the APM as a platform capable of providing ‘a new lease of life’ to Nigeria’s leadership.

‘We are here to provide a new lease of life to leadership, where we use it with tact, with intellect, with planning, and deployment of resources, and with accountability,’ he said.

Mohammed said the party’s decision to support a southern presidential candidate was driven by the principles of fairness and rotation, adding that Nigerians would be ‘pleasantly surprised’ by what Makinde could achieve.

He declared the party’s governing philosophy simply as: ‘Nigeria First’.

Chinasa Asonye used to wake before dawn to switch on a generator that pumped water into her fish ponds. Some mornings the fuel ran out before the ponds filled.

Others, the noise and diesel fumes were the least of her problems – the cost was.

‘I was buying fuel almost four times every week and spending nearly N30,000 each time,’ Asonye, a large-scale farmer based in Lagos, said in an interview. ‘When I calculated the cost of fuel and generator maintenance, I realised I was spending almost N400,000 every month just to keep the generator running.’

That math, not sentiment, is what’s pushing Nigerian farmers toward solar power. Across a country of more than 200 million people, where the national grid collapsed more than 10 times in 2024 alone and has already logged multiple partial and total failures in 2025, agricultural businesses are abandoning petrol generators for photovoltaic systems – not as an environmental statement, but as a cost-cutting one.

Agriculture contributes more than 20 percent of gross domestic product in Africa’s most populous nation, and food security is a persistent policy concern as the population grows roughly 2 percent a year.

Power, or the lack of it, sits at the center of that equation. Irrigation pumps, cold storage, processing equipment and lighting all depend on electricity that the grid increasingly fails to deliver.

The financial pressure has been compounded by fuel costs. Petrol prices have risen more than 400 percent since 2023, according to farmers interviewed, a burden that smallholders, who make up much of Nigeria’s roughly 40.2 million-strong farming population, per National Bureau of Statistics data – can ill afford.

Drought has added another layer of stress, particularly in northern Nigeria, a key food-producing region. Over the past five years, crops have withered as rainfall has grown less reliable, and few farmers can afford diesel-powered irrigation as a backup.

The result has shown up in consumer prices: food inflation stood at 20.31 percent in the most recent reading, its sixth straight increase.

‘Renewable energy products like solar are something that most farmers are now embracing because of what is happening with electricity,’ Asonye said. ‘Farmers now use solar pumps to pump water, poultry farmers install solar for lighting, while processors are also adopting solar systems.’

The economics increasingly favor that switch. Solar photovoltaic technology has become one of the cheapest sources of new electricity generation globally, a shift that has reshaped power markets far beyond Nigeria and made self-generation more attractive wherever grid supply is unreliable.

‘Solar won,’ Harald Friedl, a circular economist, wrote in a recent LinkedIn post.

He noted that solar was the second-cheapest new power source globally in 2024, trailing only onshore wind, and that prices have fallen steadily since 2010. ‘Solar cannot do everything, but it changes everything around it.’

For Cynthia Ijeoma, a farmer in Imo state, the upfront cost was steep but the payback clear. ‘It cost around N1.5 million to install solar on my farm,’ she said. ‘This is cheaper compared to the amount on fuel.’

She added that farmers are increasingly focused on financial discipline alongside labor: ‘A lot of farmers now understand that it is not just by working hard, but by working smart and saving funds.’

Larger agribusinesses are making the same calculation. Soilless Farm Lab, a technology-driven farming company, has installed solar capacity to keep operations running through grid outages.

‘It has helped us operate in the absence of light from the national grid, while reducing overhead diesel costs used for administrative operations,’ said Peace Okwara, the company’s chief operating officer.

The pattern across interviews is consistent: businesses are not waiting for grid reliability to improve. Instead, they’re routing around the problem, using solar to lower operating costs, stabilize output and remain price-competitive in markets where the cost of running a farm ultimately shows up on grocery shelves.