FROM his South-West home front to Katsina in the North-West and Lafia in the North-Central, Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde is mounting a direct challenge to President Bola Tinubu, combining sharp criticism of the Federal Government with a town hall campaign built around his ‘Reset Nigeria’ agenda.
Makinde, the presidential candidate of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), and his running mate, Lawal Musa Daura, are taking their campaign to the people with a simple strategy: listen before prescribing.
The latest salvo came after President Tinubu’s Independence Day broadcast on Thursday, when the Makinde-Daura Presidential Campaign Organisation dismissed the address as a ‘rhetorical exercise’ that failed to provide concrete answers to Nigeria’s economic hardship, poverty and insecurity.
In a statement by its Director of Strategic Communications, Richard Ihediwa, the campaign said Nigerians had expected specific, measurable and binding commitments on the economy and national security but were instead offered broad assurances without timelines, targets or clear policy commitments.
‘It is indeed disappointing that the President’s address failed to present specific, measurable and binding economy and security policy commitments for which Nigerians can hold him accountable,’ the organisation said.
‘Instead, the speech remained vague and failed to provide concrete answers or direction on major national issues.’
Tinubu had defended his administration’s economic reforms, declaring that Nigeria had moved beyond the phase of painful adjustments towards shared prosperity.
‘The emergency treatment is over. The foundation has been repaired,’ the President said.
He cited economic growth of more than four per cent, declining inflation, greater stability in the foreign exchange market, rebuilt foreign reserves and increased non-oil exports as evidence that the economy was recovering.
Tinubu also said the government’s priorities had shifted to lowering the cost of living, increasing production, creating jobs and expanding support for vulnerable Nigerians.
But Makinde’s campaign rejected that assessment, arguing that the removal of petrol subsidy and the floating of the naira had sharply increased the cost of living, weakened household purchasing power and placed severe pressure on businesses.
It cited increases in the prices of petrol, transportation, food, healthcare and other essential goods, as well as business closures and the departure or restructuring of multinational companies, as evidence that the administration’s policies had failed to produce prosperity for ordinary Nigerians.
The campaign also faulted the government’s response to Nigeria’s infrastructure deficit and questioned its strategies for agriculture, industrialisation and local manufacturing. It further criticised the administration’s reliance on foreign borrowing amid a rising debt burden.
On security, the organisation said the President’s speech offered little comfort to communities suffering killings, kidnappings and other violent crimes.
‘It is saddening that the Independence Day speech had no soothing or reassuring words to millions of Nigerian families and communities who are victims of the daily killings, maiming and abductions going on under the APC administration,’ it said.
The criticism reinforced the message Makinde and Daura have taken to their zonal town halls: that the 2027 presidential election will be a contest between the record of the Tinubu administration and their proposed alternative.
The candidates have begun a series of town hall meetings designed to introduce the ‘Reset Nigeria’ agenda, collect citizens’ views and incorporate the concerns of the six geopolitical zones into their manifesto.
Unlike conventional campaign rallies, where politicians speak from elevated platforms and supporters respond with rehearsed chants, the Makinde-Daura campaign says its town halls are intended to be issue-based and citizen-driven. The emphasis is on direct engagement with groups whose daily experiences reflect the country’s economic and security crises.
When the programme was announced, Anthony Ehilebo, Makinde’s Special Adviser on Media and Digital Communication, said the meetings would focus on national stability, citizens’ welfare, accountable leadership and the transparent management of public resources.
The original schedule placed the North-West meeting in Katsina on September 22, the South-South session in Uyo on September 25, the North-Central meeting in Lafia on September 28 and the South-East engagement in Enugu on September 30. Dates for the North-East and South-West meetings were to be announced subsequently.
The South-South meeting was later postponed, but the campaign proceeded to Lafia after opening its zonal engagements in Katsina.
In Katsina, Makinde and Daura confronted two issues that have become defining concerns in northern Nigeria: insecurity and poverty.
Daura described the problems as intertwined. In communities where insecurity has driven farmers from their land, disrupted markets and destroyed livelihoods, poverty is not merely an economic statistic; it is a consequence of fear.
Makinde told the gathering that the campaign had listened to the people’s concerns and understood the urgency of their situation.
‘We are grateful to the people of Katsina State for the warm welcome today as we held our North-West town hall meeting,’ he later said.
‘We have listened, and we want to assure them that their concerns about rising poverty and insecurity are part of the reason why we are calling for a reset of our dear country.’
The governor framed the approaching presidential contest as something larger than a competition among candidates and political parties. According to him, it would be ‘between Nigerians and the APC,’ requiring a united effort to change a system that, in his view, serves a privileged few rather than the general population.
It was also in Katsina that Makinde addressed a controversy surrounding the reconstruction and upgrade of the Samuel Ladoke Akintola Airport in Ibadan.
The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, had claimed that President Tinubu gave Oyo State N50 billion for the project.
Makinde rejected the claim, insisting that the airport upgrade was being financed entirely by the Oyo State Government.
‘The President did not give N50 billion to me or N50 billion to Oyo State to upgrade the Ibadan airport,’ he said at the North-West town hall.
The intervention showed how the town halls could serve two purposes: providing a platform for the candidates to unveil their policy direction and allowing them to respond to controversies likely to shape the political contest.
Days after the North-West meeting, the campaign moved to Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital, for its North-Central engagement. Its arrival was preceded by a closed-door meeting with APM candidates from across the zone.
The meeting brought together the party’s national leadership, zonal officials, state chairmen and candidates for the Senate, House of Representatives and state Houses of Assembly. It offered Makinde and Daura an opportunity to strengthen the party structure while hearing directly from candidates expected to carry the APM message into their constituencies.
The following day, attention shifted from party organisation to public engagement.
Participants at the Lafia town hall included women in agriculture, traders, widows and women living with disabilities. Makinde promised that an administration led by him would design special programmes for vulnerable groups while pursuing broader reforms intended to improve the economy for all Nigerians.
He identified four pillars of his proposed national reset: security, education, the economy and the socio-political environment.
‘The reset agenda can be concluded in four years,’ he told the gathering.
‘We can reset Nigeria. Reset and give Nigeria a new security architecture. Reset and give Nigeria a new path for education. Reset our economy, utilising data science and logic, and reset our socio-political environment in four years. That is our agenda.’
Makinde added that, if inaugurated on May 29, 2027, he would establish what he called a transitional government of national unity, designed to bring new actors and ideas into the process of building sustainable development.
Security occupied a prominent place in his presentation. The North-Central zone has endured years of killings, kidnappings, communal conflicts and attacks on farming settlements. Makinde questioned the Federal Government’s response, arguing that insecurity remained severe midway through 2026.
He also queried the funding of newly announced army divisions, saying he could not find provisions for them in the 2026 federal budget. His criticism was intended to illustrate what he described as a wider gap between government announcements and the resources required to translate them into results.
The candidate extended that argument to the economy. Although state governments have received increased allocations from the Federation Account since the removal of petrol subsidy, he asked whether the additional revenue had reduced hunger or improved living conditions.
Drawing on his experience in Oyo State, Makinde said dependence on federal allocation stood at more than 80 per cent when he assumed office in 2019. His administration reduced it to about 65 per cent by 2022, he said, before the economic consequences of subsidy removal pushed the figure back towards 80 per cent.
He described aspects of the Federal Government’s management of the economy as ‘voodoo economics,’ arguing that larger allocations mean little if they do not produce measurable improvements in people’s lives.
For Makinde, the ability to lead Nigeria would also require stamina and accessibility. He recounted travelling from Ibadan to Abuja, holding meetings in the capital and undertaking a three-and-a-half-hour road journey to Lafia, where he met North-Central candidates until about 2:00 a.m.
The point was political but unmistakable: the presidency, he argued, demands more than ceremonial appearances. It requires the physical and intellectual energy to engage Nigerians and respond to competing national pressures.
Before the town hall, Makinde and the campaign team visited the Emir of Lafia, Justice Sidi Bage Muhammad I, a retired Supreme Court justice. Makinde thanked the traditional ruler for his welcome, hospitality and willingness to hear the campaign’s proposals for the North-Central zone and the country.
At the political gathering, APM National Chairman Yusuf Dantalle declared that the party could no longer be dismissed as a minor participant in the 2027 contest. He cited the number of governorship aspirants and other candidates associated with the party as evidence of its expansion and renewed national ambition.
Dantalle said the presidential election should not be reduced to party labels but regarded as a choice between continued hunger and a new approach to governance.
He warned voters against surrendering their future for N5,000, cartons of noodles or seasoning cubes, describing vote-buying inducements as an invitation to another four years of suffering.
For the Makinde-Daura campaign, the road ahead remains long. A national campaign must convert warm receptions into an effective organisation, a coherent manifesto and, ultimately, votes. It must also reconcile the diverse demands gathered from different regions into policies capable of commanding broad national confidence.
But the town halls and the campaign’s response to Tinubu’s Independence Day address have established the framework of Makinde’s challenge: Nigeria is not working for enough Nigerians, the present order must be reset, and the people affected by its failures should participate in designing what comes next.
‘Our campaign belongs to the people,’ the organisation says.
In Katsina, the candidates heard the cries of communities burdened by insecurity and poverty. In Lafia, they listened to farmers, traders, widows, people living with disabilities and party candidates seeking a different political future.
As the meetings move to other zones, the test will be whether all that listening produces more than a campaign slogan-and whether Makinde’s challenge from Tinubu’s South-West home front can grow into a credible national movement capable of turning citizens’ frustrations into a new architecture of government.