2027: Running Mate Issue Will Be Done After National Convention, Says APC Secretary

The National Secretary of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Ajibola Basiru, says President Bola Tinubu enjoys an overwhelming endorsement from party stakeholders to run for re-election in 2027, but discussions for the choice of his running mate are not on the table yet.

Bashiru, a former Senate spokesman, said Tinubu’s running mate would be decided after the party’s convention, which is usually held about one year before the general election.

“As far as we are concerned, the national summit held in the Presidential Villa has endorsed Mr President based on his track record, and a large spectrum of stakeholders in our party have also overwhelmingly given endorsement to Mr. President,” the lawyer said on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief programme on Friday.

“The question of running mate is not yet onboard, and nobody has come to say that the president has made any adverse decision as regards the present vice president.”

On Sunday, June 15, 2025, a summit for APC stakeholders from Nigeria’s North-East geopolitical zone became rowdy in Gombe State after APC North-East Vice Chairman, Mustapha Salihu, named Tinubu as the party’s sole candidate for re-election without mentioning Vice President Kashim Shettima.

The omission triggered protests from some members, who insisted that the vice president be included in the endorsement.

The APC national secretary said he was physically present at the summit and what happened wasn’t strange as “people in a democratic setting are born to have different opinions”.

Basiru, an Osun-based politician, said, “As far as I am concerned, there was no issue. I was physically present in Gombe State. After the summit, we had a reception at the Government House.

“Some people in the North East felt that it suffice to give endorsement to the president and then the president will be in a position to decide who would be his running mate in 2027.

“Some other people are of the view that it is also important that since the summit is being held in the North East, the vice president, coming from the North-East, should equally have an endorsement.

“What I know is that even at the national convention where a candidate for the presidential election will emerge, it is only the presidential candidate that will emerge at the convention.

“The running mate issue will be done after that. As far as our party is concerned, we have not made any statement or got ourselves involved in the politics of the North-East.”

At the 2023 presidential election, Tinubu, former Lagos governor, ran on a joint ticket with Shettima, a former governor of Borno State, in the North-East zone. The duo won the election and was sworn in on May 29, 2023.

On May 22, 2025, 22 APC governors unanimously adopted Tinubu as the APC candidate for the 2027 election. The governors also did not mention the vice president during the endorsement.

But Borno South Senator, Ali Ndume, distanced himself from the endorsement of Tinubu for a second term in office.

He said he pitied Tinubu. According to him, former President Goodluck Jonathan secured the endorsement of 22 governors of his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in the 2015 poll, yet he lost his re-election bid to Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC).