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| Prof Nentawe Yilwatda |
Speaking on Saturday, October 10, 2026, at the North-Central grand endorsement rally in Lafia, Nasarawa State—billed by organisers as the “mother of all rallies”—Yilwatda framed the gathering as both gratitude and a political down payment. Addressing the First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, who headlined the event as Special Guest of Honour, he said: “Your Excellency, the mother of the nation, take this message to the President that North-Central stands with Mr President, North-Central appreciates Mr President.
President Tinubu has done what no previous president has done for North-Central. We will stand with him, we will vote for him, we will support the APC because of President Tinubu. North-Central will repay him with massive votes in the 2027 elections.”
The rally, hosted by Nasarawa State Governor Abdullahi Sule at Lafia Square, drew governors, deputy governors, ministers, National Assembly members, women and youth groups, and thousands of supporters from Benue, Kogi, Kwara, Nasarawa, Niger, Plateau and the Federal Capital Territory. It capped weeks of coordinated mobilisation under the North-Central Grassroots Mobilisation Network, whose grand patron is Secretary to the Government of the Federation Senator George Akume. Earlier stakeholder meetings in Abuja had resolved to target the highest vote haul of any geopolitical zone for the Tinubu-Shettima ticket, alongside medical outreaches and advocacy tours across the region’s 19 senatorial districts.
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Yilwatda’s Profile & the Politics of Representation
Yilwatda’s presence and message carry layered significance. A Plateau State native born in 1968 in Dungung, Kanke Local Government Area, he is an engineer and academic with a PhD in digital systems engineering. He previously served as Resident Electoral Commissioner for Benue State under INEC, contested the 2023 Plateau governorship on the APC platform, coordinated the Tinubu-Shettima campaign in the state that year, and briefly held the portfolio of Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction before emerging as APC National Chairman in July 2025.
His elevation restored the party chairmanship to the North-Central after prolonged agitation by regional stakeholders, a move many in the zone viewed as recognition of their political weight and a signal of inclusive governance.
As a Christian from the Middle Belt, Yilwatda also embodies the delicate religious and ethnic balancing that defines North-Central politics—a zone often described as Nigeria’s “microcosm” because of its mix of ethnic groups, farming communities, solid mineral deposits and strategic location bridging the North and South. His assertion that Tinubu has outperformed predecessors in the region is therefore not merely partisan rhetoric; it taps into long-standing grievances about relative underinvestment compared with other zones.
What the Administration Points To
Supporters of the claim point to concrete deliverables. President Tinubu has publicly stated that the Federal Government is executing 61 road projects across the six North-Central states—five completed, 25 major projects ongoing and 31 emergency interventions under way—describing the scale as unprecedented for the zone. Notable examples include work on corridors linking agricultural heartlands to markets, the Buruku Bridge across the Katsina-Ala River in Benue (long delayed and critical for communities previously reliant on boats), expansions and flyovers on the congested Abuja-Keffi-Mararaba axis in Nasarawa, and segments of broader superhighway and dualisation efforts connecting the region to the North-East and beyond.
Economic reforms, particularly the removal of fuel subsidy and subsequent increases in federal allocations to states, have also been cited by governors as enabling local projects without heavy borrowing. Nasarawa Governor Sule has noted a sharp rise in monthly allocation that has funded infrastructure such as the Mararaba flyover. The administration has further highlighted appointments from the zone into key federal positions and the creation or support of regional development frameworks aimed at closing historical gaps.
These investments occur against a backdrop of persistent challenges: farmer-herder conflicts, banditry in parts of the zone, and the national economic pains of inflation and subsidy removal that the First Lady acknowledged at the rally. She argued that the reforms, though difficult, are designed to reposition the economy and that a second term would allow consolidation of the Renewed Hope agenda, citing gains in healthcare, education (including the student loan scheme) and infrastructure.
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Strategic Context for 2027
The Lafia rally is more than a local endorsement. With the 2027 presidential election still months away (reports have referenced a possible January date in some mobilisation messaging), the APC is methodically building regional fortresses. North-Central delivered competitive but not dominant results for Tinubu in 2023. Converting infrastructure visibility and increased state fiscal capacity into votes is the explicit strategy. Parallel efforts include reconciliation panels within the party, medical outreaches and sustained grassroots tours.
Opposition parties will inevitably contest the narrative of exceptional delivery, pointing to national hardship indices, security shortfalls and the argument that large-scale road programmes are distributed nationwide rather than uniquely concentrated in one zone. Yet the APC’s early, high-visibility mobilisation in the North-Central—complete with the First Lady’s presence and unified gubernatorial messaging—signals confidence that tangible projects and political inclusion can outweigh discontent.
Yilwatda’s blunt formulation—“what no previous president has done”—is classic Nigerian campaign language: absolute, memorable and designed for amplification. Whether the claim withstands detailed comparative scrutiny of past administrations’ capital budgets and completed projects in the zone will be debated by analysts and opposition figures in the months ahead. What is already clear is that the APC has chosen the North-Central as an early proving ground for its 2027 pitch: performance over rhetoric, continuity over change, and regional reciprocity as the path to a second term.
The Lafia gathering, with its mix of gratitude, infrastructure storytelling and electoral promise, marks the formal opening of that campaign in one of Nigeria’s most politically sensitive regions. The real test will come not in the size of the crowd or the volume of the endorsement, but in whether the projects now under construction translate into the “massive votes” Yilwatda has pledged.
Samuel O. Sulaimon is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Naijapiz. He covers News, Sports, Finance, Faiths, Education, Technology.
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