By Luminous Jannamike
The Makinde-Daura Presidential Campaign Organisation, MDPCO, has vowed that its candidate, Seyi Makinde of the Allied Peoples Movement, APM, will defeat President Bola Tinubu in the 12 battleground states identified by the President, including Rivers State and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja, in the January 2027 presidential election.
The campaign organisation said Tinubu’s planned visits to the states would do little to change what it described as growing opposition to his re-election, blaming the hardship Nigerians face on his administration’s policies and accusing members of his inner circle of aggravating public resentment through political arrogance.
In a statement by its Director of Strategic Communications, Hon. Richard Nnanna Ihediwa, the MDPCO said Makinde’s RESET NIGERIA agenda was gaining traction across the country, particularly among young people, and challenged Tinubu to test his popularity through direct engagement with voters rather than campaign rallies.
The organisation listed Oyo, Kaduna, Rivers, Plateau, Borno, Enugu, Bauchi, Sokoto, Delta, Kano, Adamawa and Lagos as the 12 states Tinubu had identified for personal campaign visits, claiming the move reflected concern over Makinde’s growing political foothold.
“Mr. President should know that his visit to these states, if he eventually does, will not in any way change the direction or the determination of the people to vote him out,” the statement said.
The campaign challenged Tinubu to travel by road through the states and see for himself the condition of federal highways, the living conditions of Nigerians and the state of public infrastructure.
“We challenge President Tinubu not to have a change of mind but visit the states to face the people. He should travel around the country by road and witness the decrepit state of federal highways, the squalor in which Nigerians live and the level of infrastructural decay across the country,” it said.
The MDPCO accused the administration of spending trillions of naira on wasteful programmes and projects while Nigerians grapple with economic hardship. It also dismissed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda as ineffective, arguing that Makinde’s RESET NIGERIA programme offered a more practical alternative.
The proposed agenda, according to the organisation, centres on an inclusive, four-year transitional government of national unity, with education, the economy, security and socio-political reforms as its four priority areas.
It said Makinde’s economic plan would tackle poverty through increased production, while his security strategy would combine intelligence gathering, social reorientation and kinetic and non-kinetic measures. The education component would expand access to quality, functional education, while institutional reforms would promote inclusive governance and responsible leadership.
The campaign said feedback from its field operations showed that the RESET NIGERIA message was resonating with Nigerians, especially young people, whom it claimed were looking to Makinde for an alternative to the current administration.
It urged Tinubu not to waste national resources on what it called his “Nebuchadnezzar” campaign council, dismissing its members as failed politicians unable to attract votes.
The MDPCO maintained that neither the President’s campaign machinery nor the use of incumbency would reverse what it described as a growing electoral backlash, insisting that Makinde would defeat Tinubu in the battleground states and across the federation.
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