More than 8,000 All Progressives Congress (APC) leaders and delegates endorsed the return of the party chairman and other office-holders by consensus in an overnight election in the capital, Abuja, ahead of primaries later this year.
Africa’s most populous country is due to hold national elections on January 16, 2027, in which President Bola Tinubu, 73, is expected to seek a second term.
The APC national convention — held under tight security in Abuja until the early hours of Saturday — took place in the wake of a rise in jihadist assaults on military bases and civilian targets since last year, which has caused international alarm and prompted the United States of President Donald Trump to wade in.
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In some of the latest major attacks, 11 soldiers were killed in an ambush this week in the northwestern Kebbi state, while the previous week, triple suicide bomb attacks killed 23 and wounded more than 100 in the northeastern city of Maiduguri.
Deteriorating security in the Sahel, the vast region bordering the southern Sahara desert, has enabled jihadist groups to expand their activities in northwestern Nigeria, which has already battled an insurgency for 17 years.
The northwest region is also buckling under a wave of attacks and kidnappings by criminal gangs.
Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, whose central Kwara state is one of the hardest hit by recent terror attacks, called for a moment of silence in honour of the “victims of insecurity”.
– ‘Bright future’ –
In a late-night address to the convention, Tinubu did not mention the security crisis the country is facing, but expressed optimism about the “bright future for our nation despite the challenges we face”.
“We will overcome all difficulties,” he added.
When he came into office in 2023, Tinubu introduced reforms that included an end to fuel subsidies and currency controls, leading to the worst economic crisis in a generation.
“We knew the road to reform would be tough,” he said.
Formed in an alliance of several parties in 2013, the APC managed to win all elections from 2015 through to 2023 over the previously long-ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which is struggling with internal splits.
Despite the security woes — which have led Trump to claim that Nigeria’s Christians face persecution, drawing a sharp rebuttal from Abuja — Tinubu is still expected to sweep to victory given the mass defections from the PDP in recent months.
– Consensus vote –
The State-run News Agency of Nigeria said all members of the party’s national working committee, whose tenures were “dissolved” at the convention, were returned by consensus, a process long favoured by the party.
They will lead the party for the next four years.
Party chair Nentawe Yilwatda, a Christian from north-central Plateau state, long troubled by intercommunal clashes, vowed to “build a Pan-African and Pan-Nigerian party”.
The ruling party now controls 31 of Nigeria’s 36 states, up from 21 in 2023.
The party’s ranks were buoyed by a wave of defections, particularly by governors from the southeast and oil-rich Niger delta, regions where it had struggled to gain ground.
The APC first came to power in 2015 when former president Muhammadu Buhari, backed by Tinubu, defeated incumbent Goodluck Jonathan of the PDP, which holds its convention on Sunday.