₦airaland Forum

The Battle For The North: Can Atiku Crack Tinubu's Northern Wall or Is The North Already Decided?
In Naija politics, there is no throne without the North.



Not because the North is more Nigerian than the South. Not because northern votes are heavier than southern votes. But because of a mathematical reality that every serious presidential campaign in Nigeria has understood since 1999.



The North has more states. More local governments. More registered voters in the INEC database. And whoever wins the North convincingly, even partially, has a structural advantage that the South alone cannot overcome.



Tinubu knew this in 2023. That is why sixty-one percent of his 8.79 million winning votes came from northern states. Not from Lagos. Not from Osun. Not from the South-West he calls home. From the North that his critics said would never back a southern Yoruba Muslim with a Muslim running mate.



They were wrong. He won.



Now in 2027, the same calculation applies. And this time, the battle for the North is not abstract. It is personal, it is theological, it is ethnic, and it is exploding in real time.



On one side: Tinubu, the sitting president, who just gave the North's most sensitive security position to a Yoruba retired general while the North is still burying its soldiers and running from bandits.



On the other side: Atiku, the northern candidate, who just won his own party's presidential primary only to watch his most vocal northern Christian ally call him a warlord, a religious hegemonist, and a near-senile octogenarian who is handing Tinubu the presidency.



Welcome to the most consequential northern political battle since 2015.







TINUBU'S NORTHERN PROBLEM: THE HOMELAND SECURITY APPOINTMENT THAT SAID THE QUIET PART LOUD



On May 8, 2026, a circular signed by SGF George Akume announced that retired Major General Adeyinka Famadewa had been appointed Special Adviser to the President on Homeland Security.



The announcement set off an earthquake inside Nigeria's security and political establishment. And the epicentre was in the North.



The appointment marked the first time a Nigerian president had formally established a dedicated homeland security advisory office within the presidency at the federal level.



The problem is not the office itself. The problem is what the office implies about the man whose role it shadows.



Nuhu Ribadu, the National Security Adviser, is a northerner. A Fulani Muslim from Adamawa State. A man who, at the very moment this appointment was announced, was in Washington DC representing Nigeria at high-level meetings with US Vice President JD Vance and Acting National Security Adviser Marco Rubio.



Multiple presidency and security sources told Sunday Punch that the move was triggered by a combination of professional friction between Ribadu and the heads of the armed forces, and intelligence community concerns about the quality of analysis reaching the President. A senior presidency source said: "The truth of the matter is that the service chiefs and the intelligence community are not happy with Ribadu."



Read the subtext carefully.



A president whose sixty percent of 2023 northern votes came partly because of Buhari's northern legacy and the goodwill of northern APC structures has now appointed a southern, Yoruba, retired general to oversee homeland security functions that have historically belonged to a northern-controlled NSA office.



Atiku's media aide Paul Ibe alleged directly: "The NSA's office has been quietly sidelined. Ribadu, who was away on an official trip and simultaneously managing sensitive US-Nigeria security discussions, returned to find a new security structure had been erected around his mandate."



The ADC's National Publicity Secretary Bolaji Abdullahi was blunter: "President Tinubu has just appointed a Major General as Special Adviser on Homeland Security. If he lacks confidence in the ability of NSA Nuhu Ribadu to tackle security issues, why not just replace him?"



Replace him. That sentence contains the political charge the North is processing.



If Tinubu lacked confidence in his NSA, the northern interpretation is: he hired a Yoruba general to supervise a northern man rather than empower or replace him. He chose parallel authority over direct trust.



That is the template many northerners recognise from the Buhari years, when federal appointments systematically favoured northern Muslim structures at the expense of southern ones. The current version, running in the opposite direction and favouring southern Yoruba structures, produces the same grievance from a different compass bearing.



Professor Femi Otunbanjo of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs said the military would only most reluctantly accept a police officer or any other paramilitary official as NSA, suggesting that Ribadu's appointment in 2023 was itself a structural error that the Famadewa appointment may be attempting to correct.



Whether or not that structural argument is valid, the political perception in the North has already formed. The conversation in Kano, Kaduna, Sokoto, Maiduguri, and Yola is the same.



The man handling Nigeria's security in the North is now a Yoruba general, while a northern man representing Nigeria on the world stage in Washington was being managed around.







ATIKU'S NORTHERN PROBLEM: THE MAN WHO CALLED HIM A WARLORD IS FROM HIS OWN STATE



And then there is Babachir Lawal.



On June 1, 2026, the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, who joined the ADC from the APC in August 2025, resigned from the party and published one of the most explosive exit statements in Nigerian political history.



He stated: "I am exiting the ADC because its just concluded primaries were at all levels massively rigged in favour of Kachalla Abubakar Atiku. Results were just written or rewritten to favour him and his coven. Even where they allowed some semblance of an election to hold, the winners were simply replaced with members of his syndicate."



Kachalla. The word is not a neutral political critique. In Hausa, kachalla carries the connotation of a warlord, a gang leader, a man who rules by fear and force rather than law. Babachir applied it to Atiku repeatedly and deliberately.

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Tinubu don't have any wall in the north , it has been long dismantled after the demise of Muhammadu buhari.

The northern blocs has been hijacked by Rabiu musa kwankwaso and Alhaji atiku abubakar.

Buhari didn't have over his 12 million northern votes to tinubu.. even when buhari was alive, tinubu struggled in the north . He got a total of about 8 million votes in all region all around while Peter Obi and atiku got over 6 million each.

If not for Wike that helped tinubu to rig massively in the rivers state , Peter Obi would have won rivers and become the president today.

LagosOrigin:
Tinubu don't have any wall in the north , it has been long dismantled after the demise of Muhammadu buhari.

The northern blocs has been hijacked by Rabiu musa kwankwaso and Alhaji atiku abubakar.

Buhari didn't have over his 12 million northern votes to tinubu.. even when buhari was alive, tinubu struggled in the north . He got a total of about 8 million votes in all region all around while Peter Obi and atiku got over 6 million each.

If not for Wike that helped tinubu to rig massively in the rivers state , Peter Obi would have won rivers and become the president today.

Keep deluding yourself you here, go round the north,the majority elite consensus is that the south should complete its 8 years so they can have power back by 31,if there is any region that upholds the principle of equity and fairness the most,its the northern region......voting atiku will throw up a lot of problems for the north and the entire country and further manifest the mutual suspicion among the major tribes and religion......its that simple and has been the norm even before tinubu does his first campaign.....obi is a mon starter in the north.

An average northerner knows nothing about tinubu appointing an adviser and where in the world is an adviser more influential than the person occupying the office,ribadu has not come out to complain to no one as was the case of azazi under gej before he was eliminated......does ribadu body language look like someone who is unhappy.......quit all your
conspiracy theories.

Keep crying hunger and propaganda,it won't get you anywhere.

Lithiumite:
Keep deluding yourself you here, go round the north,the majority elite consensus is that the south should complete its 8 years so they can have power back by 31,if there is any region that upholds the principle of equity and fairness the most,its the northern region......voting atiku will throw up a lot of problems for the north and the entire country and further manifest the mutual suspicion among the major tribes and religion......its that simple and has been the norm even before tinubu does his first campaign.....obi is a mon starter in the north.

An average northerner knows nothing about tinubu appointing an adviser and where in the world is an adviser more influential than the person occupying the office,ribadu has not come out to complain to no one as was the case of azazi under gej before he was eliminated......does ribadu body language look like someone who is unhappy.......quit all your
conspiracy theories.

Keep crying hunger and propaganda,it won't get you anywhere.

The south will complete 8yrs and it's Peter Obi that will compete the remaining 4yrs.

Someone whose wall of quicksand is crumbling in his own backyard in the SW is banking on an imaginary wall in the North. What did the North gain for making him president when he was resoundingly defeated by Obi in the South? How has he treated the major Northerners that rallied support for him? Where is Elrufai? Where is Ganduje? Where is Kabir Marafa? Where is Kashim Imam? Where is Al-Makura? Where is Danjuma Goje and other Northern senators? Where soon will be Kashim Shettima and even Ribadu?

I can assure you that Tinubu will defeat Atiku. There's no way Atiku will defeat Tinubu. Don't worry yourself. Wait and see.

LagosOrigin:

If not for Wike that helped tinubu to rig massively in the rivers state , Peter Obi would have won rivers and become the president today.

Obidients and delusion are like Siamese twins.
Bro, get help fast

Atiku cannot campaign in more than 3 states. Most of us will die without achieving our main goals or dreams.

Wishing him all the best.🌹

The load of next year election victory will be carried majorly by the Governors. Barring any betrayal from the Governors, Tinubu's victory will be resounding.

That's more reason why he left the Governors to determine who will represent their different states at both chambers in Abuja.

Tinubu being a smart politician had earlier won so many Governors of other parties to his party so that he will have enough foot soldiers to work for him come 2027.

One thing you can't take away from Nigerian politics and election game is money power, the subsidy removal has given our Governors enough money that could go round to mobilise for vote on election day.

As it stands today, Tinubu still stands a better chance to win next year election compare to other contestants.

Even all the Almajiris that will vote in the North will be mobilised with cash to do so on election day and it's only the President and Governors that could provide that.

The little show LP was able to make in the middle belt and other northern states in 2023 was because of Muslim Muslim ticket that APC presented which they feared may not be favourable to them.

PDP is currently in shambles and other newly registered parties are still strange to so many electorates.

I don't fancy his policies because it's too harsh on people but his politics is top-notch.

AMINDA:
Someone whose wall of quicksand is crumbling in his own backyard in the SW is banking on an imaginary wall in the North. What did the North gain for making him president when he was resoundingly defeated by Obi in the South? How has he treated the major Northerners that rallied support for him? Where is Elrufai? Where is Ganduje? Where is Kabir Marafa? Where is Kashim Imam? Where is Al-Makura? Where is Danjuma Goje and other Northern senators? Where soon will be Kashim Shettima and even Ribadu?

Is it possible for Tinubu to satisfy all the northern interests? Should I count northerners Atiku has dumped

Atiku's religion ideology is different from Average NW people. NC don't play the kind of politics both NE and NW are playing

So which wall precisely are you talking about

AMINDA:
Someone whose wall of quicksand is crumbling in his own backyard in the SW is banking on an imaginary wall in the North. What did the North gain for making him president when he was resoundingly defeated by Obi in the South? How has he treated the major Northerners that rallied support for him? Where is Elrufai? Where is Ganduje? Where is Kabir Marafa? Where is Kashim Imam? Where is Al-Makura? Where is Danjuma Goje and other Northern senators? Where soon will be Kashim Shettima and even Ribadu?

Nigeria does not belong to Northerners.


What has Nigeria gained from the fmr Northern civilian and military rule governing the country.

You mean the fake Mus-Mus ticket wall?