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A coalition of young people from Kogi State has paid ₦100 million to the ruling All Progressives Congress to cover the cost of President Bola Tinubu’s presidential nomination and expression of interest forms ahead of the 2027 general election, in what party officials described Monday as an unprecedented show of grassroots support for a sitting Nigerian president.
The payment, confirmed as settled directly into the APC’s account, was formalised at a ceremony in Abuja, where Kogi State Governor Ahmed Ododo presented a ₦100 million dummy cheque to APC National Chairman Professor Nentawe Yilwatda on behalf of the youth group. Party officials were careful to distinguish the transaction from a symbolic gesture, with Professor Yilwatda stating explicitly that the actual funds had already been transferred and that no further contributions toward the same purpose would be accepted.
No formal candidacy announcement has been made. Nevertheless, a succession of APC structures has moved to pre-emptively align behind the incumbent, including the party’s National Working Committee, National Executive Committee, its zonal leadership formations, and the APC Governors’ Forum, all of which have declared support for a second Tinubu term.
The Kogi youth payment is the second such contribution recorded by the party, though it is the first to have been fully settled. Professor Yilwatda noted that an earlier group had made a public commitment to fund the forms but had not followed through with payment. “The first group made a commitment but has not paid,” he told journalists at the event. “These people came with both commitment and payment.” Speaking at length to reporters, Professor Yilwatda framed the gesture in terms that went beyond party politics, describing it as a generational statement about civic engagement. He said the Kogi youths had cited a range of specific reasons for their decision, including what they characterised as measurable economic improvement under the Tinubu administration and progress on security challenges within their state. “They said the economy has improved and that the indicators are looking green and positive,” Professor Yilwatda said, relaying the group’s stated rationale. “They also said Mr President is tackling security in their state, working together with the Governor to address pockets of insecurity within communities.”
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The APC chairman also quoted the youth group as crediting President Tinubu with a series of federal appointments that they said had benefited Kogi indigenes, including the positions of Chief of Army Staff and Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission. He added that Governor Ododo’s own administration had been cited for performance in infrastructure development, road construction, and agricultural programmes, with the Kogi rice initiative specifically mentioned.
Professor Yilwatda used the occasion to reflect on the broader question of youth inclusion in Nigerian governance, noting that his own appointment as APC National Chairman represented, in his telling, the youngest person to hold that position under the current party leadership. “We often say the youths are the leaders of tomorrow, but Mr Ododo and Mr President are saying the youths are the leaders of today,” he said. “You can also see many young people appointed as CEOs in different capacities.”
His remarks positioned the payment as historically significant within the context of Nigerian electoral culture. “This is the first time in Nigeria’s history that youths are not saying, ‘Take us to Mr President so he can give us something,’ but instead saying, ‘We don’t want to see him; we want to buy the form for him,'” Professor Yilwatda said. He went on to address the Kogi youth group directly, describing them as a model for young Nigerians across the country.
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Governor Ododo, who attended the ceremony alongside members of the youth delegation, offered remarks that were largely personal in tone. He described President Tinubu as a leader who had created space for younger Nigerians in ways no previous administration had matched. “In the history of this country, no government has given youths the space that Mr President has provided,” Governor Ododo said. “I am a beneficiary of that.”
The governor did not elaborate on the specific mechanisms through which the youth group had pooled the ₦100 million, and no breakdown of the fundraising process was provided at the event. The identities of the youth coalition’s organisers or its precise membership were not disclosed in remarks made available to journalists.
The APC has not published a schedule for its presidential primaries or confirmed the official cost of nomination forms for the 2027 election cycle. Under Nigerian electoral law, candidates must secure their party’s nomination before the Independent National Electoral Commission can certify them for a general election ballot. The legal and procedural framework governing the 2027 cycle is expected to follow timelines established by INEC, which has not yet published a definitive election timetable for that year.
With the forms now described as procured on President Tinubu’s behalf, the next formal step in the process would require the president himself to submit an expression of interest and collect the forms in his name, a step that can only occur once he publicly declares his candidacy. No date for such a declaration has been announced by the presidency or the APC.
