Zulum backs Tinubu 2027 after a Kaduna meeting with women Ulama, citing a North-South rotation deal and a call for patience
Borno State Governor Babagana Umara Zulum told Northern women Ulama and Islamic scholars in Kaduna on Sunday, 13 September 2026, that Northern leaders had agreed to support President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s bid for a second term in 2027 under a power rotation understanding with the South.
Also read:Court delays ADC suit against Mark, Aregbesola
Governor Zulum said the North had helped Mr Tinubu become president and that commitments made across the two regions should be kept.
The South, he argued, should finish its turn while the North prepared its own political future.
He did not name a candidate to succeed Mr Tinubu. He spoke of an arrangement that, in his telling, would later take the presidency back to the North.
“About five years ago, we decided to ensure unity in Northern Nigeria, and we have achieved our objective,” he said. “I speak from the heart, not out of fear of anyone, but in the name of God.”
That is the core of the Zulum backs Tinubu 2027 message. It is an elite bargain described in public, not a ballot. Nigeria’s presidency is decided by voters, parties and the Independent National Electoral Commission, not by a single governor’s account of private talks.
Other Northern figures may accept the same reading of rotation. Others may not. The speech does not settle that argument.
He also asked for patience with the federal government as it faces insecurity, poverty and related hardships.
Discussions among Northern elites, he said, had covered security, out of school children and poverty, and decisions had been taken to improve welfare. “Whenever God tests us with a trial, patience is necessary before relief comes.”
Women were the intended carriers of the message. He asked the Ulama to take similar meetings home.
In Borno, he said, women cast between 60 and 65 per cent of votes. “Women should be given the opportunity to nurture their children so they can live in peace.”
The line “we are not scared,” attached to some headlines, fits the tone of a governor insisting he spoke without fear. It does not turn the Kaduna hall into a naming ceremony for the next president.
Also read:Court delays ADC suit against Mark, Aregbesola
What Governor Zulum offered was a defence of rotation, an endorsement of Mr Tinubu’s second term bid as he understands the pact, and a religious appeal for calm. The rest is politics still unspent.
