The presidential candidate of the Allied People’s Movement and Governor of Oyo State, Seyi Makinde, on Thursday announced former Director-General of the Department of State Services, Lawal Daura, as his running mate for the 2027 presidential election.
Makinde announced this at the elective national convention of the APM held at the Rilwanu Adamu Square, Government House, Bauchi.
Lawal replaces Ibrahim Bala, who was earlier announced as Makinde’s running mate, but was intended to be a placeholder. The former DSS DG joined the APM a few days ago after resigning from the African Democratic Congress after losing the Katsina ADC governorship ticket.
Speaking on Daura’s choice, Makinde disclosed that he was deliberately chosen to solve the security situation of the country.
At the convention, Yusuf Dantalle was re-elected as the national chairman of the APM.
Speaking at the convention, Makinde declared that the task before the opposition ahead of the 2027 general election was bigger than merely winning power. He said the central challenge was to give Nigerians a genuine choice about the future of the country and demonstrate, with measurable plans and records, how an alternative government would improve their lives.
Congratulating the new national officers elected at the convention, Makinde said the APM had, within a short period, emerged as an opposition party to reckon with. He urged the new leadership of the party to work with other opposition political parties towards presenting a credible alternative to Nigerians in 2027, stressing that a viable opposition remained indispensable to the survival of democracy. He recalled his earlier remarks during the Ibadan Declaration in April, where he had argued that the presence of credible opposition is what sustains democracy, urging the new leadership to work with other opposition parties to give Nigerians a credible alternative in 2027.
Makinde said the coming campaign season would inevitably feature political slogans, promises and declarations by candidates but argued that Nigerians should demand more from those seeking to lead them. According to him, the 2027 election should be about measurable outcomes rather than government announcements, policies and promises that do not translate into improvements in the lives of citizens. He said governance had for too long been measured by announcements and policy after policy, rather than by evidence of whether those policies had actually improved people’s lives.
Using the experiences of ordinary Nigerians to illustrate his point, Makinde said economic policies should ultimately be measured by citizens’ purchasing power rather than official statistics, noting that when mothers go to the market, they experience economic policy not as a statistic but through what their money can buy in terms of rice, beans and garri.
He added that young Nigerians would judge employment policies by their ability to secure productive work and build independent lives, just as farmers would assess agricultural policies by their productivity, access to markets and whether farming had improved their economic condition.
On security, Makinde said the effectiveness of government should not be determined by the number of security meetings held by officials but by whether Nigerians could live and pursue their livelihoods without fear, stressing that families judge security not by meetings but by whether they can travel, farm, work and sleep peacefully.
The APM candidate said the defining question of the 2027 election should therefore shift from what government claimed to have done to what had actually changed in the lives of Nigerians. He added that opposition candidates must equally subject themselves to scrutiny by explaining what they would do differently and the measurable improvements Nigerians should expect if they were elected.
Makinde said his administration had applied the same principle in Oyo State by focusing not merely on projects announced by government but on their impact on the people. He identified poverty reduction, job creation, education, healthcare and security as some of the major issues that should dominate the 2027 political conversation, stressing the need to discuss an economy that moves over 140 million Nigerians out of poverty, productive job opportunities for the country’s youthful population, education that prepares children for the future, accessible healthcare, and security that protects Nigerians wherever they live.
Makinde also called for a restructuring of the Nigerian federation to bring more powers, decisions and resources closer to the people. According to him, the country could not realise its full potential under an arrangement in which decisions that ought to be taken at state and local levels had to wait for Abuja, arguing for a federation where more decisions and resources are devolved closer to the people, alongside greater accountability for results.
The governor also identified the erosion of trust between citizens and their leaders as a major challenge confronting the country’s democracy, saying Nigerians must be able to believe that commitments made by political leaders mean something. He advocated a different political culture in which disagreements would not turn political opponents into enemies and opposition would go beyond the desire to remove incumbents from office, describing a politics where parties that may not agree on everything can nevertheless agree that Nigeria must work better for its people.
He challenged candidates seeking Nigerians’ votes in 2027 to submit their records and proposals to public scrutiny and make the election a contest of ideas and measurable plans, urging that the campaign be built around evidence, comparison of records and measurable plans, with every candidate expected to answer how the lives of Nigerians would be better because they were given the opportunity to lead.
Makinde maintained that making that question the defining issue of the 2027 election would strengthen the country’s democracy irrespective of the political platforms on which the candidates contest.
In his remarks, Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed, who was inaugurated as the national leader of the party, expressed confidence in Makinde and Daura’s presidential ticket. Mohammed described Makinde as the best presidential candidate for Nigeria, while expressing optimism that the party would provide an all-inclusive government if elected. He said the recognition given to him as national leader came with enormous responsibility, promising that the party’s leadership would not disappoint its members and supporters.
He added that Makinde’s engineering background would be an advantage in addressing the country’s development challenges, describing the party as putting the right people in the right roles, with an engineer by profession as its presidential candidate, backed by administrators.
Mohammed also promised that the APM would work towards accommodating Nigerians across different backgrounds and provide inclusive leadership.
Speaking after his re-election, Dantalle said Nigeria had the resources and potential to become a prosperous nation but had been hindered by leadership challenges. He called on Nigerians across the six geopolitical zones, ethnic and religious divides, to identify with the APM and support its ambition of building a stronger and more prosperous country, stressing that Nigerians were not meant to be slaves in their own country given the greatness God had endowed it with.
Dantalle said the APM was determined to emerge as a formidable national political movement capable of producing leaders Nigerians could trust. He urged members and supporters of the party to take its message of hope, unity, development and democratic renewal to every local government, state and community, describing this grassroots outreach effort as a mobilisation drive meant to spread awareness of the party until every Nigerian comes to know APM as a viable option.
The national chairman expressed confidence that the party would succeed in the 2027 elections, saying its unity of purpose, clear vision and commitment to Nigerians would position it for victory.
