President Bola Tinubu has set a hard target for Ondo State. He wants at least 1.2 million votes from the state in the 16 January 2027 presidential election. Tinubu spoke at the APC presidential campaign rally in Akure on Wednesday. Vice President Kashim Shettima represented him. The state has 2.1 million registered voters. About 1.8 million have collected their Permanent Voter Cards. “It is our expectation that Ondo should be able to deliver 1.2 million votes out of the 1.8 million PVCs collected so far,” Tinubu said.
The target is ambitious. In the 2023 presidential election, Tinubu won Ondo with about 370,000 votes. The 1.2 million target is more than triple that figure. It also requires a turnout of about two-thirds of collected PVCs. Ondo’s turnout in 2023 was far lower. The rally was as much about party mechanics as about voter persuasion. Tinubu asked Ondo APC to unite behind Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa as his state campaign coordinator. Aiyedatiwa promised at least one million votes. The campaign director general, Abdulaziz Yari, said one million was too small.
Tinubu also used the rally to attack the opposition. He said Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi were campaigning on social media. He argued that Atiku lacks support from former governors in Adamawa. He said Obi lacks backing from former and current governors in Anambra. “That you have the ability to import cheap wine from South Africa, does not mean you can govern Nigeria,” Tinubu said of Obi. The remarks signal a campaign built on elite consensus, not policy debate. The historical echo is the 2015 and 2019 campaigns, when the APC relied on governor-level alliances to deliver bloc votes. That strategy worked when the party controlled more states. It is harder now that the opposition has its own governors and structures.
Winners: The Tinubu campaign, which gains a public benchmark; Governor Aiyedatiwa, who consolidates control of Ondo APC; party leaders who can claim credit if the target is met.
Losers: Opposition parties, which face a hostile state machinery; voters who may face pressure to meet an arbitrary target; INEC, if turnout becomes a test of political loyalty rather than civic choice.
Bottom Line: Tinubu has turned Ondo into a test of his campaign machinery. The votes will measure whether the APC can still deliver blocs, or whether 2027 will be decided by a more fragmented electorate.