Minister of Information Mohammed Idris stepped before cameras this week to declare that the All Progressives Congress flag-off rally was living proof that President Bola Tinubu is loved by Nigerians — a sweeping assertion made against the backdrop of one of the most punishing economic climates the country has faced in a generation.
The claim will resonate differently depending on where you sit. For the estimated 133 million Nigerians living in multidimensional poverty — a figure the National Bureau of Statistics confirmed in its most recent report — the language of political popularity feels distant from the daily arithmetic of fuel costs, food prices, and collapsing purchasing power that has defined life since the subsidy removal of May 2023.
Tinubu's administration came to power promising a bold economic reset. The removal of petrol subsidies and the unification of the naira exchange rate were its most consequential early moves — decisions that economists broadly endorsed as necessary but which have translated, on the ground, into petrol prices that have tripled, transport fares that have doubled, and food inflation that hit a record 40.53 percent earlier this year before the NBS suspended its inflation methodology review.
It is within that lived reality that the APC has chosen to stage a show of political strength. Rally politics in Nigeria has always operated on its own logic — crowd sizes drawn from party machinery, mobilised loyalists bussed in from wards and local government areas — and the flag-off event fits a recognisable pattern as the party begins positioning for the 2027 general elections, still roughly two years away but already shaping every calculation in Abuja.
Idris, speaking as the administration's chief communicator, framed the turnout as organic and the enthusiasm as genuine. He said the rally demonstrated that Nigerians stand behind their president and believe in the direction his government has charted. It is the kind of language ministers everywhere reach for — but in Nigeria's current climate, where opposition voices and civil society groups have consistently challenged the government's reform narrative, it is language that invites scrutiny.
What comes next matters as much as what was said at the rally. The APC's move to formally energise its base this far out from 2027 signals that the party is aware of the political cost its economic policies have extracted. Expect more such events — targeted at the South-West, the North-West, and competitive swing states like Kogi, Kwara, and Benue — as the administration attempts to convert its reform story into electoral capital before voters make their judgment.
