Senator Orji Uzor Kalu has said what many people inside the All Progressives Congress were already thinking, but nobody wanted to say it out loud.
Stop following President Bola Tinubu from one rally to another. Go home. Go to your state. Go to your local government. Go to your ward. That is where the election will be won.
Kalu, who represents Abia North in the Senate and serves as the Coordinator for Parliamentary Mobilisation for the South East, made the call in a short statement he titled “The APC Presidential Campaign Council and the Need for a Leaner Campaign Train.” His message was simple. Let Tinubu move with a small team. The rest of the leaders should stay back and talk to real voters where they live.
The statement did not come out of nowhere. A few days earlier, the Presidential Campaign Council itself had issued a circular to control the crowd around the President. The circular was signed by the Director-General of the council, Senator Abdulaziz Yari, on November 3, and addressed to directors and heads of directorates. It said ministers, political appointees and campaign council members should only attend rallies in their own home states.
That is party discipline. It is not everybody doing what he likes. It is everybody doing the job where he was posted, and staying there until the work is done.
The council explained the idea behind the rule. It calls it the pyramid concept. You start from the bottom, not from the top. Polling unit first. Then ward. Then local government. Then state. You do not start with a big crowd in Abuja or Lagos and hope the votes will follow by themselves. You build it, one unit at a time.
Kalu understands that because he lives it. In May this year, he led more than 4,000 APC members in his own Igbere Ward A, in Bende Local Government Area of Abia State, to vote in the presidential primary. He did not travel to another state to be seen on television. He stayed in his ward. The returning officer at that exercise, Mr. Ulu Onwuchekwa, announced that President Tinubu scored 4,986 votes in the ward.
And that is the problem Kalu is pointing at. When fifty big men follow the President to Kano, then to Port Harcourt, then to Lagos, who is left at home? Who is talking to the ward chairman? Who is settling the small quarrel between two APC members in the same ward? Who is explaining to the market woman in Aba or the farmer in Ohafia why they should vote again? Nobody. The home is empty, and the opposition is busy filling it.
Tinubu himself had already warned that he will not go to every rally. At the inauguration of the campaign council in Abuja on October 14, he told members to take charge of mobilisation across the country while he concentrates on governance. The campaign started with a flag-off in Kaduna on October 24, and the plan is to go round all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, but Tinubu is only expected to personally attend rallies in 12 states.
So if the President is not everywhere, the leaders cannot be everywhere with him either. Somebody has to stay behind and do the quiet work.
The Yari circular tried to enforce that. It said ministers and other appointees are required to attend only rallies held in their home states, to ensure targeted coordination and implementation of campaign activities. It also said directorates without a specific role at a rally should focus on their approved work plans and budgets, instead of joining the rally crowd.
The rule also applied to members of the National Working Committee. Apart from the National Chairman, National Secretary, National Women Leader, National Youth Leader and National Organising Secretary, other NWC members were told to concentrate on party duties and mobilisation in their states and zones, and to attend rallies only in their home states.
In other words, the party was trying to stop the old habit. The old habit is well known in Nigerian politics. Once a presidential campaign starts, everybody wants to be photographed near the President. Ministers abandon their ministries. Appointees abandon their offices. State leaders abandon their states. They all enter the same bus, follow the same convoy, and clap at the same rallies. At the end, the rallies look full on camera, but the polling units are empty on election day.
Kalu is saying that habit must stop if APC wants to win in 2027. A leaner train means a smaller crowd around the President, and more work at the grassroots. He believes Tinubu will win again, but only if the work at the bottom is done properly, not just the noise at the top.
That is what discipline means in a party. It is not just wearing the cap and shouting the slogan. It is staying where you are sent. It is calling the ward executive when there is a problem. It is visiting the polling unit even when there is no camera there. It is listening when people complain about a road, about a school, about a market, about the price of food. Not running after the camera.
And discipline also means respecting the chain. When the campaign council issues a circular, leaders are expected to obey it. When Yari signs a guideline, it is not a suggestion for those who feel like obeying. It is an instruction. Kalu’s statement was therefore not just advice. It was a reminder that the party has already spoken, and leaders should follow it.
There is another reason the party wants this discipline. The rallies are not only for Tinubu. The council said it wants to use the rallies to raise the visibility of APC candidates for state assemblies, House of Representatives and Senate. If all the big men crowd around Tinubu, the local candidates are pushed to the back. If the big men stay in their states, the local candidates can be seen, heard, and supported by their own people.
Kalu’s own history gives weight to his words. He is not a newcomer asking others to do what he has never done. He was governor of Abia State, former Senate Chief Whip, and now chairman of the Senate Committee on the South East Development Commission. He has contested elections in his zone many times, and he knows that Abia North is not won in Abuja. It is won in the 57 wards of the district, one after the other.
The question now is whether APC leaders will listen. In Nigerian politics, discipline is easy to preach and hard to practise. Many leaders like the prestige of being in the President’s entourage. It gives them access, photographs, and a feeling of importance. Going back to the ward is slower, harder, and less glamorous. It does not trend on social media.
But elections in Nigeria are not won in the stadium. The stadium is just noise for one day. Elections are won in the ward, on the day people walk to their polling unit and decide whether they trust you enough to vote for you again. If the ward chairman does not know your face, if the polling unit agent has not been trained, if the local quarrel has not been settled, no amount of rally music will save you.
If APC leaders listen to Kalu and obey the Yari circular, they will stop the rally-hopping and go back to their bases. If they do not, they will come back in 2027 and wonder where the votes went. The votes will not be in the convoy. They will be at home, waiting for somebody who stayed behind to talk to them.
