Ahead of the official flag off of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign, the Makinde-Daura Presidential Campaign Organization (MDPCO) has said President Bola Tinubu not to expect votes from the North because he has “betrayed” the region.

Richard Ihediwa, Director, strategic Communications of the APM Presidential campaign, alleged that President Tinubu’s policies and their “life-discounting consequences on millions of citizens have become scarlet letters for which Nigerians have rejected him and his party, the APC.”

The campaign said since President Tinubu decided to flag off his campaign in Kaduna, the political headquarters of the North, “we challenge him to explain what the region has gained from his incompetent and nepotic administration beyond a bumper harvest of bloodshed, crushing economic hardship, broken promises and shattered public trust.”

Ihediwa recalled that at the APC North-West campaign rally in Kaduna on December 13, 2022, Tinubu had declared that: “All those troublemakers, all those kidnappers, killers who are troubling the security of Kaduna and Northern Nigeria, I assure you, we will eliminate them.”

“Three and half years later, under his watch, bandits and terrorists continue to kill, abduct and displace citizens across the North-West, other parts of Nigeria,” he said.

According to the APM, the President’s assurance in Kaduna that Northerners would never regret voting him is now a huge irony as many now have compelling reasons to question their political investment in the APC having been “unpardonably disappointed”.

“Regrettably, nothing exposes the government’s misplaced priorities more than reports that APC campaign billboards are now under protection by security agencies while vulnerable communities remain at the mercy of bandits. Under Tinubu, political advertisements appear better protected than human lives.

“Besides, the marginalisation of the North in appointments to strategic sectors of the federal government reinforces the perception that President Tinubu regards the region as nothing more than a convenient reservoir of electoral votes, courted at election time and sidelined thereafter.”

The campaign noted that no part of the country should be an electoral warehouse to be raided every four years and abandoned after victory.

“Nigerians, wherever they are, deserve more than campaign promises; they deserve security, affordable living, thriving farms, reliable electricity, quality education and accountable leadership. No part of the country must be a source of votes for the powerful and a place of neglect for the powerless.”

“President Tinubu should come to terms with the fact that he has failed and that Nigerians are determined to replace him with Makinde whose Reset Nigeria Agenda offers a clear alternative; people before power, security before propaganda, and public welfare before elite privilege. Nigeria needs a leadership that delivers, not a presidency that deceives,” he said.