Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State has said he has no political godfather other than God, as he took his 2027 presidential campaign to Jos at the weekend ahead of a rally in the Plateau State capital.
Makinde, the presidential candidate of the Allied Peoples Movement, made the remark at a service of the Church of Christ in Nations in Jos, where he presented his Reset Nigeria manifesto to the church leadership. He said the country needed a governance reset to confront the hardship of recent years, pointing in particular to the economic strain of the past three and a half years.
He recalled his own rise in Oyo politics, saying that when he first sought the governorship in 2018 he was asked who would stand in for him without a godfather. His answer then, he said, was that he had God the Father, and that the same faith now anchored his presidential bid. “I have God the Father, and I became the governor of Oyo State,” he told the congregation.
Presenting the document, Makinde challenged Nigerians to hold him to account through written commitments rather than spoken promises, saying everything in the plan was set down clearly and that he was ready to be judged by it. His campaign unveiled the manifesto in Abuja on 4 November. It rests on four pillars: resetting the economy, restructuring the country’s security architecture, reforming education and overhauling the socio-political system.
Makinde has framed his proposed tenure as a single, transitional term of four years, saying he would not seek to benefit personally from the office. He has said the agenda was shaped by town hall consultations across the six geopolitical zones. His running mate is Lawal Daura, a former Director General of the Department of State Services, and the ticket campaigns as the Makinde-Daura Campaign Organisation.
The Jos visit is part of a wider effort to build a national profile for a candidacy that began in controversy. Makinde, who was elected governor on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party in 2019 and is serving out his second term, declared his ambition in May and signed a memorandum of understanding to run on the APM platform. The move came amid a prolonged leadership crisis in the PDP and was followed by the defection of six Oyo State members of the House of Representatives loyal to him, alongside other realignments before the polls.
The ambition has drawn sharp resistance. The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, a leading figure in the rival PDP camp, has dismissed the bid as dead on arrival and described the reported PDP and APM alliance as fraudulent and unknown to the electoral commission. Some of the governor’s former associates in Oyo have also left the APM for the ruling All Progressives Congress. At the same time, APM chapters in several states and a faction of the PDP have publicly endorsed him, and the party says cross-party support is widening.
The reset message leans heavily on economic discontent. Although headline inflation has eased from above 24 per cent in mid-2025 to about 15.4 per cent by July 2026, according to official data, food and fuel prices remain high, and the average pump price of petrol has swung between roughly N1,030 and N1,530 per litre through 2026. Makinde has accused the Tinubu administration of taxing poverty and has promised relief on living costs, security and jobs, though he is yet to spell out in figures how a four-year reset would be financed.
Responding at the service, the COCIN President, Rev. Dr. Amos Musa Mohzo, drew the governor’s attention to worsening insecurity and economic hardship and prayed for his campaign. Makinde is due to address an APM rally at Rayfield Park in Jos, a sign that the party means to contest visibly in the north central zone as the race takes shape.