Southeast leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) last weekend gathered in Enugu for what they called “Izu Umunne,” where they not only endorsed President Tinubu for a second term but also engaged in political self-examination—an attempt to redraw the region’s place in Nigeria’s power equation ahead of 2027. DAMIAN DURUIHEOMA reports
The Enugu gathering of Southeast leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was not a routine political meeting. It was a statement of intent—a deliberate attempt by a region long trapped at the margins of national power to re-enter the centre of Nigeria’s political equation. The APC stakeholders’ meeting, which took place at the Presidential Hotel under the banner of Izu Umunne (family meeting), marked a turning point: the Southeast, or at least its dominant political leadership, openly chose pragmatism over protest and strategy over sentiment.
At the heart of the meeting was the unanimous endorsement of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for a second term in 2027. Beyond the symbolism of endorsement, however, the gathering represented a collective self-assessment by the Southeast political elite—an admission that the politics of isolation has yielded diminishing returns and that relevance in Nigeria’s power structure is negotiated, not wished into existence.
Governor Hope Uzodimma, Chairman of the Southeast Governors Forum and the APC’s lead strategist in the zone, framed the moment with rare candour. He called on leaders to confront the hard truths of the 2023 election, in which the Southeast delivered barely six per cent of its votes to the APC, even as other regions spread their political bets and secured leverage at the centre. In Nigeria’s transactional political system, Uzodimma argued, predictability is a weakness. A region that votes monolithically against the mainstream forfeits bargaining power, regardless of the righteousness of its cause.
This admission is significant. For decades, the Southeast has complained—often rightly—about marginalisation. Yet the Enugu meeting suggested a new diagnosis: that marginalisation is sometimes reinforced by strategic choices. While other zones practised bridge-building, the Southeast chose moral isolation, placing all its chips on a single narrative and expecting national outcomes to bend accordingly. The result was emotional satisfaction but political exclusion.
It was this reality that gave weight to the intervention of former Senate President, Ken Nnamani, who described the Southeast’s endorsement of President Tinubu as both courageous and strategic. Nnamani warned that the region’s long-standing complaints of marginalisation could persist longer than necessary if Ndi Igbo failed to play what he termed “the right politics.” He likened the Southeast’s predicament to crying in the rain—an exercise in futility, no matter how justified the grievance.
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“If you cry in the rain, nobody will notice you. If you want to avoid the rain, you must enter the shade,” he said, urging the region to move away from emotional protest and towards calculated engagement as the only realistic path to influence and equity in Nigeria’s power structure.
From the APC’s perspective, this was the central lesson of the 2023 election. While the Southeast delivered overwhelming votes to Peter Obi and enjoyed the moral satisfaction of unity, the region remained outside the winning coalition and, therefore, outside the decisive room where power is negotiated. In a federal system driven by alliances across zones, moral victories that lack national spread rarely translate into political capital.
The APC leaders’ decision to endorse Tinubu, therefore, was presented as a conscious break from that cycle. Politics, Uzodimma insisted, is “pay as you earn.” No single zone produces a president on its own, and no region can afford to remain permanently outside the corridors of power while still expecting equity. Supporting Tinubu’s second term, from this perspective, is not subservience but investment—a down payment on future relevance.
Governor Peter Mbah reinforced this argument with concrete examples. He described the Southeast’s recent political realignment as a paradigm shift grounded in pragmatism rather than opportunism. According to him, alignment with the centre is already yielding dividends: the Eastern Rail Line has returned to the national agenda; Enugu Airport has been approved for concessioning as an international gateway; and long-neglected gas and energy prospects in the region are receiving renewed federal attention.
For Mbah, these are not symbolic gestures but strategic interventions—evidence that the federal government now sees the Southeast as a partner rather than a peripheral observer. His assertion that “we are not standing at the crossroads of history; we are shaping history itself” captured the optimism that pervaded the meeting. The endorsement of Tinubu was framed not as blind loyalty but as a calculated alignment of vision at the centre with delivery at the states.
Critically, the Enugu meeting did not deny the emotional undercurrents of Southeast politics. The so-called “Peter Obi factor” hovered over the gathering—unspoken but unmistakable. In 2023, Peter Obi swept the Southeast almost entirely, making it his strongest electoral base nationwide. That performance demonstrated the Southeast’s capacity for mass mobilisation when inspired by a compelling narrative of competence and reform.
However, APC leaders in Enugu argued that 2023, while emotionally satisfying, exposed the limits of protest politics. Obi’s impressive vote haul did not translate into national power, nor did it improve the Southeast’s bargaining position within the federal structure. The region celebrated moral victory, but power gravitated elsewhere. In a political system driven by coalitions and cross-zonal numbers, the Southeast discovered that purity without spread is insufficient.
Obi’s recent defection to the African Democratic Congress (ADC) further sharpened the APC’s argument. For Southeast APC leaders, the move symbolises the danger of fragmented ambitions—of scattering votes across platforms that lack national depth. The communiqué’s pointed rejection of “self-serving interests of any individual, however highly placed” was a clear call for discipline and unity—not a personal attack but a strategic warning.
From the APC perspective, the lesson of 2023 is not that the Southeast was wrong to aspire, but that aspiration must be sequenced. Supporting Tinubu to complete an eight-year tenure is presented as bridge-building—a way of earning trust, influence, and goodwill that can later support a credible Southeast presidential bid. Politics, as several speakers emphasised, is give-and-take, not winner-takes-all.
The statistics cited at the meeting were meant to reinforce this sense of momentum. Since 2023, the APC’s footprint in the Southeast has expanded significantly: three governors instead of two, increased representation in the Senate and the House of Representatives, and greater control over state assemblies and local councils. These shifts suggest that the political class in the Southeast is already recalibrating, gravitating towards a platform perceived as viable and nationally competitive.
As Uzodimma bluntly put it, “No serious politician joins an unpopular party.” Each defection, he argued, brings with it thousands of grassroots supporters. The task ahead is to consolidate this elite consensus into popular support by 2027, ensuring that the growth recorded at the top is reflected at the ballot box.
Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu captured the strategic thrust of the meeting when he urged leaders to abandon sentimental politics in favour of numbers-based alliances. In his view, relevance at the centre is restored not by isolation but by participation in dominant coalitions. Increased national revenue and improved federal allocations to Southeast states under the current administration, he argued, are early indicators of what alignment can achieve.
Equally important was the economic argument advanced by the APC leadership. Tinubu’s reforms—currency unification, subsidy removal, and fiscal restructuring—were defended as difficult but necessary corrections to decades of distortion.
While acknowledging short-term pain, party leaders insisted that the stabilisation of the naira, improvements in security, revival of infrastructure, and initiatives such as the student loan scheme represent foundations for long-term growth. Denying Tinubu a second term, they argued, would interrupt reforms whose benefits are only beginning to crystallise.
The Enugu communiqué, with its emphatic language and collective resolve, was designed to send a message beyond the Southeast. It declared that the region is ready to negotiate its place in Nigeria from within the mainstream, not from the sidelines. By pledging to mobilise “massive bloc votes” for Tinubu in 2027, Southeast APC leaders signalled a willingness to back words with numbers—the ultimate currency in Nigerian politics.
Ultimately, the significance of the Enugu meeting lies in its realism. It acknowledges past errors without self-flagellation, recognises present opportunities without illusion, and outlines a future anchored on strategic alignment. Rather than dismissing popular sentiment, the APC’s challenge is to channel it—convincing voters that proximity to power, not perpetual opposition, offers the Southeast its best chance at equity.
In endorsing Tinubu, the Southeast APC leadership has chosen the path of engagement over estrangement. Whether this gamble pays off will depend on execution, trust-building, and tangible outcomes. But one thing is clear: the region has signalled that it no longer wants to be a spectator in Nigeria’s power game. In 2027, the Southeast intends to be counted—not merely as a moral voice, but as a strategic player in the national equation.
