APC Convention 2026 and architecture of renewal
There are gatherings that record history, and there are gatherings that make it. The 4th Elective National Convention of the All Progressives Congress, held on March 27 and 28, 2026,
- By Bamidele Ademola-Olateju
There are gatherings that record history, and there are gatherings that make it. The 4th Elective National Convention of the All Progressives Congress, held on March 27 and 28, 2026, at Eagle Square in Abuja, was unmistakably the latter. In the sweep of pageantry and political purpose that defined those two extraordinary days, Nigeria’s ruling party demonstrated something that democratic governance desperately needs but rarely achieves: a capacity for self-renewal, organised with discipline, and consummated with unity. Over 8,453 delegates poured into the Federal Capital Territory from every corner of Nigeria, filling Eagle Square with the colours, languages, and faces of a federation in motion. Governors, senators, ministers, members of the House of Representatives, traditional political heavyweights, and ordinary party faithfuls all converged, not merely to witness, but to affirm. What they affirmed was bigger than any single name or position. They affirmed the continued vitality of the Renewed Hope Agenda, and the conviction that the APC remains Nigeria’s most credible vehicle for national transformation.
At the centre of this affirmation stood President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Let us not be shy about saying so plainly: this convention was, in critical measure, a testament to Tinubu’s political acumen, his capacity to hold a complex coalition together, and his determination to lead from the front. His address to the convention was a study in the register of a statesman who has not flinched from difficult choices. The President spoke of the party not as a vehicle for personal ambition, but as “a vehicle for national transformation, a home for anybody who wants to build a Nigeria where governance works, institutions function, opportunities abound, security reigns, poverty declines.” These are not the words of a leader exhausted by power; they are the words of a leader still animated by purpose. President Tinubu acknowledged the headwinds. He pointed to steady economic growth, declining inflation, rising investor confidence, and a booming stock market, hard-won gains forged through the crucible of painful but necessary reforms. The removal of the fuel subsidy, the unification of the foreign exchange market, the tightening of monetary policy: these were not popular decisions during their execution. History, however, is rarely written by popularity polls. Tinubu made those decisions with the kind of focus and foresight that distinguishes a statesman from a politician, and the stabilization now taking shape in Nigeria’s macroeconomic architecture is his vindication. He was also candid about what remains undone. He did not evade the electricity challenge, that stubborn albatross around the neck of every Nigerian government. He aso flagged the newly established Grid Asset Management Company (GAMCO) as part of the structural solution. There is something admirable in a leader who can stand before the party faithfuls and resist the temptation to serve them only triumph. Nigeria deserves that honesty.
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The party leaders’ handling of the convention equally merits commendation. The decision to proceed by consensus, returning Professor Nentawe Yilwatda as National Chairman and Senator Surajudeen Ajibola Basiru as National Secretary, was not the path of least resistance; it was the path of wisdom. The APC is a large and heterogeneous coalition. Its continued coherence depends not on the gladiatorial subordination of factions, but on the patient architecture of inclusion. The new National Working Committee — with Benjamin Nwoye emerging as Deputy National Chairman (South) and Ali Bukar Dalori retained in the northern equivalent, alongside a full array of statutory officers representing the length and breadth of the federation reflects a leadership calculus designed for the 2027 electoral horizon.
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Credit must flow generously to the National Working Committee that organised this convention. Convention planning at this scale, involving thousands of delegates across 36 states and the FCT, is logistically formidable. That the event held with the orderliness it did, the seamless accreditation, the stage management, the deliberate consensus processes that pre-empted the rancour that has marred past exercises all speak to the institutional capacity that the NWC has developed under the present dispensation. The Convention Planning Committee, co-led by former Governor Aminu Bello Masari and Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, deserves the commendation President Tinubu publicly extended to them. Governor Hope Uzodimma, Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, Governor Mai Mala Buni, and Governor Dapo Abiodun each of whom played distinct roles in the convention’s organisation demonstrated once again that the APC’s gubernatorial strength is not merely electoral; it is managerial.
The President also addressed the opposition’s assault on the Electoral Act 2026 with the firmness of someone who does not mistake noise for argument. Nigeria’s democracy is not served by permanent grievance dressed as principle. The Electoral Act was subjected to legislative scrutiny, public hearings, and constitutional process. Its passage represents the collective will of a legislature elected by the Nigerian people. Disagreement is the lifeblood of democracy; obstruction is its toxin. The APC’s commitment to credible elections, rule of law, and institutional integrity is a commitment to the democratic culture that every Nigerian, regardless of party, should jealously guard.
And then there is the matter of political momentum. It is no accident that 31 of 36 governors currently stand under the APC’s canopy and that an unprecedented number of senators, representatives, and political figures have crossed from other parties into the APC fold in the last two years. It is the consequence of the party’s ability to court and retain the trust of a significant portion of the Nigerian political class and, more importantly, of the Nigerian electorate, despite internal tensions and the real hardships accompanying economic reform. Tinubu was right to identify this growth not as conquest, but as evidence that Nigerians trust the party’s beliefs and direction.
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I am not among those who think that political parties deserve praise simply for assembling and disbanding without crisis. The bar must be higher. It is no routine achievement for a party of the APC’s complexity and national spread to convene over eight thousand delegates, reconstitute its leadership through a transparent and inclusive process, hear a presidential address of genuine substance, and send its members home re-energised for the battles ahead. That is governance culture in motion. What Eagle Square witnessed in those two March days was not the celebration of power for its own sake. It was, at its best, the articulation of a governing philosophy: that Nigeria’s renewal is possible, that it requires unity without uniformity, that the Renewed Hope Agenda is not merely a campaign slogan but a governing commitment, and that the APC for all its imperfections remains the platform through which that commitment is most credibly pursued. This is not to overlook the imperfections, such as skirmishes with the police by those who were eager to get inside the convention venue. The truth is that those imperfections occurred outside the convention hall and they were caused by those who wanted to participate rather than protesters against the convention.
The NWC has its work cut out. The pathway to 2027 will test the party’s cohesion, its internal democracy, its capacity to translate macroeconomic stabilisation into felt improvement in everyday Nigerian lives. But the convention has done its part. It has handed the party a renewed mandate, a reconstituted party leadership, and a president whose charge to his party was one of the most honest and visionary political addresses we have heard at Eagle Square in a generation. The archive of this convention will record that the APC met, renewed itself, and looked to the future with clear eyes. History will record whether the future met them halfway. For now, the party has spoken. Nigeria is listening.
•Bamidele Ademola-Olateju, a former Ondo Commissioner for Information, is Director of New Media and Corporate Services for the All Progressives Congress (APC)
