Nigeria has officially entered campaign mode. Since Wednesday, August 19, nineteen candidates have been vying for the top office in Africa’s most populous country, ahead of the presidential vote scheduled for January 16, 2027. That same date will also see the renewal of all 360 seats in the House of Representatives.
Among these nineteen contenders, three of them women, sits incumbent president Bola Ahmed Tinubu, seeking a second term. Having come to power in 2023 after a first-round win with 36% of the vote, he now faces his first real electoral test as head of state. Two opposition figures who ran against him last time are back in the race: Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi. Their repeated attempts to build a united front against the ruling party have so far gone nowhere, and this fragmentation could once again work in Tinubu’s favor. An opposition coalition known as G-100 is nonetheless hoping to change that dynamic at a summit planned for August 31, where it aims to rally its members around a single candidate.
Winning outright in the first round will require convincing more than 100 million voters spread across the country’s 36 states, while also clearing a demanding territorial threshold: at least 25% of the vote in 24 of those states. That requirement makes securing regional strongholds a particularly strategic battle for every camp.
Tinubu’s party, the All Progressives Congress, has chosen to run on its record. According to party spokesperson Bala Ibrahim, the outgoing administration intends to lean on its « policies, reforms and achievements. » Ending fuel and electricity subsidies, pushing through tax reforms, and devaluing the naira rank among the toughest calls the president has made, framed as painful but necessary steps toward putting the country back on track. The macroeconomic numbers appear to back that narrative, at least on paper: growth reached 4% in 2025, and inflation eased to 15.43%, down from 33% the year before.
Those figures, however, are struggling to show up in ordinary Nigerians’ daily lives. The price of jollof rice, the country’s signature dish, tells the story well: a family of five now needs roughly 18 euros to prepare it, up from 15 euros a year ago, at a time when the minimum wage sits at just 44 euros. It’s this gap between economic indicators and lived reality that is likely to dominate much of the campaign debate.
Security remains the other major issue at stake. In the north, the military continues fighting a jihadist insurgency on several fronts, while local armed groups known as « bandits » keep carrying out attacks and kidnappings for ransom. Communal violence also plagues parts of the central region. This instability could disrupt rallies and candidate travel in the most exposed areas, and may well discourage some voters from turning out on election day.
With five months to go, the campaign is shaping up as a genuine referendum on Tinubu’s record, one where the incumbent will need to convince voters of more than just favorable statistics, on economic and security terrain where the daily struggles of ordinary people carry real weight.