6 January, 2026
by Mohammed Bello Doka
“Leadership is not measured by how long you sit on a throne, but by what you protect while you sit there.” — Mamman Shata, Northern folk icon (paraphrased)
The North did not arrive at Nigerian politics by accident, nor did it survive by silence. From the last years of colonial rule to independence in 1960, Northern leadership was forged in sacrifice, restraint, and long memory. The men who shaped that era understood something today’s political class appears to have forgotten: national power was never an ornament; it was a shield for regional survival.
This is why history matters. And this is why 2027 is not a routine election cycle for the North. It is a reckoning.
A legacy built on sacrifice, not entitlement
At the dawn of independence, Northern leaders made choices that defined a philosophy of power. Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, declined the highest national office and remained Premier of the Northern Region, believing that regional cohesion and institutional strength mattered more than personal elevation. His counterpart at the centre, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, carried national leadership with the explicit understanding that it must protect Northern consensus, not fracture it.
Alongside them stood voices of conscience and ideology such as Aminu Kano, who challenged feudal excesses and reminded the North that internal accountability strengthened, rather than weakened, collective power. Statesmen like Sir Muhammadu Ribadu, Sir Kashim Ibrahim, and Malam Isa Kaita understood that education, inclusion, and institutional discipline were tools of survival in a hostile global order.
They disagreed fiercely. But when it came to the North’s place in Nigeria, they spoke as custodians of a shared inheritance. Silence at the centre was not strategy; it was danger.
How Northern power once worked
From the First Republic through successive transitions, Northern leadership operated on a clear doctrine: national offices must carry leverage. Prime ministers, presidents, ministers, and vice presidents were never meant to be ceremonial. They were anchors—positions through which the region negotiated security, development, and dignity.
Even through upheaval, that instinct held. The coups of 1966, the civil war, the reconstruction years—each tested the North. Yet the region survived because leaders understood that power unused is power lost.
As the Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck warned in a line often quoted in political science classrooms, “Politics is the art of the possible.” Northern leaders of old knew what was possible—and what was unacceptable.
The last era of unquestioned Northern presence
For all debates about performance and policy, the era of Muhammadu Buhari represented the last time Northern presence at the centre was unambiguous. Supporters and critics alike agreed on one fact: the North knew where it stood. The region had a voice that could not be ignored.
With Buhari’s exit in May 2023, a transition occurred. What followed was not evolution. It was thinning.
The rupture: a top office without power
Historically, the vice presidency was a bridge—sometimes imperfect, but never irrelevant. That tradition has been broken.
Today, the North holds the vice presidency through Kashim Shettima. By every conventional measure, he should embody leverage. He is experienced, intellectually grounded, a former governor of Borno State during the darkest years of insurgency, and a man whose loyalty to the administration has been absolute since May 29, 2023.
Yet the contradiction is undeniable: the office he occupies no longer translates into influence.
There is no visible bloc of Northern governors rallying around the vice presidency. There is no senatorial caucus acting as a protective shield. There is no evidence of bargaining power commensurate with the title. This is not conjecture; it is observable reality.
This is not an indictment of Shettima’s competence. It is an indictment of what the office has been reduced to.
The silence that betrays history
In Nigerian politics, silence is never neutral. It is consent.
When previous vice presidents were undermined, their regions reacted—sometimes quietly, sometimes loudly, but always deliberately. Today, the Northern elite watches, calculates, and says nothing. Governors pursue individual access. Senators focus on transactional gains. Party leaders speak in whispers.
What would the Sardauna’s generation have done in this moment? They would have treated the diminishing of a Northern national office as an existential alarm, not an inconvenience to be managed.
Northern political and business elites must wake up now and unite beyond party lines, personal ambition, contracts, appointments, and access. What is unfolding is bigger than APC or any single election cycle; it is an existential test of Northern relevance. A region that fragments itself along party loyalties while power is centralized elsewhere invites strategic erosion. History shows that the North survives not because of numbers alone, but because its elite class once understood unity of purpose. Silence, calculation, and private deals will not save the North. Collective clarity, shared red lines, and coordinated action will.
Let there be no illusion: Kashim Shettima was once a darling of the APC, marketed as intellect, loyalty, sacrifice, and balance. The moment power was secured, he became dispensable, isolated, and politically naked. No shield. No outrage. No protection. If this can happen to a sitting Vice President—quietly and without consequence—it can happen to any governor, any senator, any businessman, any financier who believes proximity equals safety. Power that is not defended is eventually discarded. The North must understand this now, or learn it painfully later.
The question no one wants to answer
And so we arrive at the question that must be asked plainly, without euphemism:
If the APC vice-presidential ticket is this powerless, what exactly are Northern politicians fighting for in 2027?
Influence—or proximity?
Relevance—or mere continuation?
Power—or the comfort of remaining close to it?
Ambition without leverage is not strategy. It is vanity.
Can they endure what Shettima is enduring?
Those positioning themselves for the ticket must answer another question—publicly and honestly.
Can you endure marginalisation without rebellion?
Can you remain loyal without visible reward?
Can you carry a title stripped of its traditional authority?
Shettima has done all three. Many aspirants cannot—and will not. If they cannot endure it, why are they seeking it?
A debt owed to the younger generation
This silence does not only insult history; it mortgages the future. Northern youth—educated, connected, restless—are watching. They are asking: What are we? Who are we to you? Voters to be mobilised, or heirs to be protected?
They deserve an answer.
As the British statesman Winston Churchill once warned, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” History is not abstract. It is watching.
If you cannot carry the burden, step aside
Leadership is not entitlement. It is capacity. If you cannot protect the relevance of the office you seek; if you only desire the title without the burden; if you accept powerlessness and call it strategy—then the honorable path is clear: bow out politely, humbly, and respectfully.
The North will not be conquered
This is not bravado. It is record.
The North overcame colonial domination. It endured the trauma of 1966. It navigated military transitions and democratic experiments. It produced leaders in uniform and in civilian clothes who shaped the nation—Yakubu Gowon, Ibrahim Babangida, Sani Abacha, Theophilus Danjuma—figures whose eras, for all their controversies, underscored one truth: the North never disappears from history; it confronts it.
We can stagger. We can argue. But we do not fall.
Final warning
History will not be kind to leaders who inherited power and chose comfort over consequence. 2027 is not about power-mongering. It is about survival, dignity, and continuity.
If the vice presidency is powerless, the fight must not be for the ticket alone—but for the restoration of relevance. Anything less is a betrayal of those who built this inheritance, and those who must live with what is left of it.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]
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Opinion