by Mohammed Bello Doka
2 March, 2026
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has done it again. In a move dripping with calculated indifference, he has abruptly postponed his scheduled trip to Ogun State—meant to flag off the Gateway International Cargo Airport—and jetted off instead to Jos in Plateau State on April 2, 2026, to “commiserate” over recent gun attacks there. From Jos, the itinerary snakes south to Lagos for Good Friday, then back to Ogun on Saturday, April 4, for airport commissioning and Customs projects, more Lagos infrastructure ribbon-cuttings, and finally Bayelsa on April 10 before returning to Abuja.
Borno, Zamfara, and Kaduna—three northern states bleeding daily from banditry, insurgency, and mass slaughter—do not feature anywhere on this four-state Easter tour. Not a single condolence visit. Not a single high-profile commission. Not even a perfunctory fly-in to console the widows and orphans. This is not oversight. This is a pattern. This is selective presidential presence that screams louder than any press release: the Muslim North, which delivered the votes that catapulted Tinubu to Aso Rock in 2023, has been written off, sidelined, and betrayed in cold blood.
Let us be brutally honest. The Muslim North did not just vote for Tinubu; it crowned him. The Muslim-Muslim ticket with Kashim Shettima was the golden key that unlocked the core North’s massive electoral machinery. Northern Muslims turned out in droves, handing Tinubu the decisive margin that secured his presidency. They believed the rhetoric. They swallowed the promises of equity, inclusion, and renewed hope. Three years later, the betrayal is complete—and it is systematic.
Start with the appointments. Prominent Northern Muslim politicians who delivered their states and zones have been systematically replaced or overshadowed by Northern Christians in strategic positions. Northern Christians themselves have openly celebrated this shift. They praised Tinubu for surprising them with the Secretary to the Government of the Federation post going to George Akume, a Christian from Benue, and the Chief of Defence Staff slot to General Christopher Musa, another Christian from Kaduna. The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) has repeatedly accused the administration of stacking key portfolios—security chiefs, economic revival roles, ministerial heavyweights—with Christians and Yorubas at the expense of Muslims. Five out of eight security chiefs? Christians. Major economic appointments? Christians and Yorubas. The message to the Muslim North is unmistakable: your loyalty bought the ticket, but you do not get a seat at the table.
Then there is the First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, an ordained pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God. Her Renewed Hope Initiative empowerment programmes and constant visits to northern communities have been laser-focused on Christian enclaves, leaving Muslim-majority areas starved of equivalent attention. While she preaches at global Christian forums and leverages her faith for diplomatic charm offensives in Washington and London, the Muslim women and youths who form the backbone of northern demographics watch from the sidelines as resources and visibility flow elsewhere. This is not neutral governance. This is preferential treatment dressed up as humanitarianism, and it stings deepest in the same Muslim North that voted en bloc for the Tinubu-Shettima ticket.
The security neglect is even more damning—and deadly. Borno, Zamfara, and Kaduna have recorded the highest casualty figures in Nigeria’s unrelenting violence. In the first half of 2025 alone, nearly 6,800 Nigerians were killed nationwide in security incidents, with the North-West and North-East bearing the lion’s share. Zamfara alone logged 1,088 deaths in that period from banditry and illegal mining. Kaduna trailed with over 500 fatalities and led the nation in kidnappings, recording 629 victims between July 2024 and June 2025. Borno continues to bleed from ISWAP and Boko Haram resurgence, with attacks killing dozens in single operations and thousands displaced. Compare this to Plateau, where the President is rushing today: while tragic attacks occur, the scale and frequency pale against the unrelenting siege on Borno, Zamfara, and Kaduna. Yet only Jos gets the presidential hug.
This is the same President who faced blistering criticism for embarking on a state visit to the United Kingdom in March 2026, just days after deadly bombings ripped through Maiduguri, Borno, killing scores and injuring hundreds. Opposition voices and ordinary Nigerians roasted him for prioritising foreign pomp over national grief. The pattern is now crystal clear: when blood flows in the Muslim North, the President is either abroad or busy elsewhere. When it is Plateau or the South, he pivots instantly.
And then the ultimate insult—the rumour that has now become open bragging on social media and in political fora. Tinubu’s supporters, emboldened by arrogance, openly declare that the President “does not require the votes of Northern Muslims to win re-election.” They brandish it like a trophy: “The North gave him 63 per cent of his votes in 2023, but he can win without them now.” Some even mock the very Muslim-Muslim ticket that delivered victory, hinting at replacing Shettima with a Christian running mate in 2027 to appease other blocs. Northern APC chieftains have warned publicly that ditching the Muslim-Muslim formula risks losing 80 per cent of Northern Muslim votes. Yet the President’s actions and the loudmouths around him suggest the opposite belief: the Muslim North has served its purpose, delivered the presidency, and can now be discarded like yesterday’s campaign poster.
This is not leadership. This is political prostitution of the worst kind—using the Muslim North’s votes as a ladder to power, then kicking the ladder away once seated. The same communities that risked everything to vote APC in 2023 now watch their children slaughtered by bandits in Zamfara, their villages razed by insurgents in Borno, their daughters kidnapped in Kaduna—while the President flies south for Easter holidays and infrastructure photo-ops in Lagos and Bayelsa. The betrayal is blatant. It is in your face. It is unforgivable.
How dare a President who rode the Muslim North’s shoulders to victory treat those same shoulders as disposable? How dare his handlers and praise-singers openly advertise that the Muslim vote is no longer needed? The North did not vote for Tinubu out of ethnic loyalty alone; it voted on the promise of fairness, security, and inclusion. Instead, it has received exclusion, selective empathy, and a First Lady whose programmes appear tailored to Christian communities while Muslim heartlands burn.
The optics are poisonous. In a nation already fractured along religious and regional lines, this selective presidential presence fuels the dangerous narrative that Tinubu is waging a quiet war on the Muslim North. Appointments favour Christians. Empowerment skews Christian. Condolences skip Muslim blood zones. And the ultimate contempt: the rumour, now repeated with glee by supporters, that the North’s votes are surplus to requirements for 2027.
The Muslim North gave Tinubu the presidency. It expected reciprocity. It received abandonment. Today’s trip to Jos while Borno, Zamfara, and Kaduna bleed is not an Easter itinerary—it is a declaration of priorities. The South and Christian-leaning zones get the President’s time, treasure, and tears. The Muslim North gets silence, statistics, and scorn.
This is betrayal on a historic scale. The Muslim North that voted Tinubu into power is watching, counting, and remembering. Come 2027, that memory will not be kind. The ladder that carried him up may well become the barrier that keeps him out. The selective presence in Jos today is not compassion—it is the final proof that the Muslim North was used, not valued. And the people know it.
The President must answer: why Jos and not Borno? Why Lagos and Bayelsa and not Zamfara or Kaduna? Why celebrate Northern Christians in appointments while Muslim communities are left to bury their dead alone? The silence from Aso Rock is deafening. The betrayal is complete. And the Muslim North—proud, resilient, and now awakened—will not be fooled twice.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]
Abuja Network News
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