2 November, 2026.
The Kaduna rally was supposed to be a show of force and de mystification of Mallam Nasir El-Rufai. Instead, it became a scene of humiliation and shock to the ruling APC. As President Bola Tinubu's convoy approached the Township Stadium on October 24, 2026, to flag off his re-election campaign, the crowd did not roar with approval. They chanted "Bamayi"—"we won't support you"—a Hausa rejection that cut through the noise of the APC machinery. The man who had spent three years telling Nigerians to be patient with his reforms had come to the North to ask for another four, and the North had answered before he even reached the podium.
What happened next tells the real story of this presidency. Days after the Kaduna disaster, the Presidency announced that Tinubu was travelling to Saudi Arabia for Umrah. The official explanation was spiritual: he would pray for Nigeria, seek wisdom, and commit his re-election bid to Allah. In a video released after the pilgrimage, Tinubu declared that power belongs to Allah, that He gives and takes it, and that he had asked for resilience to continue serving. It was a performance of piety, staged for the cameras, broadcast to the same Northern Muslim population that had just told him "Bamayi" in Kaduna.
But this is not about a man finding God. This is about a man who has spent three years dismantling the political and institutional foundations of the Northern Muslim hegemony he now claims to pray for, and who has suddenly remembered he is a Muslim only when the ballot box looms.
Consider the record. When Tinubu came to power in 2023, his followers did not hide their intentions. They spoke openly of a new order a seeming crusade against the muslim North. The APC National Chairman, Abdullahi Ganduje, a Northern Muslim, was pushed out and replaced by Nentawe Yilwatda, a Northern Christian. The Minister of Defence, Mohammed Badaru, another Northern Muslim, was removed and replaced by General Christopher Musa, a Northern Christian. The Senate President, the leader of the legislature, is Godswill Akpabio, a Southern Christian. The Chief Justice, the Minister of Justice, the Minister of Finance, with the replacement of Badaru the Minister of Defence—the list of Christians at the apex of power grew, and when Northern Muslims complained, Tinubu's defenders had a ready answer: Nigeria is a secular state, religion does not matter. If religion does not matter, why televise a pilgrimage? If religion does not matter, why perform Umrah for the cameras and release video testimonials about divine favour and try to use that as a campaign chip?
The answer is simple. Religion matters when it mobilises the Northern Muslim base. It does not matter when it comes to sharing power. That is not faith. That is Riya—the hypocrisy of performing piety for political gain.
The Vice President, Kashim Shettima, himself a Northern Muslim, made the logic explicit in June 2023, days before the Senate President election. Speaking to senators-elect at a hotel in Abuja, he declared that "the worst Southern Christian is better than the most puritanical Northern Muslim" for the Senate presidency. He later apologised, saying his words were misunderstood. But the message was delivered: in this administration's calculus, the North's religious identity is a bargaining chip, to be deployed when useful and discarded when convenient. Shettima was eventually retained on the 2027 ticket, but only after a fight that exposed how close he came to being replaced by a Northern Christian. The North had to beg for its own vice president who undoubtedly remains the weakest vice president in the history of Nigeria.
The tax reform bills told the same story. When Tinubu pushed his tax overhaul, the North resisted fiercely, warning that the laws gazetted differed from what the National Assembly had passed, that the reforms would deepen poverty in a region already struggling. The resistance was real, and it worked—for now. But the intent was clear: a restructuring of Nigeria's fiscal architecture that would have hit the North hardest, pushed through by a government that claims to love the North.
Then there is the Sultan of Sokoto. The spiritual leader of Nigeria's Muslims, the man who speaks for the Northern Muslim conscience, has been the target of a sponsored campaign to diminish his authority. Yoruba Christians and traditional worshippers were mobilised to argue that Yoruba Muslims should not take orders from the Fulani Sultan. The Yoruba Muslim Ummah had to fight back to defend the Sultan's position. This is not a coincidence. This is a pattern: weaken the institutions that give the North its voice, replace its leaders with pliant alternatives, and then perform a pilgrimage to Mecca and call it love.
And all of this while the North starves. The World Bank reported in October 2026 that 139 million Nigerians live below the national poverty line, with poverty concentrated in the North. Seventy-nine percent of Nigerians are poor or vulnerable. Thirty-three percent are ultra-poor. These are not abstractions. These are the people Tinubu asked to be patient. These are the people he now says he prayed for in Mecca. The same North that bears the brunt of insecurity—the kidnappings, the banditry, the mass abductions—is the North whose political power Tinubu has spent three years dismantling.
The President has rejected the counsel of the Sultan and Northern leaders on El-Rufai, on the tax bills, on insecurity. He has surrounded himself with advisers who tell him the North can be managed, that the South is united, that a few Northern Christian votes and a rigged system will carry him through. The Kaduna rally was supposed to prove that thesis. Instead, the crowd chanted "Bamayi" and the billboards had to be guarded by security.
So now the pilgrimage. Tinubu went to Mecca, not for Hajj, but for Umrah. Umrah is the lesser pilgrimage, the one that can be performed at any time, the one that is easier, shorter, more convenient. It is not the pilgrimage of stoning. The stoning of the devil happens during Hajj, at the Jamarat, where pilgrims throw stones at pillars representing Satan. Tinubu did not go for that so apparently he can't do that. He went for the photo opportunity, the video testimony, the appearance of piety.
But the question remains. Will he stone the devil of Riya—the hypocrisy of performing religion while betraying the people who practise it? Will he stone the devil of corruption, of the yacht and the luxury cars and the National Assembly's illegal billions? Will he stone the devil of insecurity, of the villages burned and the children kidnapped while he prays in Mecca? Will he stone the devil of hunger, of the 139 million poor he asked to wait?
The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, is reported to have warned: "Any governor who does not strive for the betterment of his people and does not serve them sincerely shall not enter Paradise with them." And he warned: "If Allah places someone in authority over the Muslims and he puts up a barrier between himself and their needs, Allah will put a barrier between Himself and his needs on the Day of Judgment."
It is left to God to decide whether Tinubu has put a barrier between Nigerians and their needs. But God can see what the people see and beyond . The Kaduna crowd saw it. The North saw it. The cameras in Mecca cannot hide it. He went to Saudi to pray for power. But the Hadith asks a different question: did he go to serve, or to deceive?
So this is the clarion call. The North must not be deceived twice. The same crowd that chanted "Bamayi" in Kaduna must carry that rejection to the ballot box. The same people who resisted the tax bills, who defended the Sultan, who warned about El-Rufai, must now resist the man who performs Umrah while their children go hungry. The North must reject Tinubu and his lies, his deceit, his pilgrimage of convenience, his religion of the camera. The North must remember the betrayal: the promises of security that became mass kidnappings, the promises of prosperity that became 139 million poor, the promises of inclusion that became the replacement of Northern Muslims with Northern Christians, the promises of respect that became a Vice President begging for his own place on the ticket.
The devil is stoned in Mecca with pebbles. The devil at home is stoned with votes. Tinubu went to Saudi to pray. He did not stay to serve. And if he stones the devil in Mecca, will the devil not stone him back at home, where the real devils—Riya, lies, betrayal, and corruption—wait for him in the ruins of the North he swore to protect?
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]
Abuja Network News
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