By Pascal Ibe 

Introduction

The electoral season for 2027  has begun since the start of various parties’ primaries on Friday. 

With President Bola Tinubu from Nigeria’s South-west as the country’s president and the main All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for 2027.

Also, other parties like the coalition’s African Democratic Congress and the third force,  National Democratic Congress, have Nigeria’s former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, from the North, and Peter Obi from the South-east, who are likely to emerge as the main candidates of their parties.

This is to say, ethnic consideration and tribalism will play a major role in shaping the upcoming 2027 presidential election.

Hate speech and false narratives have already been deployed by some Nigerians on social media to malign each other’s tribes.

Claim 

An X account, notorious for promoting bigotry, known as Voice of Igbos, has made a post, claiming that ALL the ruling APC’s leadership is made up of Yoruba people from the South-west.

According to the post: the APC National Chairman = Yoruba

APC National Spokesperson = Yoruba 

APC  National Treasurer = Yoruba 

APC National Secretary = Yoruba

APC  Campaign Manager = Yoruba 

APC Legal Adviser = Yoruba 

APC  Presidential Candidate = Yoruba

The post, which has already generated over 63k views, 700 reposts and more than 2k likes, had people who commented under it, believing that the claim was true.

FactWatch Nigeria checked the profile and observed that the X account continues to deliberately malign the people from Nigeria’s South-west.

Verification

First, we checked the APC leadership positions in the claim on the official website of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and discovered that some of the claims are false.

On the iNEC website, FactWatch Nigeria saw the following positions and the names attached to them as follows:

APC National Chairman Prof Nentawe Yilwatda Goshwe

National Secretary Sen. Surajudeen Ajibola Basiru PhD, BL

National Treasurer Mr Uguru Mathew Ofoke

National Financial Secretary Alh. Bashir Usman Gumel

National Legal Adviser Barr. Murtala Aliyu kankia(Life Bencher)

The names of the APC leaders on the IMEC website show that it is only the National Secretary, Bashiru, who is from the South-West region.

The party’s National Chairperson, the National Financial Secretary and Legal Adviser are from northern Nigeria.

While the APC National Treasurer is from Ebonyi State in Nigeria’s South-east.

Meanwhile, Felix Morka, the APC National Spokesperson, whom Voice of Igbos claimed to be Yoruba, is from Delta State, Nigeria’s South-south.

So this is to say that only the National Secretary and President Tinubu, who is likely to emerge as the party’s presidential candidate, are from the South-West. At this time, the campaign coordinator has not been named.

Verdict

The claim of the X user alleging that ALL the APC leadership are from the Yoruba tribe.is FALSE.