President Bola Tinubu on Tuesday received Senate Majority Leader Opeyemi Bamidele and Kaduna State Governor Uba Sani at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa, as the ruling All Progressives Congress stepped up activity around its ticket arrangements and election planning.
Our correspondent saw both men enter the Villa at about 4:20 pm, but the purpose of the visit was not officially disclosed by the time of filing. The meeting came hours after APC nomination forms went on sale, adding fresh weight to a day already marked by movement inside the party’s top ranks.
Bamidele, who represents Ekiti Central Senatorial District, was back at the Villa about a week after Tinubu rejected a push for automatic return tickets ahead of the 2027 general elections. At an April 22 meeting with senators, the president said state governors would determine who gets the party’s ticket, and he repeated that position in a separate meeting with APC governors the following day. Bamidele later described that April 22 session as one at which “far-reaching decisions” were taken on “matters of urgent national importance.”
The timing gives the Villa meeting more than routine political weight. Bamidele’s Senate primaries are fixed for May 18, and the visit comes as APC strategists move across multiple fronts in Ekiti and beyond. The party named Uba Sani on April 26 as chairman of its Ekiti State governorship election campaign council, while Tinubu had already appointed him in February as Renewed Hope Ambassador and deputy director-general for party outreach, engagement and mobilisation. Sani also serves as the APC’s coordinating governor for the North-West.
The open question is not whether the president is engaged in the party’s internal calculations; he clearly is. It is how far the new line on ticket allocation will reshape the ambitions now gathering around Ekiti, the Senate and the wider 2027 race, especially for Bamidele, whose prospects are tied in part to his relationship with Ekiti State Governor Biodun Oyebanji.
Later on Tuesday, Tinubu was also meeting with governors elected on the platform of the APC at the State House in Abuja. The governors’ session was first set for 4pm in the council chamber before it moved to the president’s office conference room and began around 5pm. Governors present included Babagana Zulum, Hope Uzodimma, Inuwa Yahaya, Hyacinth Alia, Biodun Oyebanji, Peter Mbah and AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, while some other states were represented by deputy governors. The agenda was not made public.
That meeting followed an emergency closed-door session on Wednesday with the leadership of the Senate, which Bamidele said came after an earlier closed executive session of the chamber. Taken together, the exchanges show a president pressing his party’s elected officials on how the APC will handle tickets, campaigns and internal discipline before the next election cycle tightens further.
