Abuja has a way of transforming seemingly routine political exchanges into conversations that echo far beyond the Federal Capital Territory.

On any given day, the city’s hotels, private residences and political party offices double as informal negotiating tables where governors, former ministers, lawmakers and party strategists quietly take the measure of one another.

Alliances are tested over breakfast meetings, political futures are debated in hushed conversations, and a single public statement can alter the calculations of men already looking beyond tomorrow’s headlines to the presidential contest of 2027.

It was against that backdrop that an exchange between former Kano State governor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, and former Borno State governor, Ali Modu Sheriff, reverberated across Nigeria’s political establishment.

Sheriff, speaking on the unfolding realignments ahead of the next presidential election during an interview on Channels TV’s Politics Today, argued that Northern voters would never support Peter Obi. Kwankwaso dismissed the claim, insisting that no individual possessed the authority to speak on behalf of the entire North.

The disagreement quickly became the subject of television debates, newspaper commentaries and endless discussions across political circles.

Yet seasoned observers recognised that the exchange was never really about Peter Obi or any single presidential hopeful. It was about something much deeper. Who, after Muhammadu Buhari, can credibly claim to understand, or command, the political heartbeat of Northern Nigeria? It is a question that now sits at the centre of every serious electoral calculation.

For decades, politicians have spoken of the North as though it were a single electoral fortress capable of delivering victory to whoever secured its loyalty.

Since Buhari left office, that assumption has hardened into political folklore. Across party lines, aspirants continue to invoke what has become one of the most enduring expressions in Nigeria’s electoral vocabulary: ‘Buhari’s 12 million votes.’

To some, it represents an enormous political inheritance waiting to be claimed. To others, it is an exaggeration that has outlived the political circumstances that created it. As the race towards 2027 gathers momentum, that distinction may prove decisive.

The Legend That Refuses to Die

Long before it became shorthand for Northern political influence, Buhari’s electoral appeal was built patiently through years of opposition politics.

Following his return to democratic politics after military rule, the retired general fashioned an image that resonated deeply with millions of ordinary Northerners. To supporters, he embodied discipline, personal integrity and an uncommon willingness to challenge an entrenched political establishment they believed had become distant from everyday struggles.

Across Katsina, Kano, Jigawa, Kebbi, Zamfara, Yobe and parts of Bauchi, Buhari’s campaigns developed an emotional intensity rarely seen in contemporary Nigerian politics. His supporters did not merely attend rallies; they identified with a movement that portrayed him as a leader who understood their frustrations with poverty, corruption and insecurity.

His repeated defeats appeared only to deepen that loyalty. After losing presidential elections in 2003, 2007 and 2011, Buhari’s supporters remained convinced that their candidate represented an alternative to a political order that had failed them. The perception transformed him from an ordinary opposition politician into a symbol of resistance for many across the core North.

Somewhere along the way, that loyalty acquired a number: ‘Twelve million votes.’

The phrase gradually evolved from political shorthand into accepted wisdom. It was repeated at campaign rallies, party meetings and television studios until it acquired an authority rarely subjected to scrutiny. Yet the electoral record tells a more complicated story.

Counting Buhari’s Millions

Official results released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) reveal that Buhari’s popularity was both remarkable and highly dependent on political context.

In the 2003 presidential election, he secured more than 12 million votes nationwide against incumbent President Olusegun Obasanjo. The result established him as the undisputed face of opposition politics, drawing overwhelming support from much of the North-West and North-East.

But the assumption that those votes constituted a permanent Northern voting bloc begins to unravel four years later.

In 2007, contesting against the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, a fellow Northerner and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Buhari’s vote collapsed to just over six million. Although that election was widely criticised by domestic and international observers, the dramatic decline nevertheless demonstrated that political support was shaped by circumstances rather than inherited sentiment alone.

By 2011, Buhari’s support rebounded to more than 12 million votes, reaffirming his extraordinary personal appeal. His eventual victory in 2015, however, owed as much to political engineering as personal popularity.

The merger that brought together the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), the Action Congress of Nigeria (CAN), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and factions of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) produced one of the most consequential coalitions in Nigeria’s democratic history. Buhari supplied enormous credibility and grassroots support across much of the North. Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and other alliance partners expanded the coalition into regions where Buhari had previously struggled. The alliance changed the mathematics of Nigerian presidential elections.

Buhari’s re-election in 2019 reinforced his dominance, particularly across the North-West and North-East. Yet even those victories reflected the strength of an organised national coalition rather than a solitary political phenomenon.

The numbers, properly understood, challenge one of Nigeria’s most persistent electoral myths. Buhari possessed immense political capital. But no election demonstrates that millions of votes belonged to him permanently, or that they could automatically pass to another politician.

North: A Region That Has Never Been One

The temptation to speak of ‘the North’ as though it were a single political entity is almost as old as Nigeria itself.

During the First Republic, the Northern People’s Congress, NPC, projected formidable influence under the leadership of the Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello. Yet beneath that dominance existed competing political traditions.

In Kano, Mallam Aminu Kano’s Northern Elements Progressive Union, NEPU, championed a populist movement that challenged the conservative establishment. The contest between the NPC and NEPU revealed that Northern politics had never been entirely uniform; it contained competing visions of leadership, governance and social justice.

The pattern survived successive political transitions. The National Party of Nigeria, NPN, inherited much of the establishment tradition during the Second Republic, while the People’s Redemption Party, PRP, carried forward Aminu Kano’s populist philosophy.

Military rule interrupted partisan competition but not political identity. When democracy returned in 1999, familiar fault lines re-emerged beneath new party platforms. The All People’s Party, APP, became the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP.

Buhari later established the CPC after disagreements within the opposition. The CPC ultimately joined forces with the CAN, ANPP and others to form the APC ahead of the watershed 2015 election.

The names changed. The underlying diversity did not. Northern Nigeria has never voted as one homogeneous bloc.

Kano’s politics have long differed from those of Kaduna. Borno’s priorities cannot simply be mapped onto Plateau’s realities. The electoral concerns of Benue, Kogi and Kwara often diverge sharply from those of Katsina, Sokoto or Jigawa.

Religion, ethnicity, economic opportunity, education, urbanisation and security all shape voting behaviour in different ways. That complexity has only deepened over the past decade.

The rise of Kwankwasiyya in Kano demonstrated the continuing power of state-based political movements. In parts of the North-East, insecurity increasingly became the defining electoral issue.

Across the North-Central, identity, land disputes and religious coexistence continued to influence political choices in ways that differed markedly from the Muslim-majority North-West.

Meanwhile, expanding urban centres such as Abuja, Kaduna and Ilorin have produced a generation of younger voters whose political priorities are increasingly shaped by economic opportunity, technology and governance rather than inherited partisan loyalties.

If Buhari represented the last great unifying political figure across much of the region, the North he left behind appears considerably more fragmented than the one he first mobilised two decades earlier.

Can Political Loyalty Be Inherited?

History offers little evidence that charisma can be transferred like family property.

Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s ideological influence survived his lifetime, but his electoral coalition evolved in different directions. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe remained one of Nigeria’s most revered nationalist figures without producing an undisputed political heir. Even the symbolic legacy of Chief M.K.O. Abiola ultimately became larger than any individual politician who sought to invoke it. Buhari’s case is no different.

His appeal rested on a unique combination of personality, timing and political circumstance that proved exceptionally difficult to replicate.

The 2023 presidential election highlighted that reality. Rather than consolidating behind one dominant Northern candidate, voters dispersed across multiple political platforms. Tinubu won significant support and ultimately secured the presidency. Atiku Abubakar retained influence across large parts of the North-East and North-West. Kwankwaso transformed Kano into an NNPP fortress. Peter Obi expanded his appeal among younger and urban voters, particularly in parts of the North-Central.

Local leaders now circulate through smartphones, often beyond the reach of traditional gatekeepers.

That transformation has made Northern politics simultaneously more open and less predictable.

Beyond the Myth

The enduring fascination with Buhari’s so-called ’12 million votes’ says as much about Nigeria’s political imagination as it does about Buhari himself.

Political myths survive because they simplify complicated realities. It is easier to believe that one man commands an entire region than to confront the diversity that has always existed beneath the surface.

The historical record tells a different story. Northern Nigeria has consistently produced competing political traditions, from the rivalry between the Northern People’s Congress and the Northern Elements Progressive Union during the First Republic to the ideological contest between the National Party of Nigeria and the People’s Redemption Party in the Second Republic, and later the emergence of the APP, ANPP, CPC and APC.

Each generation has produced influential leaders. None has spoken permanently for every Northern voter.

Buhari came closer than most because his appeal transcended conventional party politics. His personal reputation, military background, anti-corruption message and repeated electoral defeats combined to create an emotional bond with millions of supporters that few politicians have managed to replicate.

But even that support was never absolute. Election results fluctuated according to opponents, alliances and prevailing national conditions.

The evidence suggests that Buhari’s greatest political asset was not ownership of Northern votes but an unusual ability to persuade diverse constituencies to rally behind him at particular moments in Nigeria’s political history.

The Election That Could Rewrite the North

As 2027 approaches, every major political platform appears convinced that Northern Nigeria remains the decisive battleground.

The APC believes incumbency, governance and an extensive network of elected officials provide its strongest advantages.

The opposition coalition argues that economic hardship and public dissatisfaction have created the conditions for political change.

The ADC seeks to consolidate its influence where its grassroots structures remain strongest.

The NDC hopes to expand its appeal among younger, urban and issue-driven voters.

Each strategy rests on a different reading of the same electorate. Yet they all confront a common reality. Northern Nigeria is no longer responding to a single political rhythm.

The exchange between Kwankwaso and Ali Modu Sheriff captured that changing landscape more clearly than either participant may have intended.

One insisted that no individual could presume to speak for the region. The other argued from long-held assumptions about Northern political behaviour. Between those positions lies the uncertainty that will define the next presidential election.

Back in Abuja, where political conversations often begin long before campaign posters appear on the streets, the debate over who commands the North continues in hotel lobbies, private meetings and party headquarters.

Outside those rooms, however, a different calculation is unfolding.

In the markets, where traders worry about the rising cost of goods; in the farming communities of Benue struggling with insecurity; in the lecture theatres of Abuja and Nasarawa filled with students anxious about employment; and in the rebuilding communities of the North-East seeking lasting peace, political influence is being measured less by inherited loyalty than by the promise of competent governance.

That may prove to be the defining lesson of the post-Buhari era. Perhaps the enduring question before Nigeria is no longer who inherits Muhammadu Buhari’s mythical ’12 million votes.’

It Is whether Northern Nigeria has entered a new political age; one in which no single politician can plausibly claim ownership of its electoral imagination, and where victory belongs instead to the leader most capable of earning, rather than assuming, the confidence of a region that has learned to speak in many voices. (Sunday Vanguard)

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