For the final leg of the All Progressives Congress presidential campaign rally, President Muhammadu Buhari has arrived in Lagos State, the economic center of Nigeria.
At 2:35 PM, the Leonardo AW139 helicopter carrying Buhari from the Murtala Muhammed International Airport landed at the National Stadium. He was then taken to the 25,000-seat Teslim Balogun Stadium, Surulere, which was the rally’s location.
Bola Tinubu, the APC’s presidential nominee, and Kashim Shettima are the candidates Buhari is in Lagos to support.
A former Governor of Lagos from 1999 to 2007, Tinubu emerged as the APC presidential candidate after scoring the highest number of votes among 23 aspirants in the Party’s primary elections in June 2022.
A month later, he revealed his running mate, Kashim Shettima, a former Governor of Borno State, northeast Nigeria.
The Lagos rally becomes Buhari’s 10th appearance since the APC campaign flagged off in Plateau State on November 15, 2022.
So far, he has visited Sokoto, Katsina, Imo, Nasarawa, Adamawa, Bauchi, Yobe, Gombe, Plateau and Lagos states.
Tuesday’s rally comes one day to the deadline approved by the Independent National Electoral Commission for all candidates to conclude their campaigns.
It also comes four days to the Presidential and National Assembly elections holding on Saturday, February 25, 2023.
18 presidential candidates will appear on the ballot for Saturday’s election.
However, the majority of Nigerians recognise only four of those candidates.
They include the APC’s Bola Tinubu, the Peoples Democratic Party’s Atiku Abubakar, the Labour Party’s Peter Obi and a former Governor of Kano State, Rabiu Kwankwaso, who is contesting on the New Nigeria Peoples Party ticket.
In the past 96 days of campaign, all four candidates have expressed their belief to clinch the Presidency and lead Africa’s most populous state.
Mindful of the issues that have dominated the Nigerian psyche, Tinubu, Atiku, Obi and Kwankwaso have all promised to revive the struggling economy, fight widespread insecurity and uproot endemic corruption.