The presidential candidate of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) and Governor of Oyo State, Seyi Makinde, has chosen former Director-General of the Department of State Services (DSS), Lawal Musa Daura, as his running mate for the 2027 presidential election.
Makinde unveiled Daura on Thursday at the APM’s national elective convention held at the Rilwanu Adamu Square, Government House, Bauchi, formally presenting a ticket that places security at the centre of the party’s campaign strategy.
Daura’s emergence marks a change from the earlier nomination of Ibrahim Adamu Bala, whose selection had been regarded as a placeholder arrangement. The former intelligence chief, who headed the DSS from 2015 to 2018, recently joined the APM after leaving the African Democratic Congress (ADC), where he had sought the Katsina governorship ticket.
Makinde’s decision to settle on Daura appears designed to give the APM presidential ticket a strong security profile at a time when insecurity remains one of the most pressing issues in Nigeria’s political discourse.
The governor has positioned the 2027 election as a contest that should be judged not by campaign rhetoric or government announcements, but by measurable improvements in the lives and livelihoods of Nigerians.
At the Bauchi convention, Makinde said the opposition’s responsibility ahead of the election extended beyond simply defeating the ruling party. He argued that opposition parties must offer Nigerians a credible alternative backed by practical policies, verifiable records and clearly defined targets.
He identified employment, poverty reduction, education, healthcare, agriculture and national security as issues that should dominate the political debate ahead of 2027.
According to the governor, the effectiveness of any administration should ultimately be measured by its impact on ordinary citizens. Young Nigerians, he said, should be able to judge economic policies by the jobs and opportunities they create, while farmers should assess agricultural programmes by improved productivity, access to markets and better incomes.
Security, he maintained, should similarly be measured by whether Nigerians can travel, work, farm and conduct their businesses without fear, rather than by the number of meetings held by government officials.
Makinde also renewed his call for the restructuring of the Nigerian federation, advocating the devolution of more powers, responsibilities and resources to states and local governments.
He argued that Nigeria’s development would remain constrained if decisions that could be taken closer to the people continued to depend excessively on authorities in Abuja.
Beyond institutional reforms, the governor identified declining public trust in political leadership as another major challenge facing the country’s democracy. He called for a political culture in which electoral opponents could disagree without becoming enemies and where opposition politics was driven by competing ideas rather than simply the desire to dislodge incumbents.
The APM convention also produced changes in the party’s leadership structure.
Yusuf Mamman Dantalle was re-elected as national chairman, while Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed, was inaugurated as the party’s national leader. Vanguard reported that Mohammed endorsed the Makinde-Daura ticket, presenting it as a combination of administrative experience and security expertise.
Dantalle, in his post-election remarks, stressed the need for the party to expand beyond its existing political base and build a broad national coalition ahead of the 2027 polls.
He maintained that Nigeria possesses the human and natural resources required to become a prosperous country but has struggled to translate its potential into broad-based development because of persistent leadership challenges.
The APM chairman called on Nigerians across the country’s six geopolitical zones, as well as across ethnic, religious and regional divides, to support the party’s campaign for what he described as a stronger, more prosperous and inclusive Nigeria.
The party’s leadership expressed confidence that its unity, national outlook and proposed policy direction would position it as a credible force in the 2027 presidential contest.
For Makinde, however, the central challenge appears to be convincing Nigerians that the APM can transform its promises into measurable outcomes.
With the selection of Daura, a former intelligence chief, the party has also made clear that national security will be one of the defining pillars of its presidential campaign.
The Makinde-Daura ticket now enters a political landscape expected to become increasingly competitive as opposition parties seek alliances and broader coalitions ahead of the 2027 general election.
