TAJUDEEN ABBAS AND HIS ZARIA INDABA FOR TINUBU’S 2027

By Philip Agbese

There is a clear difference between an organic mammoth crowd and a rented crowd. The organic mammoth crowd is a very huge crowd that shows up unsolicited, unpaid, and uncoerced. This crowd grows out from the real, audacious buy-in, not artificial mobilization.

Basically, the structure of an organic mammoth crowd is tied to the attendance of traditional rulers, market women, children, clerics, youth leaders, and grassroots structures. They are there because they have a stake in what is taking place. It is a proof of intactness, and a powerful currency. This is what the South Africans call an “indaba.”

It was indeed an indaba in Zaria, when the Rt. Honourable Speaker, Rt. Hon. Tajudeen Abbas, PhD, GCON, made the grand declaration reaffirming support for President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, and the All Progressives Congress (APC), ahead of the 2027 general election.

I must confess that I have not seen this Zaria crowd anywhere in Nigeria before. We all had the mindset that the usual northern crowd died when former President Buhari went to be with the Lord. Alas, I was wrong.

For a man whose performance at the National Assembly has been nothing less than superlative, the rally, turned into an Indaba — a gathering of intent — was however not strange.

Since June 2023, when he became the Hon. Speaker of the 10th Assembly, Rt. Hon. Tajudeen Abbas has leveraged the national budget and his connections to carry out gigantic interventions in his Zaria Federal Constituency and across the entire North West.

Given the 25 road projects that have been fully completed and the 18 more that are slated for commencement soon, along with the various police stations built or upgraded across the length and breadth of the constituency, TJ Abbas has spoken for himself. He has demonstrated his avowed commitment to both the fight against insecurity and improved interconnectivity, so much so that the indaba is a powerful symbol.

Few people are aware of the construction of various Primary Health Centres, including those in Bizaro and Dambo wards which have been fully equipped with state-of-the-art medical supplies, all initiated by him. Neither are they informed of the modern ICT Centres in Amaru and Kwarbai A ward.

The people of Abba village had to flow out in their thousands to that historic 10km road march because the reconstruction of the bridge that links them to the rest of the world — which was destroyed since 2014 — remains indelible in their hearts.

In the same vein, the hundreds of thousands of farmers who came out did so because they could easily associate the gathering with the over 80,000 bags of fertilizers, thousands of farm inputs, equipment, and the two-year supply of farm seedlings distributed to them by Rt. Hon. Tajudeen Abbas.

Again, the 1,865 constituents, including those from Zaria Zone 1 and Nuhu Babajo Stadium, who have benefited from the distribution of motorcycles initiated by Rt. Hon. Tajudeen Abbas remain grateful to his gracious magnanimity and had to come out to attest to this.

The thousands of civil servants and non-traditional students, out of the over 500,000 strong voters’ population of one of the strongest constituencies in Nigeria, that turned out did so in response to the National Open University Campus sited in the constituency, which now grants them easy and uninterrupted access to affordable university education. Meanwhile, the hundreds of lawyers who attended did so out of the fact that they have variously benefitted from the College of Legal Studies located in Zaria, an initiative of Rt. Hon. Tajudeen Abbas.

It is indeed noteworthy to state that the thousands of school children and hundreds of teachers came to give their support to a man who brought them a new initiative of enhanced leadership development, enhanced teachers’ productivity through the Teachers’ Education Fund, and also renovated hundreds of schools, changing the learning and teaching environment favourably.

Mr. Speaker will remain an enigma and a very strong formidable political force, not just in Zaria Federal Constituency but in the entire North West because of the over 50 billion Naira allocation that he attracted into the 2025 budget for sundry projects across 8 LGAs in Kaduna North Senatorial District, including ABA, Kasu, College of Education, and Gidan Waya.

Distinctively, using his clout and congruence, Rt. Hon. Tajudeen Abbas as the Speaker of the 10th Assembly institutionalised the North West development plan beyond his Zaria home to the entire North West by concretising the Bill that created the North West Development Commission (NWDC). He also ensured the inauguration of the House Committee to oversee it.

He did not stop there but also made sure the Commission has a comprehensive Needs Assessment, inclusive of a 10-year strategic plan. In doing all these, he neither conferred with flesh and blood but instead publicly demonstrated strong deliberate action towards tackling the insecurity, poverty, and infrastructural decay within the region.

As the distinguished Hon. Speaker, Rt. Hon. Abbas remains the instrument for the passage of more Bills than any other House since 1999, and has personally sponsored more legislations on insecurity, agricultural policies, pharmaceutical regulations, and the resolution of ASUU-FG disputes than any other legislator. For these, the people of Zaria Federal Constituency are not just extremely proud of him but are willing to follow his direction.

His grassroots mobilisation and strategic influence in attracting several key federal government appointments and his unique partnership with his state governor, Governor Uba Sani, which has led to the establishment of several unprecedented development projects, programs and interventions in Kaduna and Zaria is not unnoticed by his constituents but has drawn applause, commitment and acceptability from them.

The Zaria crowd was therefore not an accident. They were there because TJ, as he is fondly called, has turned up when nobody did. They came in their thousands because Rt. Hon. Abbas turned the office of the Speaker into a delivery multipurpose vehicle. And now he came with a simple message, which they were all willing to listen to and act upon: “the North, after Buhari, is still here, and we are with President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu into 2027”.

The myth of a ‘Dead’ Northern crowd is only an assumption proven wrong by Rt. Hon. Tajudeen Abbas. The gathering was not a nostalgia to Late President Buhari; it was instead an alignment around a new centre of gravity and President Tinubu is good to go into 2027.

Zaria is symbolic, historic, and intact. It remains the leading centre of learning, commerce, and traditional authority not just in the North but all of Africa. Zaria also represents the North West corridor.

Rt. Hon. Tajudeen Abbas and his quality representation is a currency of inestimable value. A currency of consolidation, and a demonstration and assurance of a secured base before the field becomes crowded.

The ‘Indaba’ worked because it is a consultation, not a campaign. Traditional rulers spoke, clerics prayed effectually and fervently, youth leaders pledged their unalloyed loyalty and unreserved support, fostering a framework of shared responsibility and consensus, which was solidly built on the altar of public trust and acceptability.

A bulldozer, bridge builder, and strategic visioneer, Rt. Hon. Tajudeen Abbas resonates as a low-key but effective strategist with strong propensity to align federal projects with northern priorities.

He spoke the language of the Emirate system and the Ulama. He amplified cultural fluency, granting him immediate access and eliminating other federal characters. Without any personal cult or noisy aggrandisement, Rt. Hon. Abbas tied his political identity to President Tinubu, forging a strong administrative agenda that goes beyond self to an institution, and creating a larger buy-in.

Through this Indaba, he has sent a clear, unambiguous signal to conspirators that the North West has a formidable structure which has been reactivated early and will not repeat the mistake of 2023. He has made it clear that this organic northern mammoth crowd, with a majority of youths, was motivated above pecuniary benefits, less dependent on a single man, and strongly Buhari’s base without Buhari, but remains an alignment with continuity, stability, and federal projects.

Indeed, the Zaria Indaba is not a Buhari crowd but a reconstructed Indaba, and Rt. Hon. Tajudeen Abbas is the architect of this organic mammoth crowd of like-minds.

*Hon. Agbese, the Deputy Spokesperson, Federal House of Representatives writes from Abuja