Presidential candidate of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), Seyi Makinde has challenged Nigerians to assess the energy and stamina of candidates seeking to lead the country in the 2027 presidential election.
Makinde spoke on Thursday at the South-West town hall meeting of the Makinde/Daura campaign organisation in Akure, the Ondo State capital.
He said he would not make age an issue in the presidential contest but would rather focus on candidates’ physical energy and ability to cope with the demands of the office.
To demonstrate his point, the governor jumped off the stage and challenged other presidential candidates to perform the same feat.
APM presidential candidate Seyi Makinde leapt off the stage during a town hall, challenging supporters to vote for the opposition if their candidates could pull off the same stunt.
— Vanguard Newspapers (@vanguardngrnews) October 22, 2026
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“When they bring their presidential candidate, let the candidate come here and also jump down,” he said.
“If they can do that, vote for them.”
Makinde also defended his decision to contest the presidency despite President Bola Tinubu, who is also from the South-West, seeking re-election in 2027.
He argued that the region’s support for a presidential candidate should not prevent other qualified candidates from the same geopolitical zone from contesting.
“I’ve listened to people who asked us why we are contesting in this election when the south-west already has somebody sitting on that seat, and I’ve explained to them that we have an example here in the south-west,” he said.
The governor cited the 1999 presidential election, when former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Olu Falae, both from the South-West, contested against each other.
“In 1999, the entire Nigeria ceded the presidency to the South-West, and we had two of our fathers, Baba President Obasanjo and Baba Olu Falae, contest the presidency, both from the south-west. And heaven did not fall,” he said.
“As a matter of fact, what the south-west did was to present two of its finest, two of its best, for Nigeria to choose from. Is there anything wrong with us this time around?”
Makinde also urged people in the South-West to reject what he described as the politics of deceit, accusing the Tinubu administration of wasting taxpayers’ money.
He specifically criticised Jimoh Ibrahim, Nigeria’s permanent representative to the United Nations, over his trip from New York to Abuja to present the UN budget to Tinubu.
The governor questioned the need for the trip, arguing that the Federal Government had yet to clarify which national budget it was implementing.
“Well, they can waste the taxpayers’ money, but I refuse to agree that you must use the taxpayers’ money to fly from New York to Abuja to present the UN budget when, indeed, this is an administration where, right now, we don’t know which budget they are operating on for Nigeria,” he said.
“Is it the 2023, 2024, 2025 or 2026 budget? And then they are coming with the UN budget to say, ‘Look, this is the UN budget.’”
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