Akure will wake up on Wednesday to drums, banners and one simple message rising from Akoko to Ilaje, from Owo to Okitipupa: we are ready.
On November 11, the All Progressives Congress brings its 2027 presidential campaign train to the Sunshine State, with Vice President Kashim Shettima leading a delegation of governors, ministers and party leaders.
For Ondo, it is more than a rally. It is a homecoming for the Renewed Hope Agenda in a state that gave President Bola Ahmed Tinubu one of his strongest showings in 2023, and which now intends to do even better.
If there is one man who has spent the last three years preparing the ground for this moment, it is the Minister of Interior, Dr Olubunmi Tunji Ojo. Popularly called BTO, the Ondo born minister has become, in every practical sense, the Renewed Hope ambassador of his state. His work in Abuja and his work at home have turned into two halves of the same argument: that the Tinubu administration delivers, and that Ondo has a direct stake in its success.
The argument begins with performance. When Tunji Ojo arrived at the Interior Ministry in August 2023, many Nigerians knew the ministry mainly as the office that announced public holidays. Today it is one of the most talked about reform stories of this administration. A backlog of 204,332 passport applications, some of which had left citizens stranded for months, was cleared within weeks of his assumption of office. Nigerians abroad now renew their passports without the old trips to crowded embassies, and those in the United Kingdom report renewals completed within days rather than months. Electronic gates at international airports now clear returning passengers in seconds, visa processing has been brought down to about 48 hours, and a modern data centre now supports the system around the clock.
The reforms reached the men and women in uniform as well. Over 75,000 officers across the paramilitary services under the ministry were promoted, ending years of career stagnation, while a fresh recruitment drive opened doors for thousands of young Nigerians. In the custodial service, the minister worked with private donors to free many non violent inmates held only because they could not pay their fines, and shifted the emphasis towards rehabilitation. The joint Senate and House committees on Interior publicly commended these reforms during the 2026 budget defence, and when Vanguard named him Personality of the Year, Tunji Ojo dedicated the honour to President Tinubu, crediting the President’s leadership and support for every gain recorded. The President himself, in his birthday message to the minister in May, praised the vigour he had brought to the office and the visible reforms across its institutions.
But BTO has never treated his federal assignment as a reason to stay away from home. He has said plainly that he could not, in good conscience, sit in Abuja without ensuring that the benefits of government reach his people in Ondo. That conviction explains the second half of his story: the patient, structured mobilisation he has built for Mr President long before the campaign whistle was blown.
Across the state, a network of support groups now carries the Renewed Hope message to the grassroots. The Asiwaju Mandate Group has become a rallying point for party faithful, and its women’s wing has set a target of 95 per cent support among Ondo women. BTO4PBAT has taken its campaign into all 18 local government areas, 203 wards and 3,933 polling units, with a goal of 90 per cent of Ondo votes for the President. The BTO Unit to Unit movement, inaugurated in April, was where the minister declared that the President’s reelection was non negotiable. The Grassroots Movement for Tinubu, the Ondo Elders Movement for Tinubu and the PBAT Mandate Elders Forum have kept the older generation engaged, with the elders’ medical outreach, funded by the minister, already reaching more than 5,000 senior citizens. In Ondo South, the Progressives Southern Forum has pledged half a million votes from the senatorial district alone, while the BTO Coalition for PBAT 2027 has carried the message as far as the Nigerian community in the United Kingdom, with a target of more than one million votes for the President in the state.
Students and young people have followed too. Leaders of the National Association of Nigerian Students in Ondo have said openly that their support for Mr President flows from what they have seen of the minister’s commitment to student welfare and youth development, and they have taken the message back to their campuses and communities. What sets this machinery apart is method. Rather than waiting for the occasional rally, these groups have been asked to stay in touch with communities, listen to residents and explain the policies of the administration in plain language. Party elders have also credited BTO’s support groups with helping to heal divisions within the APC in the state, reminding members that the party’s interest must come before personal ambition.
That is why Wednesday matters. When the campaign train rolls into Akure, it will meet a state that has not waited until the eleventh hour to organise. It will meet structures that are already in place, volunteers who already know their polling units and communities that have already heard the message. Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa has hosted the state’s ministers, including Tunji Ojo, in preparation for the rally, and the party in Ondo has set its sights on one million votes for the President in 2027.
At his ministry’s management retreat earlier this year, Tunji Ojo told his team that yesterday belongs to history and that the future is defined by what is done today. Ondo has taken that lesson to heart. The record is there, the structures are ready, and the people are waiting. As the state rolls out the drums for Mr President’s campaign, the answer from every ward, every unit and every community is the same. Mr President, Ondo is ready.
