2027: No Candidate Better Than Tinubu To Advance Nigeria — City Boy DG

The Director-General of the City Boy Movement (CBM), Francis Shoga, has declared that no candidate is better positioned than President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to advance Nigeria’s development beyond 2027, citing what he described as gains recorded in infrastructure, agriculture, energy and economic reforms.

Shoga, who spoke during an interactive session with journalists at the headquarters of the movement in Abuja on Thursday, said the scale of projects and reforms undertaken by the administration provided a basis for continuity beyond the 2027 general election.

The CBM chief, whose organisation is mobilising support for Tinubu ahead of the election, urged Nigerians to assess the administration on the basis of measurable interventions across critical sectors rather than political rhetoric.

He specifically cited the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and the 1,068-kilometre Sokoto-Badagry Superhighway as examples of what he described as an unprecedented infrastructure drive.

According to him, the government is “building the two longest highways in our history,” alongside rehabilitation and construction works on several federal roads across the country.

The Federal Ministry of Works said the first 30 kilometres of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway was commissioned by Tinubu on May 31, 2025, while the broader first section was designed to cover about 47.47 kilometres.

The ministry describes the Sokoto-Badagry Superhighway as a 1,068-kilometre corridor linking Sokoto with Lagos through Kebbi, Niger, Kwara, Oyo and Ogun states, with construction progressing in sections.

On agriculture, Shoga said the administration had embarked on mechanisation on what he described as a historic scale, citing the deployment of 2,000 tractors and other agricultural equipment.

“We are mechanising agriculture at a historic scale,” he said.

Tinubu launched 2,000 tractors, implements and other equipment for mechanised farming in June 2025 as part of the administration’s food security agenda. The Federal Ministry of Information said the package included 10 combine harvesters, 12 mobile workshops, 9,000 implements and 9,000 spare-part kits.

Shoga also pointed to the $1.1 billion Green Imperative Project being implemented with Brazil as another intervention aimed at improving agricultural productivity and attracting private-sector investment. Nigeria and Brazil signed the commercial phase of the project in March 2025.

He further cited the establishment of a standalone Federal Ministry of Livestock Development, expansion of cultivated land for rice and wheat and increased financing for agricultural production as evidence of efforts to address food insecurity structurally.

On the petroleum sector, the CBM director-general said the administration had recorded improvements in crude oil production and attracted fresh investment into the upstream industry.

He also cited the commencement of commercial operations at the Dangote Refinery and the restart of operations at the Port Harcourt and Warri refineries in late 2024.

Data from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission showed that crude oil production reached 1.56 million barrels per day in June 2026, representing the country’s highest crude output since April 2020. Nigeria subsequently produced 1.50 million barrels per day in August and met its OPEC quota for the fourth consecutive month.

Shoga also defended the administration’s response to the hardship associated with petrol subsidy removal, pointing to the Presidential Compressed Natural Gas Initiative as part of measures aimed at providing cheaper transportation alternatives.

He said the CNG programme had encouraged the establishment of vehicle conversion centres and attracted private-sector investment into gas-based transportation infrastructure.

The CBM chief further cited improvements in Nigeria’s external reserves and moderation in inflation as indicators of changing macroeconomic conditions.

Central Bank data showed that Nigeria’s gross foreign exchange reserves rose to $54.61 billion by September 14, 2026, up from $41.84 billion a year earlier.

The National Bureau of Statistics also reported that headline inflation declined marginally to 15.39 per cent in August 2026 from 15.43 per cent in July.

Shoga argued that the figures strengthened the case for allowing the administration to deepen its reforms and translate improvements in macroeconomic indicators into broader economic gains for Nigerians.

The City Boy Movement is one of the pro-Tinubu political mobilisation groups preparing for the 2027 election.

At its national retreat in Abuja in July, Shoga said the organisation was targeting 10 million youth votes for Tinubu through grassroots mobilisation across wards, local governments and communities.

He said the infrastructure, agricultural, energy and fiscal interventions already underway constituted the basis of the movement’s support for Tinubu, insisting that the President remained its preferred choice for continuing the country’s development agenda.