At its maiden National Retreat in Abuja, the City Boy Movement swore in its National Working Committee, set a 10-million-vote target for 2027 and quietly announced itself as the decisive machinery of the Renewed Hope re-election project.
For three days last week, the State House Banquet Hall; President Bola Ahmed Tinubu International Conference Centre, and the City Boy Movement headquarters in Abuja ceased to be just venues and became resounding verdicts.
From July 13 to 15, 2026, the City Boy Movement (CBM) gathered its Governing Board, National Working Committee (NWC), National Directors and State Directors from the thirty-six states and the FCT for its maiden National Retreat — and, in one deliberate stroke, swore in an NWC whose oath of office may prove the most consequential political pledge taken in Nigeria this year.
The theme — Youth. Unity. Action. — was not decoration. It was instruction. At the heart of it stood the Movement’s Patron, Barrister Seyi Tinubu, whose welcome address set the retreat’s intellectual temperature. “This is not a celebration of yesterday; it is a preparation for tomorrow,” he said, warning that “we have only scratched the surface of what we have come together to accomplish.” His was not the language of triumph but of duty.
He charged members to become “communicators, educators, mobilisers and ambassadors of hope,” insisting that engagement must be “responsible, factual and compassionate” — candour, from the very top, that honesty about sacrifice is itself a strategy. “This movement must become not simply about defending government,” he said, “but about reconnecting Nigerians with government.” That sentence deserves to be framed.
He was not alone in altitude. The Honourable Minister of Youth Development, Comrade Ayodele Olawande, reminded delegates that “politics is not a game for those who sit on the sidelines,” charging them to carry the Renewed Hope message “to every street, every community and every home.”
The Chief of Staff to the President, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, anchored the theme in history: “No nation rises above the quality of its youth. The future we seek will not arrive by chance; it will be built deliberately.”
The FCT Minister of State, Dr. Mariya Mahmoud, framed nation-building as a shared responsibility, while Co-Patron Kashim Shettima Jnr., in his vote of thanks, captured the hall’s mood: the CBM, he said, is “the biggest youth political movement in Africa.”
Then came the keynote that converted rhetoric into arithmetic. The Director-General, Hon. Francis Oluwatosin Shoga, declared with the calm of a man who has counted the cost: “Our mission is clear. Our target is 10 million votes. Our strength is our people. And our time is now.”
He disabused any illusion of a digital shortcut — “10 million votes will not come from slogans or social media. They will come from real people, real structures, real engagement and real work at the grassroots.” Every National and State Director was charged to plant the Movement in every ward. “History will one day ask what we did when we were allowed to serve,” he said.
“Let our answer be simple: we stood up, we organized, we worked, we mobilized, and we delivered.”
A full-throated word must be said about how this retreat was conceived and executed.
The planning bore the fingerprints of serious minds: mandatory accreditation at the Movement’s National Campaign Headquarters; a strictly-by-invitation gate; a published chain of command; and a programme marrying strategic planning to leadership development, policy engagement and capacity building.
This was no jamboree; it was an institution schooling itself. In uniting young Nigerians of every social, ethnic and political hue behind one purpose, Barrister Seyi Tinubu has displayed a strategic foresight rare in our politics — this is the most inclusive and impactful youth mobilization and political platform in Africa’s history.
Hon. Shoga and his planning committee deserve commendation for a seamless outing. But the live-wire of the operation was the Deputy Director-General (Operations), Princess Atika Ajanah — who doubles as Senior Special Assistant to Mr. President on Social Events and Executive Director (Projects) of the North Central Development Commission — whose exceptional organizational skill and quiet, behind-the-scenes direction turned three days of high protocol into clockwork.
Events of this magnitude do not happen; they are engineered. She engineered this one.
The political meaning of CBM’s Abuja Retreat is now impossible to miss. A movement that sets itself the lofty goal of wooing 10 million youth votes for President Tinubu’s re-election — and then spends three days mapping the strategies to actualize it — has moved beyond promise into machinery.
For the myriad and disjointed opposition to the President’s re-election, the shout after last week’s events may well be an “over-the-bar” one: the ball has left their reach.
President Tinubu’s hold on political power has seemed unshakeable since the morning of May 29, 2023. With his son now successfully mobilizing Nigerian youths behind the Renewed Hope agenda, it is obvious to all but the most rose-tinted glasses political watcher that the 2027 Presidential election is set to be a grand coronation of incumbent President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for another term in office.
Written by Nurudeen Shehu, a Strategic Lead at Line-BorderPoint NG.
