The All Progressives Congress held its first mega rally in Kaduna, drawing a large crowd of party members and supporters to show organisation and unity. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, who heads the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), commanded the stage with a confident, engaging appearance.

Dabiri-Erewa’s roots in the party run deep. She entered politics in 2003 and spent 12 years in the House of Representatives for Ikorodu, moving through the Alliance for Democracy and its successor parties into the APC. Doubtlessly, the stage suits her.

Before politics, she spent 15 years as a broadcast journalist at the Nigerian Television Authority, where speaking to the public was daily work. Her NTA years also earned her the nickname Mother Teresa of the Tube for human-interest reporting, a reputation for caring about ordinary people that helps when a party needs to reach them.

Dabiri-Erewa also has a legislative record to point to. She sponsored or co-sponsored the Freedom of Information Bill, the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Bill and the Disability Rights Bill, chaired the Media Committee and later the Diaspora Affairs Committee, and opposed Olusegun Obasanjo’s third-term agenda.

Under the APC government, she became President Muhammadu Buhari’s Senior Special Assistant on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora in 2016 and, in 2019, the first Chairman and Chief Executive of NiDCOM. Under her leadership, NiDCOM has coordinated evacuations and repatriations of thousands of stranded Nigerians during crises in Sudan and Ukraine, and it took part in the rescue of Zainab Aliyu in Saudi Arabia.

The Kaduna rally was the party’s inaugural mega rally, so it sets the standard for those that follow and had such a brilliant person as a canopy. Its message was unity, and the APC now has to show the same cohesion in its wards and local structures.