SUMMARY

The Supporters of APC was an informally organized group of people who backed the All Progressives’ Congress (APC) political party that formed in 2013, ahead of the 2015 elections. Many of its members came from northern Nigeria as most, though not all, of the leading APC candidates were from this region. The APC itself was a center-left political party formed by merging four of the largest political opposition parties in Nigeria: Action Congress of Nigeria, Congress for Progressive Change, All Nigeria People’s Party, and a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance.

At the time of APC’s formation, the People’s Democratic Party had been the governing political party in the country since military rule had ended in 1999. Yet, non-state violence between different supporters of political parties had broken out on several occasions in Nigeria in connection to elections and the political struggle. In line with this, supporters of the new APC party engaged in non-state conflict against rival political party supporters (for more information, see Supporters of APC - Supporters of PDP).

Although they did not directly lead the Supporters of APC, Muhammadu Buhari and Bola Tinubu were the two leaders of the APC originally. Both were Muslim, which was significant because religion was one of the contentious identity issues within Nigeria and when the APC was created, the ruling political party and Government of Nigeria was led by a Christian. Buhari was a Fulani, who came from Katsina state. Therefore, he drew much support from the north of the country. Buhari had served as military head of state between 1983 and 1985 and come second in the presidential election in 2011, after running as the presidential candidate for the Congress for Progressive Change party before it merged to become the APC. He went on to become President of Nigeria after winning the presidential elections for the APC in 2015 and 2019. On the other hand, Tinubu was a Yoruba, who came from Lagos and had served as Lagos state governor between 1999 to 2007. Accordingly, much of Tinubu’s support drew from the south west of the Nigeria. When Buhari became President, Tinubu became national leader of the APC.