Senator Yari leads campaign council delegation to the Oba of Benin

Senator Abdulaziz Abubakar Yari led a Presidential Campaign Council delegation to the palace of His Royal Majesty, Oba Ewuare II, in Benin City on 15 September 2026. The visit formed part of the Council’s consultations ahead of the 2027 presidential election, with the delegation paying homage and seeking royal blessings for the work ahead.

Yari attended in his capacity as Director-General of the APC Presidential Campaign Council. For the Senator representing Zamfara West, the engagement was part of a national political assignment that has taken him beyond his constituency to meet traditional institutions, religious leaders and other stakeholders across Nigeria.

The Benin visit followed the delegation’s Lagos palace engagement on 14 September. Together, the two visits placed direct consultation with traditional institutions within the Council’s preparations for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s 2027 campaign.

Arrival in Benin City

The visit began with the delegation’s arrival in Benin City. Photographs show Yari leaving the aircraft, exchanging greetings with those receiving the party and walking with members of the delegation before the palace audience. These moments capture the reception surrounding the engagement and the Senator’s presence at the head of the visiting group.

From the arrival reception, the story moves to the palace. The setting changed from the open airport apron to the ceremonial audience chamber, where the delegation gathered before the Oba. The photographs preserve those distinct stages of the visit, bringing the journey and the formal engagement together in one account.

An audience with the Oba

At the palace, the Council’s delegation paid homage to Oba Ewuare II and sought royal blessings ahead of the 2027 campaign. The visit brought the national campaign organisation into the setting of a traditional institution with a longstanding place in the life and identity of Benin.

The audience photographs show the monarch seated in the chamber, with members of the visiting delegation and palace representatives gathered around him. Another frame records the assembled audience during remarks. The visual sequence gives a sense of the formal setting and the attention given to the engagement.

A group photograph at the palace brings the monarch and the visitors into the same frame. It records the meeting itself and the people assembled for it. The visit’s purpose was consultation and homage: the account preserves that purpose without assigning additional political commitments to the palace.

Yari’s national responsibility

As Director-General, Yari leads the Council’s campaign coordination in support of President Tinubu. Consultation is part of that work, taking the organisation’s leadership into conversation with people and institutions whose influence is rooted in their communities.

The Benin engagement belongs to this national campaign responsibility. It sits alongside, and remains distinct from, Yari’s elected service in the Senate and his constituency programmes in Zamfara West. His previous experience as Governor of Zamfara State and Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum provides the wider public-service background to his present roles.

By meeting stakeholders in their own settings, the Council’s leadership gives its preparations a local point of contact. In Benin City, that setting was the palace audience, with the delegation observing the formality of a courtesy visit while carrying out its political assignment.

A continuing consultation journey

The palace visit was one engagement within a wider sequence of consultations. In Lagos the previous day, Yari and party leaders joined Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu for an audience with the Oba of Lagos at Iga Idunganran. The Benin visit continued that journey on 15 September, bringing the delegation to Edo State.

Other recorded engagements have brought Yari into contact with religious leaders in Kaduna, Jos and Bauchi, Islamic scholars in Zamfara and the Shehu of Borno in Maiduguri. Each meeting has its own participants, place and purpose. Read together, they show the geographical reach of the Council’s consultations while retaining the separate character of each institution visited.

These engagements document preparations ahead of the election. The Benin audience is presented as a completed visit on a specific date, with its photographs and event entry linked to this report. It does not stand as a claim about a future electoral result.

Eight photographs from the visit

The accompanying gallery contains eight photographs: the arrival reception, Yari on the aircraft steps, the delegation on the airport apron, the monarch in the audience chamber, the assembled palace audience, a further view of the meeting, the palace group photograph and a second aircraft-step portrait.

Together, the photographs give readers a fuller view of the day than a single cover image. The gallery captions identify the visible setting and the Senator where he appears, while the event page records the date, location and completed status of the engagement. The related Lagos report places the Benin audience within the delegation’s consecutive palace consultations.