“The ball has been kicked. Nasarawa, the question is now yours”.

Senator Mohammed Onawo has been affirmed as the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) governorship candidate for Nasarawa State after delegates from the 13 local government areas adopted him at the party’s special primary in Lafia.

That is no longer rumour, speculation, or a pending substitution story. The party has spoken. The candidate is authentic. The race for 2027 has a new, serious centre of gravity.

As a political analyst, this is the moment that matters more than the ceremony. Primaries come and go. What changes a state is whether voters treat a new ticket as another recycled name or as a live choice.

Onawo has now entered the arena not as a commentator from Abuja, but as a man asking for the mandate to govern.

He has pledged an issue-based campaign around security, infrastructure, agriculture, education and jobs.

Those are not slogans invented yesterday. They are the same yearnings people already carry in the market, on the farm, in the IDP-adjacent communities, and in households that no longer feel safe after dusk.

As an analyst , I will say it plainly: “a change of government that keeps the same political habit is not change”.

Nasarawa does not only need a new face. It needs a new vehicle. The old way has been tried. It has produced familiarity, faction, and fatigue.

APM is the break from that non-working old way. Not because a party logo is magic, but because this ticket is being built as an alternative, not as a continuation of the same closed circle.

Onawo did not wander into this contest empty-handed. He has served in the State House of Assembly, including as Speaker.

He has served in the House of Representatives. He now serves as Senator for Nasarawa South. That is legislative muscle, grassroots reach, and statewide exposure stacked in one person.

Experience is not the same thing as entitlement. But when a state is hungry for competence, experience is not a crime. It is a tool.

To the voter in Lafia, Akwanga, Keffi, Karu, Doma, Awe, Keana, Obi, Toto, Nasarawa Eggon, Wamba, Kokona and Nasarawa LGA: this is the time to decide whether you still want the same old conversation or a better life.

Better security is not a press statement. Better roads, farms that pay, schools that work, and jobs that exist are not campaign poetry. They are the test.

Onawo has stepped forward saying he is ready to serve and to provide what people have been yearning for. That claim must now be argued in every ward, not only in hotel halls.

Here is the political reality.

2027 will not be won by those who wait for “the big parties” to finish their internal wars. It will be won by the candidate who can assemble a coalition of the tired, the young, the farmers, the traders, the civil servants, and the communities that feel unseen. APM’s affirmation of Onawo is the starting whistle, not the trophy. The trophy is still in the hands of the people.

So let it be said without apology, as a supporter must say it: the next governor Nasarawa should be preparing for is Senator Mohammed Onawo. 2027 is his to earn, and Nasarawa’s to give, if the state truly wants something different from the old way.

The arena is open. The candidate is on the pitch. Now show whether Nasarawa wants better.

Pamela O.