By Lanre Adewole
Love him, hate him, President Bola Tinubu, regardless of how his presidency will end and when, whether in two years from now or in another six, will go down in Nigeria’s history as one of the most talented and consequential politicians of the modern era.
He has spectacularly pulled off several assumed political and electoral impossibilities and you can excuse his admirers who think him infallible not only because he has risen after every apparent fall in his lifelong quest for Nigeria rulership, but also stunningly climbing back from the canvas from knockdowns that had counted out his contemporaries, irretrievably dooming them politically and electorally.
You dismiss his kind to either your lasting regret or because you are playing the fox, dismissing grapes that can’t be reached as sour. Elephant is beyond what you describe as a flash in the pan; Yoruba will say matter-of-factly, before encouraging that one should confess to seeing an elephant when one waltzes by.
As dazzling as his political and electoral resume, he isn’t invisible. In fact, no one is, either in politics or other life endeavours. Weeds discarded as inconsequential can trip with a thud, having a throbbing effect; Yoruba will warn, especially if someone is on a tear, giddy in success. The ear-tugging is for the one in a victory spin to watch being spun out of control, overshooting a victory lap into defeat.
In the outgone week, supporters of the President were delirious. His ongoing fishing expedition in the Southern waterways of the opposition yielded what ichthyologists will call ‘capture fishery’. It wasn’t the kind of net-breaking miraculous haul of Peter when he encountered Jesus before his conversion to a foremost disciple and transformation from a fisherman to a fisher of men. But the presidential cast still hooked two perceived whales and their fingerlings.
So since last week, there are now 24 states with APC governors, openly backing the re-election of Mr. President. Of the nine states with PDP governors, one up North is reportedly swimming his way to the presidential net to be caught, one down South was temporarily blocked from dancing into the all-conquering net by deckhands of the President in the state and another one down South is doing in-and-out the harvesting net, though those who sabi (understand political chess) are insisting he would eventually do what tough, street boys will describe as “o gbori wole, las las (falling in line at the end of the day). That would make potentially 27 states backing the President’s re-election.
No the count isn’t over.
The lone APGA governor, Chukwuma Soludo is openly TInubu tokan-tokan (open supporter of the President’s re-election). That makes the 28th state. The Labour man in Abia is always relishing photo ops with the President. He is as good as caught. Count 29. Then the NNPP hand-held governor of Kano, Abba Yusuf has no option.
His godfather and father-in-law Rabiu Kwankwaso is the director of Gida-Gida. Proverbs 21:1 says “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, like the rivers of water, He turns it wherever He wishes”. Some men are political gods. Abba goes where Rabiu wishes. The former Kano governor has himself said publicly he is still a holdout to negotiate a pleasing deal with the President. An insightful pollster will call Kano governor for the President. That is state 30.
How does one lose re-election with this behemoth numbers?
But internal polling, as an APC operative told me last week at a lunch, hasn’t been demulcent.
The numbers keep popping up a tight re-election race for the President despite an absolute majority in the federal legislature and 83.3% of state governors, including mostly all other functionaries of their states, openly backing him.
Are these fellows (both defecting and APC governors) selling Mr. President a fantasy?
Are the defectors being fraudulent by claiming to represent their citizenry in porting to the centre, despite being elected on opposition platforms, two clear weeks after the President had been declared the winner of the presidential election which held first? Or are these governors losing sight of the fact that their electorate still chose not to align with Mr. President’s party and its flag bearers even when there was a window of a fortnight to so do?
So if their electorate preferred opposition parties that had lost the presidential election in making gubernatorial choices, which mandates are these defectors taking to the party their people rejected? Theirs or the peoples? Can Mr. President rely on what is appearing a grand illusion? Or maybe the President thinks the defecting governors are more electorally-viable than his party’s 2023 candidates and will always win on any platform? Time will tell.
At the meeting, a recent internal polling with the team having a female lead (name withheld) came up. The firebrand from the North, a chip off her famous dad (identity withheld) reportedly railed during the presentation of the report to Mr. President and at a point almost shouting “Sir, if the election is held today, you are going to lose”, while querying presidential appointees especially at the cabinet level not taking the Renewed Hope message to their people particularly in the North, though the internal polling was said to be national in scope.
An older friend who just returned from a visit to his ancestral North East home told a jarring story. The state is APC and he deliberately rode a public transport from the state capital to his village to feel the pulse of the street. Though a pro-Tinubu big man, he dressed to conceal his identity, also conversing in English.
The man next to him took him for a Southerner and since he has always been suave, he fitted his decoy perfectly. And the fellow began to pour superlatives on the President and the governor in scattering English language. Once helped out of his syntax misery by my oga by speaking Hausa to him, the relieved but angry man queried why he was wasting his time speaking in Hausa and forcing him to praise the President they badly wanted out. For the rest of the journey, it was a bashing spree for the President by oga’s co-travellers. His tour around communities also revealed similar sentiments. Back at the state capital is the same story and this state has a substantive minister who used to be governor. The disconnect is falcons not listening again to falconers without community value. The people’s main grouse in the state and the adjourning ones surveyed by oga, is the mounting insecurity. Except the President decisively moves in to rein in the raging violence against the people, 1,001 governors may not save him, even if government houses are being reserved for election-day artifice.
In the build-up to the 2015 Goodluck Jonathan’s re-election defeat, a veteran journalist who covered campaigns in Benue State told me of how PDP candidates for elective offices were going about incognito with “sai Baba” clenched fist salutation, pleading with their people to vote them and vote Buhari for President. Then-sitting governor, Gabriel Suswam couldn’t save Jonathan from defeat.
No doubt, the governors queueing behind Asiwaju has its torque and momentum.
Their unrestrained access to and control over public funds which they regularly deploy for personal uses, almost always without the deserved comeuppance especially once in-favour with the powers-that-be, is a dubious advantage in an epoch of dibo ko se’be (lingo for vote buying; vote and get money for a pot of soup). But several two-term governors have lost direct-to-senate races because the people were incensed with them. A couple of them are ministers the President is likely relying on to bring in the votes for him. Ironically, as the camp of the President swelled, the anger on the street is, also, with the magnetic pull of opposition governors being widely viewed as a gang-up against the people, considering the perception of the political class as the oppressor. Various campaigns are also ongoing on the social media sensitizing Nigerians on how to handle Pharaoh and his army of repression. Some have pointed out that the forces that would battle the massing establishment are the people’s opposition. I wait to see how that would work but the blowback may be massive if the President is continually seen as pampering the governors at the expense of the people. Despite the economic numbers suggesting a relief, the street is still traumatised with the faint smile it kept under Buhari now completely lost to emi’lokan hemlock.
Whether their relation is frayed or not, I advise the President to not disregard the admonition of his younger brother in Ibadan. Whether he will be his ballot opponent in 2027 or not, the Nigerian leader should not dismiss GSM’s criticism of the harlotry playing out as a mere soapbox exhibition, except if he has now been listed as an enemy by an administration he helped to make, unmaking his own in the process. It is always bemusing when Nyesome Wike’s 231,591 vote-delivery to Tinubu is regularly celebrated as a life-saver for the President and the minister has been so recognised by the administration. Yes, Wike, like the Benue-born SGF operated in voting environments very hostile to the President’s Muslim-Muslim ticket, but it would be funny disregarding Makinde and the 449,884 votes from Oyo. I guess the assumptions are; one, Oyo, being part of Yorubaland where Tinubu is from, would have voted him anyway, without the governor’s support.
Two, the state is deemed majorly Muslim and assumed to be very welcoming of the controversial ticket. The simple question to ask is “why did Osun not go Oyo’s way despite the similarities in their ethno-religious make-up?
Maybe next time, Makinde should borrow the wisdom in killing monkey to dangle before monkey for monkey to respect the hunter.
But today, I’m interested in his take on governors divorcing their electorate to take the President’s bed. It should interest the President too,
“With these defections, political pundits have been busy reading meanings into every handshake and silence. I have watched as our national conversation once again turns to who is moving rather than what is moving.
For me, the only defection that truly matters is the one that has not happened yet-the defection of hunger. When I was asked about this wave of political cross-carpeting in a recent press conference, I said, ‘I will only be moved when hunger defects into the APC’. I meant every word of it, because while people are busy changing parties, Nigerians are struggling to afford the basic necessities.
“Families are being forced to make impossible choices daily. These are the real issues, not political realignment. We cannot continue pretending that everything is fine simply because someone in the government says so. What we are experiencing is the widening of inequality.
While the rich are adjusting, the poor are sinking — and that is what must command our attention. It is hunger, not partisanship, that fuels frustration and hopelessness. Until we deal with that, every political drama will remain a distraction.
Let me say this again: no matter what the analysts predict, and no matter how many defections are engineered, it is the Nigerian people who will decide the outcome of the 2027 elections. So, my appeal is simple: stay engaged, stay focused, and do not lose faith in the power of your voice. The hunger that grips our nation today will not last forever — but only if we, together, refuse to normalise it.
Let others defect for convenience. Let us stand firm for conscience, because when hunger finally defects, prosperity will return — and so will our pride as a people”.
Culled from Tribune Online
