It was American journalist Sydney Harris who wrote that, “History repeats itself, but in such cunning disguise that we never detect the resemblance until the damage is done.”
There was a time Nigeria had a military Head of State, a Military General by name Sani Abacha. He ruled the country with maximum force that sent shivers to the marrows of all.
Sani had never for a second thought of relinquishing power for its sweetness. He misused power to his advantage by silencing every voice of reason with Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, Chief Security Officer to Abacha leading the odd jobs.
For fear of the obvious, Abacha was ‘pressured’ to transit the country to democracy with him as the only presidential contestant. There was a One-million man march staged by political merchant in support of the Sani contest.
Keenly aware of his unpopularity without a chance of winning the presidency in a free and fair election under a multiparty democracy, Sani turned to unholy schemes to perfect himself in power. His regime sponsored aggressive montage of propaganda to launder his battered image behind a facade of positive narratives—-all suggesting a show of overwhelming public support for the military Head of State to succeed self.
Sycophants and appendages portrayed him as the best leader ever and his candidacy as the second coming of a Messiah. But that was all a mockery, deceit and pretence.
Buoyed by the fake public support, Sani used the instrument of power to coerce opposition political parties to endorse him as the sole candidate. All coasts were cleared for him to enthrone a sham democracy featuring only one party and, of course, without internal or external opposition.
But providence had a way with destiny, as well as with ambitions. Sani suddenly died unexpectedly in the process of imposing himself on Nigerians in 1998. And his brand of democracy also died along with him.
Fast forward to 2025, history is repeating itself in a disgusting disguise. The objective fact is that the Abacha model of democracy is rearing itself back to the political scene through the efforts of a man who claimed to be a democrat, Bola Ahmed Tinubu with similar traits of Abacha.
Tinubu was among those who claimed to have resisted the self-imposition bid of Abacha in 1998. Today, he is copying the Abacha style to impose himself on Nigerians in 2027. He was imposed in 2023 courtesy of the Supreme Court.
Like Sani Abacha as military head of state, Tinubu did not gain power through popular votes in 2023. While Abacha became Head of State by military coup, majority of Nigeria’s voters in 2023 (67.7%) rejected a Tinubu victory but was still declared winner of the election by a compromised electoral umpire and the judiciary.
Like Abacha, Tinubu is widely rated as one of the most corrupt leaders in the world without shame, and amid a woeful record of performance but busy employing underhand tactics, undermining democratic norms in order to retain power in 2027 for business as usual.
So far, he is in full control of the national lawmakers and the judiciary. The gravest of all, however, is a grand design to emulate the Abacha obnoxious model by using all manner of political intimidation, bribery and threat to decimate the structures of credible opposition parties.
The main objective is a one-party state or semblance of it. This explains the wave of defections of legislators and state governors to the APC fold. Nothing more!!
Of course, the defecting politicians or the Tinubu enablers have continued to labour so hard to offer nothing but tantalizing reasons for abandoning the people that mandated them to power and the parties that provided them platforms to office. However, every reason or excuse they offer is in conflict with history, honesty, and common sense.
Interestingly, the governors who have decamped so far happen to hail from the Southern part of the country while those in other regions are watching the drama with keen interest. South-East and South-South regions that aligned with the centre for 16 years of PDP governance in the Fourth Republic have glaring evidence of the romance.
The two zones have so far produced a President, Vice-President, Senate Presidents, Deputy Senate Presidents, Deputy Speakers House of Representatives, Ruling Party Chairmen, and held some of the most powerful portfolios when PDP held sway at the centre. Yet, they are not grateful for all the patronage and support extended by the PDP.
Needless to remind the betrayers that the South-East includes Ebonyi and Imo States, which have been under the control of the same APC since the Buhari regime; yet, such a gesture did not stop Bola Tinubu from waging a shadow war against the region.
Let us not go deep to factor the common knowledge stated, but common sense dictates that only an enemy of Nigeria will be singing Omologo and praises for the APC brand of governance that has already plunged the country into untold hardship with no end at sight if Nigerians fail to rescue their country in 2027.
It is only a corruption-infested mind that would be rushing to a ruling party that is leading the most criminal and unjust regime in national history for membership at a suspected fee.
The truth of the matter is simple: Their reason for the defections is purely for pecuniary interests. Specifically, these defecting politicians are lily-livered leaders who lack principle and have either a corrupt baggage to dispose, afraid of winning election on their own merits, or those eager to benefit from APC’s corrupt ecosystem.
The whistling charm is the prevailing pledge by former national chairman of the APC, Adams Oshiomhole, that sins of members of opposition parties would be forgiven if they defect to swell membership of the ruling APC. By implication, Oshiomhole portrayed APC as a den of pardoned and serving criminals that accommodate anything criminal including cases of malfeasance, lootings and other financial scandals against the state.
Former British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, most probably had in mind the type of unfolding political crisis bedeviling Nigeria when he noted that, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
Bola Tinubu ought, at his age be able to dig deep down into history and remember that brute attempts by past ruling parties to win by hook and crook broad political mandate was the central reason commonly cited for the fall of both the First and Second Republics.
Some can vividly recall the catastrophic situation created by the then ruling party, National Party of Nigeria (NPN) in the second republic which is very similar to the present case of Tinubu.
President Shehu Usman Aliyu Shagari who scored only 33.7% of total votes cast at the 1979 presidential election (12/2/3), failed to garner majority votes through the polls but was imposed on the country by the exiting Obasanjo military government.
With the support of the outgoing military government, the NPN became the ruling party by imposition. As the ruling party at the time, the party became too desperate for a clear majority in the subsequent election of 1983. It fanned the dangerous mission by boasting and threatening that it must capture those states where regional capitals of the First Republic—-namely Enugu (East), Kaduna (North) and Ibadan (West) —–were located. NPN brushed aside the fact that those states were controlled by political parties featuring popular native presidential candidates (Nnamdi Azikiwe of NPP in Anambra State, (Enugu), Aminu Kano of PRP in Kaduna State and Obafemi Awolowo of UPN in Oyo State, (Ibadan).
With loyalty and support of the NPN behind him, Shagari threw caution to the wind and moved with lightning speed to deploy heavy federal might to deliver those former regional capitals in the 1983 elections.
Accordingly, the election result was greeted with mass discontent and unrest. Not surprisingly, mass jubilation greeted the military coup of 1983 that overthrew the Shagari government that sniffed life out of the democracy through greed.
While military coups are no longer an option to civil rule, Tinubu can learn from ongoing happenings in Nigeria that the restive masses are becoming even more potent.
In sum, it is clear that Nigeria’s hard-earned democracy is at its lowest ebb under Tinubu’s presidency. This failure is because the overbearing influence of the executive branch under Tinubu has systematically weakened institutional independence and, by consequences, lack of checks and balances, dictatorship, systemic corruption, and abuse of civil liberties.
In the present situation, Tinubu is widely seen to be above the law. He is widely seen to dictate who gets what in government and in their party, which bills scale through in the national assembly, who wins or who loses in an election, or even in the Court of Law.
Sadly and very unfortunate, instead of holding the APC accountable, opposition leaders and their cronies are busy succumbing to threats and fear, defecting to the colony of the unknown to become part of the state ecosystem. The posterity beckons. Nigerians are not the fools they are rated to be by the APC. The bottom line will soon be drawn. We either challenge the claimed Changers and consign them to the dustbin of history as rots, or we remain in perpetual poverty, insecurity, hunger, and disease.
Muhammad is a commentator on national issues
