As the 2027 elections draw near by the day, it is worthwhile to examine the electoral chances of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the forthcoming elections.
To start with, Nigerians have never had it so bad in the governance of our beloved country. The hardships unleashed on Nigerians since May 29th, 2023 when this government took over the reins of power from President Muhammadu Buhari, another failed President, has been legendary! As if to fulfil the proverbial adage – “From frypan to fire”, President Tinubu’s government appears to have, as a deliberate policy, the infliction of sustained pains on Nigerians in every conceivable way. The relentless pursuit of hardship on Nigerians has covered every facet of our National life ranging from insecurity, where the kidnapping and killings of hundreds of Nigerians on a routine basis no longer makes headlines… And the government does not react to such incidents with their usually lame statements of “bringing the perpetrators to book” anymore. Travelling by road across the country has become a nightmare, such that apart from the disastrous state of the roads as if there is no government in place, the fear of kidnappers jumping out from the bushes at any time to drag travellers into the bush to demand ransomes which are often paid, has become routine. These are the hallmarks of a failed State and a Banana Republic! The situation has become so bad that Nigerians have lost hope of any succur in the horizon! Governments the world over exist, from medieval times, for the singular purpose of preserving and protecting the lives and properties of its people. But in Nigeria, buckpassing, incompetence and sustained monumental corruption, has made insecurity an Industry, where security agencies are alleged to openly collide with criminals and brigands to terrorise the people with no end in sight! Farmers are unable to go to their farms all across the country, for fear of being mowed down in cold blood by bandits, terrorists and all other categorization of criminal gangs who hold sway and openly negotiate with government as if they run their own permanent enclaves of criminality. Huge sums of money are paid to these terrorists, right under the watch of security agents, who are often alleged to be in active collision with these criminals, for their cut from the booty!
All these criminal acts only thrive in a country where governance has completely failed. Nigeria is clearly a case study in failure of governance. So in such a situation, what is fueling the desperate quest for reelection? I saw a few days ago, a billboard for Tinubu/Shettima campaigns with the slogan “Renewed Hope 2.0.” I could not help but chuckle at such a disingenuous slogan! Renewed Hope 2.0?? What an audacious admission of failure, that after three disastrous terms of an APC administration which has brought Nigeria to its knees, the government is still campaigning to renew the hope of the hopeless Nigerians. One of my friends referred to the slogan as “Renewed Shege”, and he is absolutely right!!
It is now clear to the discerning, that this government has no clue about governance. The only honourable thing to do for them is to just throw in the towel and leave the scene, so that governance can return to this country!
One really good thing that is happening is the gradual crowding out of the primitive process of rigging at elections through the subtle but sure use of technology. The last Osun State governorship elections has been a shocker to the disastrous APC government. With zero protestations to decency and a brazen determination to ride the Trojan horse with a fait accompli, 26 APC Governors, the National Chairman of APC and the Senate President all mobilised to relatively small Osun State to capture the State from Governor Adeleke, at all costs! And those costs were really high to the National treasury! With over 100 billion allegedly spent on vote buying, where at desperate times, one vote was being bought for as high as N50,000, the APC candidate still lost the election woefully in President Tinubu’s home State of Osun, where he hails from Iragbiji, a tiny rural village community! This is in spite of the President never admitting to his Iragbiji roots, claiming instead to come from Lagos State and adopting the Tinubu family name, just to belong! Nigerians are however used to fakeness in everything Tinubu does, and so are no longer surprised or embarrassed at his consistently despicable behaviour and auctions.
Finally, the last nail oh President Tinubu’s coffin as far as the 2027 elections are concerned, is the disastrous FBI/CIA files saga. In a rather clever filing by Atiku’s campaign organization in the United States of America, the FBI and CIA were requested to release details of President Tinubu’s criminal records relating to his drug dealings while in the USA, where he has admitted to forfeiting a whooping sum of $460,000 to the US government in the early 90s in order to avert criminal prosecution for his involvement in a criminal heroin trafficking ring in Chicago and environs. This singular move, and the desperate filings by Tinubu’s defence team to prevent the release of those files, has so messed up President Tinubu’s reelection campaigns that he will be completely unable to reverse the loss of electoral value before the elections in January 2027 which is just around the corner. This suit, coupled with the rather cowardly hiding away from attendance of the high brow United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) by Tinubu who was hiding away in France during the world stage event when every President under the globe, including the Iranian President, whose country is officially at war with the United States of America, were in attendance, has probably been the lowest diplomatic disaster for Nigeria. To think that the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, left his august visitor in his country to attend the same event, speaks volumes of the shamelessness that currently holds sway in President Tinubu’s inner circles. It is also worrisome that, apart from the first UNGA of his Presidency, this President has skipped attendance at every other UNGA since then, especially since his past drugs dealings have become more public knowledge, speaks volumes of the integrity and suitability for high office by Bola Ahmed Tinubu. A President is the embodiment of the values of the society he is supposed to preside over. Where a President loses the moral authority to govern through subterfuge and clandestine activities, the entire country descends into a pariah status, and this is not good for Nigeria!
The interesting thing is that the 2027 elections cannot be rigged. Nigerians are prepared to ensure that their votes both count, and are counted and accurately recorded and announced, just the way it was done in Osun State, where over one million voters turned out, in an unprecedented manner, to affirm their support for their “dancing Governor”… The rest is now history!
Contrary to widely held belief, the Independent National Electoral Commission under the watch of its Chairman, Prof. Joash Amupitan, will do the right thing and conduct free, fair and credible elections in 2027 and beyond. The upsurge in decamping by Governors of the States into APC, leading to a bizarre situation where 31 out of 36 Governors in Nigeria currently profess membership of APC, cannot save the situation. After all, the Governors only have one vote, and the citizens are most times on different sides with the Governors whom they perceive as their oppressors and looters of State funds!
The stage is therefore set for an epic contest in 2027 between Tinubu, Peter Obi and Abubakar Atiku. And it is clear that, with the total loss of support in Northern Nigeria by President Tinubu, he has lost every conceivable pathway to victory in the 2027 elections. Anybody who did not vote for Tinubu in 2023 will not vote for him in 2027. Rather, a significant portion of those assigned votes will be lost in 2027! Even though most Nigerians believe that his victory in 2023 was contrived and fraudulent, we are all looking forward with eagerness to the epic contest in 2027, where it is clear that President Tinubu is the underdog!
Perhaps this is the appropriate time to urge Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the candidate of the ADC in this election, to rise up to the occasion and become a Statesman, by stepping out of the race and declaring his full support for the Peter Obi/Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso ticket, the most viable ticket in this election. This will make it a two-horse race, where the obvious victors will be known even before vote counting is over on January 15th, 2027! Alhaji Atiku Abubakar should shed off the toga of “Contestant General of the Federation”, because at the age of 80 years and counting, he should have groomed other younger people, including his sons and daughters, to carry on his political legacy!
Chief Madaki Omadachi Ameh, a senior lawyer, is the National Convener of the Public Interest Advocacy Network – PIAN
