There is a dearth of politician-statesman because being a politician itself is a nightmare. Those who are truly committed to the service of humanity are distrusted by the society they serve just as they are by owners of society whose greed they are out to contain. They are risk takers who promise miracle even when their lack of faith forecloses a divine intervention. They must strike a balance between society they are out to serve and the owners of society that have the power not only to abruptly end their reign but to decide if their lives are to be cut off at their prime like John Kennedy Thomas Sankara or our own Murtala Mohammed. And surviving till old age is no guarantee they may not end up like Britain’s Joseph Chamberlain carried out of parliament motionless Franklin D Roosevelt the 32nd American president who governed from a wheel chair or even humoured by praise singers and propagandists until like Adolf Hitler they committed suicide.
Those who have followed the political trajectory of President Tinubu since 1992 will agree he is a man who is not afraid to take risk. His emergence as APC candidate was because of his brinkmanship and went to become president because of his capacity for skilful exploitation of man’s infirmities. His ability to reconcile private affluence with public squalor have kept him in power in spite of efforts by sore-losers like Atiku Obi and Amaechi who swore to make the country ungovernable.
He has tamed the fuel subsidy scammers frittering away 20% of our budget and the foreign exchange round tripping merchants but not without visiting hardship on the most vulnerable Nigerians. Attempt by aggrieved labour leaders to create social dislocation failed because thousands of unpaid civil servants pensioners and lecturers who received relief from freed resources in form of paid backlog of salaries and pensions arrears have started to believe government run by a politician who is faithful to his calling is not the enemy.
This is perhaps why President Tinubu has been able to build an elite consensus that tagged last week’s inauguration of All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council ‘a celebration’. The event attracted opposition figures including Anambra’s Charles Soludo Osun’s Ademola Adeleke of the Accord Party and Federal Capital Territory’s Minister Nyesom Wike who are all persuaded that the president’s record of performance in the last three and half years has guaranteed his re-election in 2027. It was therefore not a surprise his supporters believe their only task is communicating the importance of the infrastructure the government had built including ‘roads power projects gas projects railways ports agricultural infrastructure and digital connectivity a task which they promised to undertake while the president concentrates on the affairs of the state.
Celebrating the presence of 33 out of 36 state governors at the conference Governor Soludo had said: ‘There is no time in Nigeria’s history that there is a greater consensus on economic trajectory…there is nowhere for changing a winning team. If it’s not broken why mend it?’
Nyeson Wike of PDP pledged that ‘by the grace of God Rivers and FCT will vote massively for Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
While Governor Adeleke has promised that they ‘are going to sing and dance all the way back to Aso Rock’ for Senate President Akpabio ‘the gathering as a coalition of the winning parties is a demonstration of something that has never happened since 1960′. And for House of Representatives’ Speaker Abbas: ‘The 2027 election presents a clear choice between consolidation and confusion between steady progress and dangerous retreat between completing a difficult national repair and abandoning it halfway.’
However I am not sure anyone can also begrudge Atiku for trying to exploit the sentiments of aggrieved Nigerians by citing the 2026 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index which he said recorded 17.9 million more Nigerians in multidimensional poverty to insist that ‘Tinubu can gather every governor minister and political defector in Nigeria. None of them can erase the hunger in people’s homes’; while Seyi Makinde can amuse himself by dismissing Tinubu’s PCC Council as a ‘coalition of failed politicians’.
But is the opposition really confused? I don’t really think so. Both Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi represent a tendency that has held the country hostage since independence. I think both are playing the game as scripted.
For instance APC had hardly left the venue of the inauguration when Bolaji Abdullahi the ADC spokesman appeared on Channels TV not to invalidate APC claims or advance ADC policy alternatives but to declare without proof that the president’s decision to campaign only in 12 states was because of his fear of facing the electorate. Kola Ologbondoyan also speaking for the ADC was on ARISE TV swearing his party was sure the 33 governors that participated in the APC event did not have the minds of their own.
And of course Obi’s intellectual powerhouse represented by professors Pat Utomi and Chidi Odinkalu were not left out. Instead of Utomi speaking about Obi’s policy alternatives or what he would do differently he spoke about the power of debate: ‘If the Nigerian people are real people they will say that anybody who does not debate in the 36 states of the country is not fit to be a president.’ As for Chidi Odinkalu’ who has never been able to hide his anger that Obi his idol lost to Tinubu in 2023 his heartache was that ‘President Tinubu’s appearance and speech at the event were pre-recorded’.
These angry men never told us how their obsession with APC advances the chances of their principals who unfortunately are not politicians but active participants in our economic nightmare since 1986.
Atiku Abubakar as Obasanjo’s vice president was in charge of National Economic Council when Nigeria’s total investment of about $100billion was sold for a paltry $1.5billion with ALSCON built at $3.2billion sold for $250million and Aladja Delta Steel built for $1.5billion sold for $30million.
He was the head of NEC when the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency ((PPPRA) with ‘ a staff strength of 249 supervised by unwieldy 22-man strong board earning scandalously whopping salaries and allowances of N57b per annum’ supervised the theft of N1.7trillion by PDP stalwarts and another N1.4trillion by their siblings without importing a bottle of fuel.
The greatest beneficiary of Atiku’s economic fiasco was Peter Obi who today boasts of 200 lock-up shops at the Lagos Trade Fair Complex and his group of importers of labour of other societies that embarked on massive importation of electronics ceramics pharmaceutical products car accessories and wines – Obi’s favourite leading to the collapse of our budding industries with our children moving in droves to foreign land in search of greener pastures.
That Peter Obi ‘the master of bogus statistics and incoherent economic prescriptions’ the presidential candidate of NDC is talking of ‘consumption to production’ and former VP Atiku Abubakar of ‘shifting economic position’ the ADC presidential candidate swearing to bring back fuel subsidy’ even while President Tinubu is still trying to clear the mess created by these economic parasites only shrieks of sardonic humour.