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• Democracy being emasculated under president’s watch
From Obinna Odogwu, Awka
Former deputy governorship candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) in the November 8, 2025 governorship election in Anambra State, Dr. Ndubuisi Nwobu, has rated President Bola Tinubu’s administration very low, describing it as a massive failure.
Nwobu, a former chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state, said Tinubu is making efforts to frustrate the ADC coalition so that Nigerians won’t have an alternative, given that they have resolved to vote him out in 2027 as a result of his poor performance.
Insecurity seems to be defying every government effort to tame it. What, in your view, is the true position?
Well, it is obvious that they lack the ability and the capacity to handle the security challenges. The government has all the latitude to assemble our best brains in security matters but unfortunately it is obvious that they lack the political will to do that. There seems to be politics surrounding those that should be engaged in getting insecurity nipped in the bud. Today, everything in this country revolves around partisan politics. If you are talking about the economy or security, they try to bring party politics into it. Security and economy are supposed to be a patriotic responsibility; it should be nationalistic agenda, not a partisan agenda. Unfortunately, the present government does not want to see it as such. And a situation whereby they leave the core issues and keep playing politics about every other thing, they are bound to lose focus. I think the preoccupation of the present government is in re-election rather than in challenges facing the country. And that is why they are more interested in using the security agencies and the judiciary to destabilise all the other political parties so as to ensure that even if Nigerians do not want them, there won’t be any opposition that will emerge at the end of the day. If they devote the resources and time they deploy in trying to destroy opposition parties into fighting insecurity, I believe that insecurity will be nipped in the bud. The resources are there, the manpower is there but unfortunately they have failed to rally the country together and say, this is a challenge besetting all of us, not a partisan challenge.
How would you rate the performance of the Tinubu-led federal government, especially in the areas of economy?
It has been failure, failure, failure. If you look at the economic angle, the moment he came into power, Nigerians became poorer than they used to be; they became more impoverished. If you were a billionaire before Tinubu’s emergence, you are struggling to be a millionaire. If you were a millionaire, you are struggling to be a ‘thousannaire’; if you were a ‘thousannaire’, you are now completely off the mark. Yes, subsidy has been a problem, but look at the scenario. Subsidy is said to have been removed, has the fund been channelled to the citizenry? No. All those funds have been channelled to a few elite, further impoverishing the citizenry. The governors are happy with the development because they now have more money which they are not accountable for. Then, more money is being spent on securing the pipeline much more than what was being paid for subsidy. So, who is fooling who? If we are now paying more than what we were having on subsidy on securing the pipelines, what is the essence? That is why you now have a country where the government is spending money to hire lobbyists in America and a private individual will be spending more money for the same government to get lobbyists. Is that not a complete failure of governance? An average man today, if you’re earning any salary, it is a paltry sum compared to what somebody was earning before the coming of this government. We thought we had seen the worst in Buhari but this one is far worse than what we saw under Buhari’s administration. And a few persons are showing undue opulence and people will be acting contrary to the constitution of the land; and because they are the favourites of the government, they are protected and given security to continue in their rough show above the constitution. So, I can tell you that this government is a massive failure.
You mentioned that the APC-led federal government is working hard to destabilise the opposition parties. Has it touched your party, the ADC?
There is nothing they are not doing to see if they can frustrate the ADC. The ADC is their greatest challenge today in this country. It is their nightmare, I will tell you. ADC is the nightmare of the present government; and they are deploying all types of subterfuge to see if they can succeed in unsettling the ADC. Unfortunately for them, those that came together to build up the ADC starting with the founding national chairman of the party, because of his altruistic nature, he ensured that the coming into being of the coalition must be well grounded and followed all the constitutional provisions of the party, the ADC; that is why all their efforts to destabilise the ADC is failing. But that does not mean they have stopped. They are doing everything humanly possible to see if they can succeed in doing that so that they will not allow Nigerians to have a choice. You can see what is happening with the electoral amendment bill. Any government that is worth its salt and any legislature that is worth its salt, should that not have been the first amendment where it was obvious to them that people went to the tribunals, went to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court said that the Act gives INEC latitude to deploy any process they deem fit. Yes, INEC said that by their guidelines, they’re going to do transmission but the guideline is not supreme to the Act. So, if the legislators needed the people’s votes to count, their first amendment would be to support the mandatory real-time transmission of the election results from the polling units to the INEC’s results viewing (IReV) portal. But you can see the macabre dance they are doing with it. That’s why I said again that they’re not true to their words in chasing bandits. You said that you’re chasing bandits while you’re committing banditry in the democratic space. In fact, their own banditry is worse than the ones the armed bandits are committing, because anything that is done to frustrate the will of the people is greater banditry. In fact, it is a shame that someone who rode on the back of constitutionalism, federalism, free speech, opposition politics, and now has the opportunity to deepen democracy, but under his watch democracy is being emasculated. Efforts are being made by him to destroy the democratic space. It is really unfortunate. That is beneath anybody’s expectation of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
How best do you think the ADC’s leadership should manage Atiku’s and Obi’s conflicting interests?
What you see playing out is the beauty of democracy. Internal aspirations are basically the rights of the individuals who are aspiring. It is within their constitutional right to aspire. But at the end of the day, the party will put a process through which one candidate will emerge. And I can assure you that the ADC’s process will not only be seen to be transparent but will manifestingly be transparent. And through that process, be it primaries or consensus building, at the end of the day, whoever emerges will have no alternative than to work together to ensure the emergence of the ADC because the situation facing us is an emergency and this country needs to be rescued. And only ADC can do it.
By next month, Soludo will be sworn in for a second term. How would you rate his performance in the past four years as governor? How impressive has it been? Again, what would you expect from him in the next four years to come?
Well, he’s done his very best in the past four years, but I can tell you I am not impressed. I always look forward to people who say that they are democrats; holding onto the belief that it is the citizens that empower them. The nature of the local government election he conducted was nothing to write home about. And they are at it again, picking candidates without a defined process, even within their own party. And not allowing the state’s electoral commission to conduct a proper election, it shows someone who does not have that mindset that it is the people that should elect those who should lead them. So, it’s quite unfortunate. In the security angle, until recently, all the security agencies in Anambra State were bereft of the needed logistics to perform; to coordinate their activities. And in our campaign I said no matter what they say, what is required is an ICT-driven security process in Anambra State. Kudos to the government; kudos to the security agencies, that throughout the Christmas and New Year celebrations, there was no untoward incident. I congratulate them for ensuring that we had a very peaceful Christmas and New Year festivities. I commend the government and the security agencies but I keep indicating that the best way to get it done is to bring in modern day technology, infuse it into the human element and you will get a perfect blend which will guarantee 24/7 security in Anambra State. There are quite a number of infrastructural developments in the state capital and in some cities here and there. All I ask is let it be equitable. Let it be balanced. Let him look inwards and see that there is a balancing of these infrastructural developments, so that everybody feels carried along. At this point in time, ours is to, if called upon at any point in time, to give our words of advice to the government on how to get it right because like I said before, Anambra Project is a collective project. It is not for the government alone. So at any point in time, anywhere I find myself and there is any word I can chip in to ensure that Anambra becomes better, I will not hesitate to do that. We can only have one governor and since he has won an election, all we can do is to give him the support. Criticise him when he’s not getting it right; applaud him when he is getting it right. The last four years has not been satisfactory. Let’s pray that the next four years will get us to the Eldorado that we expect
