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By Jinmi Adisa
The Nigerian political landscape is getting more heated and adventurous by the day as we approach the 2027 elections. In my view, there are only two main political parties contesting for supremacy and one more plausible one in embryo.
The first two are noisy and boisterous, namely, the BAT party of Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the NOSECOBAT: No second term for Tinubu party. The third is muted and only comes into contention if certain elements of NOSECOBAT in alliance with BAT judases and important military and political figures feel vanquished and become desperate enough to tap into the ranks of the armed forces, past and present. For now, the outline of this “could be” third party and its possibilities are remote, muted and ill-defined and we can relate to it accordingly.
The competition for tenure in the Villa in 2027 rests largely on the fate of one man, Bola Tinubu, and his political fortune. Would it end up as a footnote or the summary? Atiku Abubakar and what remains of the PDP, the growing ADC coalition, the Labour Party, human rights activists such as Sowore, former allies and disgruntled APC members, past and present, the Peter Obi train, etc, are crisscrossing the country to highlight the hardship of the economy and plight of the average citizen and canvassing umbrage at what they perceive as tribal bias of the administration and the insularity of the Lagos Gang that Tinubu brought with him to Abuja.
The difficulty of the opposition is that they are not making a feasible dent because they do not recognise the nature of their target. As such, their messages are not suitably calibrated to influence the political situation. Sule Lamido, former foreign minister and erstwhile governor of Jigawa State, appears to do so. In his reflections on the state of the nation, he pointed out that the country does not seem to appreciate the unique circumstances of one person with his supporters taking over a nation, something we have never seen before and which we must now wake up to grapple with.
The United States of America seems to be in a similar situation. Clearly, however, in view of when he assumed power in 2023, Tinubu pre-empted and was Trump before Trump. The imperial majesty image is clearly evident in the style of his appointments, his attitude towards criticisms, his policies and steadfast pursuit of what he thinks are in his interest as evident in his intervention in Rivers State and the deadly quiet manner in which he has treated the Natasha imbroglio in the Senate.
The parliament, House of Assembly and Senate largely concur with his wishes and desires, going by the decisions they take and while the judiciary are interpreting the law according to their conscience and prescribed rules, the overwhelming majority of the decisions are BAT-compliant.
Tinubu’s mastery of the political landscape is unprecedented and more remarkable for the context in which it evolved. After several years in the forest of political opposition, he cobbled together a coalition of the APC, of which he was not chairman but a loosely described Leader of the party and virtually installed General Muhammadu Buhari in power for eight years.
During this period, he stayed apparently loyal to Buhari in spite of a rash of provocations. The worst was on the night of the presidential primaries when Mrs. Aisha Buhari, seemingly did not take well to the emergence of Tinubu as party candidate. In an open show of defiance, she blatantly refused to join him and her husband on stage when the moderator invited her to do so as Buhari passed the torch of party leadership to Tinubu. The moderator repeated the invitation several times. It is safe to assume that her husband made the same appeal as a matter of form but, as an honest woman, she could not be bothered as the nation watched with incredulity.
Mrs Buhari was not a social isolate. Many in the opposition and even some among his faithful were adamant that Tinubu bought the election for himself and his party. The currency of purchase included things such as promises of appointments, contracts, sweet deals for constituents etc. It is the normal way of politics but Tinubu, or the Jagaban excelled in this trade.
As a political general, he commanded a loose array of allies operating partly out of fear about their careers and possibilities if they were not on his victory train. The beauty and marvel of Tinubu’s victory is that it ran against the wishes of the incumbent and his partner in “the other room.” In Africa, this is a Herculean project and closely parroted the miracle of Bruce Lee in the epic Chinese blockbuster “Enter the Dragon” or the Roman epic “Hercules Unchained.”
The coalition against Tinubu must be instructed by this fundamental reality. Their task is not just giving speeches and making propaganda. In strategic terms they require simulations and war games to get a countervailing ticket that can give the current landlord of Aso Villa a run for his money, much less think about humbling him in an election. It can be done but it will take brains, guts, planning and painstaking attention to details.
I must warn that the opposition must be sober and clear-headed. Anyone expecting “revolutionary roses” of a public rush to the polls to put Peter Obi in Aso Rock in the 2027 election is engaging in delusional misidentification. Beyond Tinubu, the other winner of the 2023 elections was Peter Obi. The announced results made him a national figure and boosted his reputation and electoral worth.
My own personal view is that he owes this also to Tinubu. The mystery of his victory in Lagos is a miracle of the elections. Tinubu had a gridlock on Lagos, which was not diminished in the last elections. An adversary, or even a committed loyalist, can only win if Tinubu permits or encourages him or her to win. I suspect that he permitted Obi to win to give credibility to the overall national results.
Is the polling over? Is Tinubu ordained to win? Not necessarily. He is a man of mettle, a very astute, able and colourful politician but he still lacks one key ingredient of a “strong man capability.” He has ardent loyalists but lacks charisma. Charisma is a feeling of allure, captivation and animal magnetism.
Trump has it, Obama has it, Awolowo, Ahmadu Bello Azikiwe all had this appeal. So also did Nkrumah and Nasser. The Kennedys have it and so does Hugo Chavez. Jagaban does not have it yet but can have it if he works on it. If he gets it his stature will loom on the Nigerian horizon like a matador because he will be adding to a host of sterling qualities, which many others lack.
The second chink in Jagaban’s armour is the third political party. We have a history in this country of politicians inciting the army when they are bested in political combat. This can recur. Tinubu may yet live to regret the way in which he allowed the regional mechanism that prevented and deterred military coups for over three decades, the AU-ECOWAS Declarations on Unconstitutional Change of Government (UCG), to fall in abeyance when he served recently as President of ECOWAS.
The consequence is that coupists in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso are running wild as messiahs and comperes of democratically elected civilian leaderships offering a force of example. To misappropriate the words of our celebrated and late Chinua Achebe, Tinubu may yet discover that it could still be “morning yet on creation day.”
•Adisa served as Principal Coordinator, Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Cooperation in Africa (CSSDCA).
