Anybody who understands the mental disposition of the typical Nigerian politician will not be bothered about what took place in Delta State the other day. On the day in question, the governor of the state, Sheriff Oborevwori and his immediate predecessor, Ifeanyi Okowa, left the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the All Progressives Congress (APC). They were joined in their parade of defection by a number of their followers. The two henchmen of Delta State politics gave reasons for their actions. But their points were lacking in substance . They were as dry as ditchwater. The defectors sounded all too familiar. Nigerians are already used to such banalities oozing forth from politicians of fortune.
The defections, strictly speaking, are not anything special. We have witnessed such actions in the past. They are in line with what most Nigerian politicians do for reasons that are always self-serving. But what drew attention to the coarse display was the strangeness in embracing an order that has paralyzed the country and its citizens.
The way things are in Nigeria today, President Bola Tinubu, the composer and arranger of the defections, does not deserve such a warm embrace from people who should shun him like a plague. He is not supposed to be touched with a ten-foot pole.
The affliction that came with his regime has become legendary. His name spells pain and anguish. The people have never had it so bad. In a proper country, such an affliction would be wished away. The president’s disastrous performance in office would have earned him nothing but derision and repudiation. People would have been in a hurry to end his regime of privation and deprivation.
However, for reasons that are clearly anti-people, morally bankrupt politicians are making him look tolerable . It is only in Nigeria that a president that personifies bad governance will be programmed and promoted for a second coming. The ongoing pro-Tinubu gyrations really reaffirm the fact that Nigerians are a people without abiding standards. Nigerians live for the moment and wouldn’t be bothered about anything that endures.
Ifeanyi Okowa, the vice presidential candidate of the PDP in the election that produced Tinubu as president, exemplifies this Nigerian malaise to the point of nausea. A man that stood for election at the highest level with the ticket of a political party that fought a ding dong battle with Tinubu’s APC ought to have acted differently. Okowa never demonstrated for one day in words or action that he was the vice presidential candidate of the political party that laid claim to victory in that historic presidential election.
He never took any position on that election. He just looked on morosely. In the end, he abandoned his flag just too cheaply. What can Okowa say about an election in which he ran as vice presidential candidate? He has never been known to have taken any position on that election.
After sitting askance for months on end, Okowa has finally stepped out with the wrong foot. His position on Tinubu’s re-election bid is pitiable. It is the interjection of someone who has lost his bearing. While speaking in partial justification of his defection, Okowa said that Nigeria’s stability depended on Tinubu being allowed to complete eight years in office. Tinubu, by the way, has not spent up to two years in office, yet the campaign for his re-election has reached fever pitch levels. The most potent and thriving agenda in the polity now is Tinubu’s re-election. Nothing else seems to matter.
In order to be seen to be part of this feverish campaign, Okowa admonished Nigerians to work for Tinubu’s return ticket so that Nigeria will be politically stable. Nothing can be as harebrained as this.
In politics, people seek re-election on the basis of their performance. Re-election is not automatic. It is earned. But Okowa does not want Nigerians to go that way.
He is not interested in Tinubu’s performance in office. He just wants Nigerians to re-elect him. The people should not ask questions. They should not evaluate his performance. They should not even consider any alternative or weigh the options available. They should just return Tinubu so that Nigeria will not burn.
But is Nigeria not already on fire under Tinubu? Under the Tinubu order, Nigeria is witnessing the worst form of nepotism. We have a president that believes that only people of his ethnic group deserve consideration for political positions. The president’s appointments are so lopsided in favour of his south west region to the extent that other zones of the country are wondering what is going on.
The south south where the defectors are falling over themselves for Tinubu are relegated under the Tinubu presidency. Are the defectors so blind that they cannot see?
It is important to recognize that the common man is not factored in in all these considerations. He does not matter. The big men who are defecting do not believe that the man in the street has a voting right. His right has been taken away. He can wait for hours on end under the heat of the scorching sun to cast his vote.
But today’s defector believes that he holds the aces. That is why nobody is talking about the president’s performance. What we are facing in Nigeria at moment amounts to inverted discourse. Citizens of a country like Nigeria that has been misgoverned are supposed to engage themselves actively on how to rescue their country from the buccaneers that have destroyed the very fabric that holds the country together. They are supposed to be talking about enthroning a new order that will work for the people and their country.
Nobody is talking about the fact that the Tinubu administration has sunk Nigeria into the abyss of decay. Instead, the people are falling over themselves to be counted among his supporters. Sycophancy is walking on all fours in the land. What a people. What a country.
If the likes of Okowa were still thinking properly, he would have known that what makes sense is to say that the presidency should stay in the south for eight years before returning to the north. The eight-year slot for the south is not ceded exclusively to Tinubu. Any other southerner can compete for it. Tinubu will only qualify for a return if his first tenure works for the country. Is it working? You know as much as I do.