Midway into the administration of president Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the tussle for the next election has started. It began early. The opposition is on the verge of giving the President a diet prepared with the President’s one recipe. The President has been touted to be a master in the game. Before 2015, he had begun to do what the opposition has now set out to do, namely, to form a coalition against the government in power. At that time the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) was the behemoth in the political arena. The party even went to town with the declaration that it would be in power for no less than sixty years, but the party did not know that Tinubu was lurking in the corner.
President Goodluck Jonathan did not seem to understand what befell him when Lagos became the centre for unrestrained protest against attempts to adjust fuel prices, not to stop subsidy but to reduce the funds expended on it. As the protests were rocking Lagos, the President, who still runs the political Machinery of Lagos, in spite of Labour Party’s incursion at the Presidential election which made the All-Progressive Congress come next to the best in the Presidential elections, began to form an alliance with other parties. His intention was to bring virtually all the parties together to confront the political behemoth, the PDP.
Former President Muhammadu Buhari brought his party, then with the acronym CPC, then a part of All Progressive Grand Alliance(APGA) as represented by former Governor Rochas Okorocha, the Action Congress (AC), which was controlled by Bola Ahmed Tinubu and other parties. Then there were decamperes from the PDP represented by the likes of former Senate President Bukola Saraki. Rotimi Amechi and others teamed up for a political alliance aimed at stopping Jonathan and the People’s Democratic Party. There was the reputation of Buhari and the near cult following he commanded at that time. He became a rallying point and the figure that was bound to deliver. The All Progressive Congress became the party to drive the coalition. The Northern parts, which drive the bulk of the votes, rallied round the new party, in conjunction with the massive propaganda of the All Progressive Party.
The rest is history as the saying goes. The table is about to nturn. The coming of the 2027 elections has engendered new coalitions. The opposition has chosen to give President Tinubu, a dose of his own medicine. The President and his strategists are believed to have emasculated all the parties that stand a chance of giving him a run for his money in the next general elections. The labour Party, the platform with which Peter Obi ran for the Presidency, has been reduced into a shadow of itself. A recent Supreme Court judgement on the legitimacy of the Julius Abure led executive has been subjected to varied interpretations. The Care taker Committee led my former Minister, Nenadi Usman, has not functioned optimally. Peter Obi has never minced words about pointing fingers at the Presidency for the infiltration and crisis that befell the labour party.
The Peoples Democratic Party has also become a shadow of itself. A strong of the party, former Governor of Rivers State, now minister of the Federal Capital territory, Nyesom Wike is said to be in the Peoples Democratic Party with the spirit of All Progressive Congress. He has decaled support for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu but insists that he remains in the PDP. The truth, however, is that Wike was largely instrumental to Tinubu’s emergence as president given his last minute move to deliver Rivers State to the President in the last presidential elections. It must have been in appreciation of the act that the President appointed Wike Minister, and has evidently tried to ensure that the minister still holds sway in the politics of Rivers State. The obvious intention is to ensure that he delivers the state again in 2027. Wike’s presence in the PDP is evidently a mirage. Everyone knows where his allegiance lies. He did not hide it when they party failed to make him the Vice-Presidential candidate. According to Dino Melaye, the former Rivers State Governor was emphatic when he did not get the ticket. He said in pidgin expression ‘wahala dey o’. He has ensured that the wahala continued.
The coalition has thus left the party to get another platform. Real opposition know that it is easier to wake a man who is sleeping than to wake one who pretends to be sleeping. As a member of the PDP they know that Wike is pretending to be sleeping. It took outsmarting for Wike not to stop their meeting the other day in Abuja when they advertised another venue for their meeting but met in another place when the Minister had allegedly tried to seal off the advertised place. The opposition has already begun to get the knocks. Some alleged members have instituted a suit against the African Democratic Congress(ADC) and its immediate past Chairman, Ralph Okey Nwosu. They contend that his tenure as Chairman of the party had expired which is why he had no right to go into any coalition. The matter is pending but would seem that the coalition envisaged the attacks before they swung into action.
Tinubu’s political opponents have found a strong avenue in the vehicle. It would be risky to underestimate the power of this opposition. Tinubu’s former political ally and former Governor of Osun State, Rauf Aregbesola, is now on the other side, and in fact one of the major reasons, the President’s party lost Osun State. David Mark is an old war horse in the game. Former Vice- President Atiku Abubakar has not relented in his bid to become the president of Nigeria. Tinubu’s reforms are not making things better. Is it not amazing that, in spite of the hue and cry about Buhari’s era, Nigerians would still wish that prices were, at worst returned to that era. Let’s still hope for the best.