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Nigeria’s 2027 general election will be a titanic battle between good and evil. Some political parties have held their primary elections and fielded candidates for various positions. Some aspirants have emerged as consensus candidates; some through imposition. Some butterflies who had thought they were birds suffered disgraceful defeat.
Imo State coordinator of pro-Tinubu City Boy Movement, Pascal Okechukwu, popularly known as Cubana Chief Priest, is one of them. His crushing defeat at the All Progressives Congress (APC) primary election for Orsu/Orlu/Oru East Federal Constituency seat in Imo State, held on May 16, trended recently on the social media.
If a seer had told him that he would fall spectacularly, he would not have believed it. I saw a video where he was interacting with some of his constituents triumphantly. Amid a mouthful of food and drinks, the people heaped praises on him. They literally said he was the best thing to have happened to his constituency.
After the election, he reportedly secured only 14 votes. He lost to the incumbent lawmaker, Canice Nwachukwu. In a video post, he expressed disappointment over the outcome of the election, saying his only regret was trusting the elders in the community. He later made a U-turn, saying he didn’t take part in the election. He claimed he voluntarily withdrew from the race after the Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodimma, explained the position of the party on zoning within the federal constituency to him.
In another tongue-in-cheek remark, the Chief Priest said President Bola Tinubu didn’t fully trust him. This, to him, is because he is an Igbo man who supported Peter Obi in the 2023 election. During a livestream session with popular streamer Peller, the socialite said his decision to back Tinubu this time was because he didn’t want to remain on the losing side again. He dismissed Obi’s chances in the 2027 presidential election, describing him as not serious. Opportunism has no other better example!
The President forgave Reno Omokri, Femi Fani-Kayode, Daniel Bwala and some others who denigrated him before, and even gave them lucrative appointments. But he cannot forgive or trust his new ebullient acolyte because he is Igbo. Shamefully, the same person is still supporting him.
Many of them shouting City Boy today do not love Tinubu. The problem with Nigerian politics is that most people want to be where bread is already buttered. The APC is currently the ruling party and Tinubu the President. Their major calculation is that nobody can remove an incumbent President from power. So, for their selfish reasons, including protecting their businesses, they joined the “On your mandate we stand” chorus. But they have not seen anything yet.
A good number of Nigerians don’t vote on sentiments anymore. They want change. They know a capable hand when they see it. They smell injustice from afar. The South-East people, for instance, know that their region has been marginalized for too long; that the presidency should have come to them this time. “Where is the justice” was the way the late APC chieftain, Ogbonnaya Onu, put it during the party’s presidential primary for the 2023 election.
Today, a few people from the South-East feeding from the crumbs falling from Tinubu’s table want the region to vote massively for him in 2027. The other day, the Minister of Works, David Umahi, was in his home state, Ebonyi, to inspect some ongoing federal road and bridge projects in the state. He used the opportunity to tell South-Easterners to reciprocate Tinubu’s perceived gesture by overwhelmingly voting for him or risk losing the federal projects in the region.
He said the projects were unprecedented in the history of the South-East as no previous administration had invested so heavily in infrastructure in the region. Citing his current position as a good example of the good things Tinubu has done for the zone, he enthused, “We shouted marginalization before but today no ministry is bigger than the Ministry of Works, and it is being headed by an Igbo man. The President has integrated the South-East into the mainstream of Nigerian politics.” Pity!
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Umahi is not thinking about good governance. He is not concerned about acute hunger and the high cost of living in Nigeria. He cares less about the high rate of insecurity in the country. What matters to him is that Tinubu made him the minister of a lucrative ministry and so Igbo people should all back him or lose federal projects in their region.
Umahi should realize that having federal projects is the right of every region or zone in the country. The fact that a region did not massively vote for a particular President should not be an excuse to deny that region what is due to them.
The late former President Muhammadu Buhari did it in his time. He felt the South-East did not vote massively for him and sidelined the zone in major appointments in his government without regard to the Federal Character principle. At the end of the day, the South-Easterners have not all died. They still exist and have moved on. Denying them federal appointments or projects does not make them lesser beings nor will it make them die of hunger and acute poverty.
We must all rally round to entrench good governance and true democracy in the country. Without mincing words, the person who is most capable to be the President of this country in 2027 is Mr. Peter Obi. He deserves it not just because he is from the South-East but because he is the most transparent, accountable and competent candidate in this dispensation. He is probably the only former governor who does not receive life pensions or some other entitlements from his state. He lives a simple and humble life and is not known to be corrupt like most Nigerian politicians.
They have tried everything in the books to stop him, but the more they try, the more he garners momentum and supporters. When they tried to put a spoke in the wheel of the Labour Party (LP) and the African Democratic Congress (ADC), he was smart enough to move to the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC). He is the sole presidential candidate there. He has said repeatedly that he will run for one term and his major aim is to bring peace, unity and good governance to his country.
Social media mob working for the ruling party capitalized on his recent defection from the ADC to the NDC to mock him. Some say he should have remained in the LP and help to settle the crisis rocking the party. To these people, his not being able to sort out the LP crisis shows he lacks leadership skills.
This argument is too cheeky. Who does not know that the endless crises and court cases in the LP and ADC were engineered by power grabbers to stop Obi? Who does not know that there are moles and unstable characters planted in those parties to monitor him and cripple his bid to become President? The storm in LP simmered when he left the party for the ADC. They followed him to the ADC with nonsensical litigation traps. There is no way he would have survived or emerged as a candidate in such an atmosphere.
Besides, who among the Nigerian politicians will cast the first stone? Do most of them not switch from one party to another? Do they expect Obi to succumb to the shenanigans of the ruling party chieftains who did not want him on the ballot? Do they expect him to stand by and watch when some incompetent people have hijacked the levers of power and have continued to lord it over the majority of Nigerians?
Some of them have tried to prevail on former President Goodluck Jonathan to contest for the 2027 presidency. The Kabiru Turaki faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has reportedly handed him automatic ticket to contest the 2027 presidential election, being the party’s only presidential aspirant. The party saw no need to screen Jonathan, considering his previously held positions.
The man has not rejected or accepted it. While we await his acceptance or rejection speech, my only advice will be, look before you leap. He should go and enjoy the goodwill he garnered for voluntarily stepping down for Buhari when he was said to have lost the 2015 election. If he ever steps out to contest for the forthcoming election, the humiliation he will suffer will be child’s play compared to what the so-called Cubana Chief Priest suffered. Let him enjoy his retirement in peace because he did not forget anything in Aso Villa.
Whoever wants Nigerians to continue in this era of renewed suffering and acute hardship under this regime must either be a beneficiary or a partaker in this poor governance. We must learn to reject bad leaders through our votes. Tinubu has failed and does not deserve a second chance. With a credible electoral process, Obi, as leader of the Village Boys, will humiliate Tinubu, the leader of the so-called City Boys.
