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Without doubt, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate for the 2023 elections, would wish for a better commencement of the race for what he said was his life-long ambition. The presidential project of the former Lagos State governor seems to have been struck from its very beginning with acute rickets.
Almost every step taken so far by the Tinubu presidential project has either been self-retarding or unhelpfully controversial, or at best, devoid of any enhancing value that will propel him to his desired destination.
Maybe it was bound to be so. The Tinubu project sprouted from a foundation that was in conflict with concord. He started with brushing aside the rotation arrangement, which did not favour his contesting for President at this time. Having thus made himself an iconoclast with a doubtful mission, he appears to have been condemned by fate thereafter to defy every order, including the soothing values of his fragile heterogenous society. Alas, neither nature nor the record of his party are on his side to aid his desired exploits. Still, he strives to prevail.
Laying claim to the presidential ticket of the APC as an entitlement, more than for any other reason, he proceeded to handily win the prize he sought. The dust of his party victory that may yet prove pyrrhic had not settled before he ignited a bigger national fury, choosing a running mate that is also a moslem like him. The act came against an unwritten code that has served well to maintain a semblance of peace and balance among the two equally matched major religions in Nigeria. Relative peace has been maintained through deliberate effort to maintain balance between the two religions. This is the back drop of the society which on the heels of eight years reign of a Muslim president, Tinubu emerged as the presidential candidate of the same ruling party and decided in his wisdom to pick another Muslim as deputy.
Having struck another quick blow in succession to harmony in the land, the former Lagos State governor and his team launched out on a most disingenuous and discordant campaign to convince Christians that religion is not of any importance in Nigerian politics. Curiously and very damaging to whatever futile point they were struggling to make, the Tinubu team proceeded to stage a most absurd and unprecedented drama in Nigerian politics.
At a an even to present Kashim Shettima as Tinubu’s running mate, the same people who had been arguing that religion has no place in Nigerian politics, literally went to the market place and gathered some characters, dressed them up in badly woven gowns and insultingly tagged them bishops and pastors. Why was it necessary to call up those apparitions and shepherd them to a purely political event of unveiling the vice-presidential candidate of a political party? Deception.
Penultimate week, Tinubu appointed top personnel for his campaign team. Among these was Adams Oshiomhole, former chairman of the APC, whose running-mouth more than any other factor, caused him his last prime party office. Also appointed was Festus Keyamo, junior minister of Labour and Employment in the current Buhari government. The former was appointed deputy director general of the Tinubu campaign team, while the latter was appointed spokesperson.
The two individuals, two of a kind actually, promptly announced commencement of duties for the Tinubu campaign with television appearances. Disappointingly, the respective outings of the two individuals, have so far added discordant grains to the Tinubu project. Truculence hardly elevates.
Clearly, the Tinubu campaign spokesmen have not yet figured out an effective pitch for promoting their principal. That ordinarily should have informed their jumping into the fray with circumspection, considering especially the complexity of the assignment they have taken up. But not Oshiomhole and Keyamo. By their record, these are not individuals who place premium on discretion when they speak.
Oshiomhole for one, is an interesting case. Although his mouth appears to be a major handicap to him, he obviously cannot rein it in. The problem with the former governor is not that he is not eloquent. He is. Regrettably, he has a fault so succinctly captured by the looney who insisted that nothing is wrong with him, except the minor problem that whenever he wanted to say one thing, another thing will come out of his mouth. The fellow, obviously, was not in a position to appreciate the enormity of his crisis. There are ample bases to believe that what emanates from Adams Oshiomhole’s mouth is not always what he intended to say. It just cannot be.
Now, look at this. Stepping out with characteristic enthusiasm to promote Tinubu’s candidature, Oshiomhole, former national chairman of the APC declared that Tinubu cannot be judged by Buhari’s failures. There are no complicated interpretations to the statement. The immediate past APC Chairman clearly said it; one, that Buhari has largely failed. Two, Tinubu has no hands in Buhari’s failures and so should not judged by it. All the same, Oshiomhole will want Nigerians to still vote for APC, possibly the Tinubu version, distinct from the failed Buhari version. That is Adams Oshiomhole.
Festus Keyamo’s outing was even more calamitous, both for himself and for the new project he now represents. Speaking on the strangulating insecurity in the country, Keyamo informed all that the APC never promised Nigerians that there will be no insecurity in the land. According to him, there is insecurity in even the most secured countries. What his party promised Nigerians, he said, was that every act of insecurity will be appropriately responded to by the government.
So how has the APC government responded appropriately to the pervasive insecurity in the country? Listen to Keyamo; “Last week those who were gathering around bushes in Abuja, they were raided and flushed out and killed. That is what we promised. We promised response. We did not promise that it will not happen. We promised response and we responded last week. We killed them and Abuja is safe now. There will be no incident of such around the bushes of Abuja again”. You just cannot but begin to wonder.
In a week like every other Nigerian week in recent times, which recorded multiple killing of innocent citizens, both servicemen and civilians, in Kogi, Bauchi, Kaduna, Imo and Ondo among others; a week in which bandit attacks forced the Nigerian Railway Corporation to suspend train services on its Lagos-Abuja-Kano route, Keyamo found in the clearing of bushes in Abuja and killing of some criminals in the bushes, proud evidence that his party has lived up to its promise of responding effectively to insecurity. His views on the government dispute with the Academic Staff of Union of Universities (ASUU) which has forced students to be at home for over six months, was no less appalling.
Instructively, Keyamo relayed a grim message to Nigerians, that his principal, Tinubu, will run the country, if he wins, with the same template Buhari used to govern for eight years. Only someone like Keyamo will deploy threat as a worthwhile marketing strategy for a candidate already in trouble.
