The clock is ticking. By the end of today, the feat of crossing the presidential bridge or failing to cross, would just be 21 soulful days away. Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a frontline contender for the number one office is the land. The Battle for the Aso Villa would surely be one of the toughest political battles he would have ever fought. He had boasted that he had never lost an election before in his life. How many has he contested beyond the senatorial and governorship elections anyway? But the battle for February 25, is fast becoming herculean, what with the internal and external deficits of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate. The sundry gaffes within and around his campaigns are too many to be brushed aside. His spokesmen who are wont to defend every misfiring have run out of even basic defence lines. The political casuistry seems ended. They are no longer able to explain away the verbal oddities of their principal. The Tinubu gaffes and slips are not only very embarrassing, they are symptomatic of something more serious with his psycho-mental capacity. Mischief makers have been compiling these internal deficits and have become well-watched comic videos on Tik-tok. They are damn too frequent to be dismissed as one-off human errors. If elected, many fear that such verbal blunders spiced with factual errors and cognitive defects would be an embarrassment in/among the committee of nations.
Perhaps it can be explained that the frequent cases of Tinubu falling asleep, and snoring away in the middle of ceremonies and events is because of the heavy strain the campaign movements have had on the presidential candidate. But it speaks also to the fact that Tinubu is no longer as young as he claims or as he was while he was a governor.
The energy and vibes are no more there. The natural case of the Law of diminishing return has exerted its effect on the former Lagos governor, and the evidence is all over him in all the three concerns of cognitive, affective and psychomotor domain. Those who flock around him and know these shortcomings but keep nudging him on for obvious selfish reasons are parts of the enemy within.
One other strand of the internal deficits is in the cases of stolen identities created for Bola Tinubu by his handlers. First, it was the use of former Cross River State governor, Donald Duke's twelve year old picture in a campaign publication profiling the Tinubu persona.
The Duke's picture was passed away for the childhood picture of Bola Tinubu. That was at the beginning of the campaigns. If that was an honest mistake, how do we explain the morphed image of Tinubu in Ebuka's signature frame? Did the graphic designers think Nigerians would never detect?
Beside the initial controversy revved up by the Muslim-Muslim ticket, an anger that has hardly been assuaged, the ecclesiastical robes and cassocks engrafted on mechanics, vulcanisers and people who have no business with Christian priesthood, in a desperate move to package a support outlook from Christendom, only helped to lay the foundation for suspicion and curiosity with the Tinubu presidential project.
As for the external deficits, it appears that the forces and elements opposed to the Tinubu candidacy are working extra hours to frustrate the presidential project. This much was part of the outburst of Tinubu at his recent campaign in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital. There, he accused the Federal Government of churning out policies that are meant to throw studs in his presidential project. He cited the cases of scarcity of petrol and the new Naira notes. In the belief of Tinubu,
they are strange policies being pushed by those who are determined to stop him on his track. But in some strange show of confidence, Tinubu affirmed that despite all the disruptive schemes against him, he would yet win the election.
Perhaps Tinubu was right that the policies and developments in the polity are aimed at frustrating his presidential ambition. The timing of the policies and developments are curious. How do we explain the hardship being visited on Nigerians with the scarcity of petrol? The sustained hardship occasioned by the scarcity can only produce one effect: hatred and disdain for the political party in government which has failed to bring ease and succour to the Nigerian populace. In many parts of the country, a litre of petrol is selling between N400 and N600 per litre. Yet, it is like gold: difficult to find. People queue and even sleep at filling stations, all to no avail. The experience is super nasty and nobody, in his /her right senses can be supportive of a system and government that is visiting such needless hardship on him/her.
What is even worse, the inexplicable scarcity of the newly redesigned naira notes beats every logic of normalcy. The old Naira notes will no longer be legal tender after February 10, yet the new notes are nowhere to be found, not even in the vaults of banks. ATM machines are empty. Banking halls are empty, POS points are empty. Even more frustrating is the resort to online transfer of funds even for low-end transactions like buying okra in the market or paying for bus/taxi fare, which is further frustrated with the so-called "network problem". For a moment, it would appear that we had come to that awful prediction in the Holy Books where the dreaded mark of the Beast will take over the affairs of humanity, wherein even those who have money are not able to buy anything with their monies, except if they have the mark of the beast (666). It is the release of that mark that we are yet to see in real terms.
The frustration, anger, despondency and crushing hardship are better imagined than experienced. It was so bad that President Mohammadu Buhari (and his helicopter) had to be pelted with stones in Kano during the week, when he went to commission some federal government projects. Earlier, there had been protest against him in his native Katsina State, over the hardship people are going through.
What is even more befuddling is that the government is not saying anything that makes sense. The CBN governor, Godwin Emefielie has not been able to explain why the banks cannot dispense the new notes. Mr President who is the substantive Petroleum minister cannot explain why the fuel scarcity has more than lingered. All they utter are vexatious gibberish that answer to nothing reasonable.
I therefore tend to suspect that the frustration and hardship being experienced at this time are all aimed at fermenting the hatred for the sitting government and its political party, which will inadvertently affect the Tinubu presidential ambition.
This position has also been supported by Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, the governor of Kaduna State who has alleged that there are anti-Tinubu forces in the presidency.
The Kaduna governor said "I believe that there are elements in the Villa that want us to lose the elections because they didn't get their way. They had their candidate; their candidate didn't win the primaries and I think they are still trying to get us to lose the elections and they are hiding behind the president's desire to do what he thinks is right".
Mrs Aisha Buhari seems to be in the same camp with El-Rufai, by posting the video of teh kaduna governor in his accusative interview. Clearly, the party is in crises.
Can this be true? We recall that the national chairman of the party, Mallam Abdullahi Adamu had in May last year vowed to punish Mr Tinubu after the latter's Emi lokan swan song at Abeokuta, where he had told stories of how Buhari had wept profusely for continually losing elections until he (Tinubu) stepped in to assure him of victory. Adamu must have felt Tinubu embarrassed the President. Although President Buhari had never openly made reference to the incident and the condescending comments, it is believed that Buhari merely "drank in" the incident. He did not digest it. Fulanis hardly forgive such acts, those who know the President confirmed. It is remarkable also that the same Adamu had, in the days leading to the APC presidential primary, claimed that President Buhari had endorsed the candidature of the senate President, Ahmad Lawan. It turned out to be untrue. After the emergence of Tinubu, Adamu had not had the courage or the leverage to punish Tinubu, as promised. Can this turn of events in the presidency and the government now be taken as the promised punishment against Tinubu? Is Mr President unaware of all the schemes?
The INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmoud Yakubu, has recently raised the alarm that the persistent fuel scarcity could be a threat to the successful conduct of the 2023 elections.
Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information has debunked the allegation saying that the government is not aware of any anti-Tinubu forces in the presidency. El-Rufai is a leading "Buharist" who seems to be drawing the sword against the government led by Buhari himself.
Many of the headlines yesterday reflected how divided the APC has become. And as the Holy Books say, any house divided against itself cannot stand.
Those who believe El-Rufai argue that President Buhari has not actually been actively or even covertly supportive of the Tinubu presidential project, citing his "body-language", pointing out that Mr President had to be "nearly blackmailed" before he managed to show up at the campaign rally of the presidential candidate of his party, just a few times. He has long stopped. At the last appearance in Bauchi, something went wrong (or so it seemed) with electrical connections and the President could not even utter a word before he flew out of the venue of the campaign rally. They argue further that raising Tinubu's hands at the few rallies he appeared in was a mere political ritual which did not quite suggest such a bonding support for the Tinubu presidential project. What's more, they cite the interview Mr
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President granted recently where he urged Nigerians to vote WHOMEVER they liked, not actually persuading the electorate to vote the candidate of his party... "whomever they liked!" They point out that it is as bland as it is non-committal. Buhari is aloof and hardly concerned of what becomes of his party after his administration ends.
How can a president not campaign for his own political party in the name of leaving a legacy of free, fair and credible election? Does campaigning for, and openly supporting his party's candidate suggest that he will compromise the electoral process?
The inflation in the society, the festering cases of corruption (Transparency International just ranked Nigeria low again), the growing number of out-of-school children, the worsening economy, with the plummeting of the Nigerian currency against the US dollar, (a campaign point Tinubu lamented about few days ago); insecurity across the country, high volume of emigration of Nigerian youths and families (NARD said Nigeria lost over 2000 medical doctors to the japa syndrome), the unprecedented N77 trillion debt profile being left behind by the Buhari administration are some of the many challenges that markedly dull the shine of the APC-led federal government. And there will surely be consequences for these many failures at the pools. It is just 21 days away.
Much as Tinubu is striving to up the ante of his political campaign (what with sundry campaign jingles and publicity packages), the disarray in his campaign council, the pulling out of key persons like former campaign Director Najatu Muhammad from the campaign Council and even the party, the visible absence (if not abstinence) of all former presidential aspirants--including even those who stepped down for him at the primaries, are all suggestive that there are many in-house
angry gods that have not been appeased, or that are implacable. Will they work for Tinubu? Will they work against Tinubu? Will they just be non-committed party men and women? There have been stories of moles within te rank of the party. Many are within the campaign council but working for other candidates from other parties. The odds--natural and fabricated- seem to be mounting against the Tinubu's life-long ambition.
In all, it is clear that the die is cast. In a few days, (if the polls don't get postponed), Nigerians will file out to vote. Will they make Tinubu excited or sober? We wait, we watch!
