It is undeniable that a large number of Nigerians look towards the 2027 general elections with great fear and great trembling. Apprehension toward 2027 has developed obviously because some of our countrymen and women think that before, during, or after those elections are held, someone in leadership may accidently hit the turning point button that will unleash so much confusion, violence and desperation fueled by the undisguised greed of the ruling party and its men and women to win everything and leave nothing to the opposition.
Some are willing to swear that the country is likely to dissolve into chaos. It is already being said on the streets and beer rooms that when that feared calamity happens, some parts of the country may even think of going their separate ways. I cannot name names now but a good number of you have an idea about some parts of the country that I am talking about here.
If you ask me in the safety and security of my little home, I will not hesitate to answer you that that fear of Nigeria dissolving into chaos is not unfounded because it is based on the concrete facts of what they see happening right now before all our very eyes. The blind can see it and even the dumb fool can perceive it even if they do not really understand all the maneuvers, the strategies and the deft footwork of Asiwaju and his footmen. Nigerians who think like that are also influenced by the facts of our past and recent unflattering history. Nigerians have come to know it from lived experience that each time an administration in this country embarks on the mischief anddeliberate wickedness of seeking to win a second term election through rigging, trickery, bribery, violence and the manipulation of the electoral umpire, major or cataclysmal troubles have always ensued.
Everything that is happening on the political scene on the side of the ruling party under Tinubu points unmistakably to the fact that Tinubu and his ruling party do not want or even remotely think of holding a free and fair elections next year for him and his party to be able to have the legitimacy to govern. Nigerians watching him have come to the conclusion that trouble will surely be unleashed upon the country. They look back and acknowledge that each time in their country that a ruling party and its henchmen adopt underhand measures to outsmart everybody, as seems to be going on now, trouble has always resulted. It happened between 1963 and 65 when the then ruling party, the NPC and others, thought of outsmarting the opposition party chief, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. It happened again in 1982 when the ruling party, the NPN, thought of again outsmarting the same Obafemi Awolowo and members of his coalition opposition parties.
The 1982 land slide, moon slide and earth slide victories which the NPN said it recorded in several parts of the country and which it said gave it an overwhelming mandate to govern the country a second time was sadly comical. In some states of the country, especially in the South West states of Ondo and Oyo, the NPN ‘’winners’’ of some of the elections were in retreat when mobs from the ‘’defeated’’ opposition party rose up in fury and were on the streets to challenge what they said were daylight robberies.
Later in the middle of that the 1990 decade, the late General Sani Abach mounted the throne. He came on board full of his own bag of political tricks. He did not want to retire to the barracks but to stay put and transform or transmogrify himself to an elected and more dignified occupation of the presidential seat. What did he do? He, one man with one head, wanted to be the presidential candidates of all the five parties he had decreed into existence in the country. The country in its tale of woes with the machinations of human elements within us had never seen the like of what Abacha was trying to do in their country.
Interestingly, Present president Bola Ahmed Tinubu who was one of those Nigerians who openly resented and was deeply opposed to what Abacha was trying to do and was as a result, forced into exile. It is therefore an irony of some sort that some of us have been privileged by God to live and witness the fact that that same Tinubu who greatly resented Abacha is the same one today employing some of Abacha’s bag of tricks of being a democrat without the most basic principle of democracy. Tinubu wants to ‘’win’’ next year’s election without facing credible opposition candidates.
It is realizing the sad irony of his gambit and remembering what happened in Ibadan in 1963 during operation wetie, that governor Sheyi Makinde’s mention of that terrible incident in our sad political history has terribly shaken Tinubu and his men out of their reverie. I sense it in my bones that the Makinde wake -up call has made a very deep impression on Tinubu and his school of political roguery is now filled with Godly sorrow.
It is my hope that as 2027 draws nearer and nearer, he will not carry his do- or- die mentality into next year’s election. It is my honest hope that before 2027 dawns, somewhere along the line, something dramatic will happen in and to Nigeria. This tragi-comedy going on now whereby in a multi-party democracy, a president who, arguably, won his first term in a multi-party contest will now become a sworn enemy of a multi-party contest will mid-way, be abandoned. Tinubu will se the shame of running a presidential election essentially against himself. He knows that the world will not applaud. More importantly, his countrymen and women will not allow him to stage that kind of charade.
This is what gives me the confidence that Nigeria will not dissolves into chaos as many patriotic citizens tend to fear for their country. Tinubu, I hope, will take steps to correct a whole lot of things. He will make amends to ensure that he runs against a credible opposition candidate whether he wins or loses. In fact, the only viable and honourable option Tinubu has now is to run and lose. That is the only way that his reputation shall be salvaged and his country saved from calamity.
