Tinubu: 2027 year of contest or coronation?

Sir: Politics is not a precision science like Mathematics or Physics, so its outcomes don’t easily lend themselves to accurate predictions.

It is in this context that the title of this media intervention (Tinubu: 2027 year of contest or coronation?) is a question rather than a prediction or a decoration.

There is an emerging consensus in the country that, in spite of everything, the President’s second-term hopes are realisable. In fact, the more enthusiastic of his supporters insist that 2027 will be Tinubu’s year of coronation and consolidation.

As a student of Nigerian politics, researching into the currents, mechanics, dynamics and psychology of power and power-players, I find myself in total agreement. The overwhelming evidence doesn’t support contrary thinking.

On May 29, 2023 when Tinubu took the presidential oath, the PDP had in its kitty 11 governorships; and the APC, 23. However, as at today, the tally of governors and their political parties stands thus: APC, 31 states; PDP, Nigeria’s erstwhile ruling party, two states: Bauchi and Oyo. That’s 33. The remaining three states are shared by the three outliers i.e. Accord (1); APGA (1) and Labour Party (1). The inscrutable thing is that even these opposition-governors identify with the Tinubu presidency and its constitutional extension.

And there are speculations that the PDP may soon have only one governor i.e. Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo as Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State is rumoured to be on the verge of joining the APC too. (His defection will be an earthquake of sorts as he is the Chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum)!

Nature, we say, abhors vacuums, and, accordingly, PDP’s consecutive losses have been APC’s gains. APC now has 31 governorships, and counting. Let that sink, especially knowing the impact of performing incumbents on electoral outcomes.

Similarly, at the inauguration of this 10th National Assembly on June 13, 2023, the APC held 59 Senate seats and 178 seats in the House of Representatives, while the one-governor parties managed the rest.

Today, the ruling party shows an unprecedented dominance of the National Assembly, with its commanding control of no fewer than 80 senators and 241 members of the Lower Chamber! No ruling party in Nigeria’s history has achieved this feat; and we can go back as far as 1957 when Nigeria’s first (and only) Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, formed the first all-Nigeria Government!

Fears of Nigeria becoming a one-party state continue to be expressed here and there by opposition-politicians and their media amplifiers. The fears may be genuine, given the parlous, even pathetic, state of opposition-parties – it’s either they are factionalised, fractured, fractious or rudderless

However, criminalising the freedom of choice as being exercised by the hordes of defectors, and charging the APC or President Tinubu with forcing a one-party agenda on the country derives majorly from political malice and overflowing mischief.

Sometimes, the charge is that the presidency is coercing opposition-governors to dump their parties! When proving that becomes rocket-science, you hear something as asinine as the government offering PDP  governors N200 billion to defect!

And, while the rabble might be persuaded to uncritically agree with these charges of one-party agenda, perceptive analysts are seeing through their well-orchestrated falsehood, and are identifying the authors for who they truly are i.e. rabble-rousers and fear-mongers smartly clothing their looming defeats in the garbs of bombastic sophistry.

Let’s keep our eyes on the reality on the ground and we go on. Constitutionally, the APC is on safe ground. Section 15 (1) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) stresses the imperatives of national unity and national integration across our diverse landscape.

Furthermore, Section 222(a) specifically mandates political parties to maintain a national presence, including offices in at least two-thirds of the 36 states, besides Abuja.

No one or group can, in fairness, charge the APC with running a sub-national government or a sectionally structured party leadership, with limited geographical presence. So, on both counts, the APC has satisfied the critical requirements of Sections 15 and 22. (To parody a saying in the Tiv country, “APC hii or ga”)!

But that’s not all. Section 225(1) of the Constitution compels parties to reflect federal character (inclusiveness) in their operations. On this score too, the increasingly indomitable APC has shown compliance.

With an unprecedented control of 31 Government Houses as well as a wholesale takeover of the National Assembly, the APC looks almost invincible and its presumed presidential candidate, Tinubu, unbeatable.

Simon Imobo-Tswam, erstwhile special adviser to two PDP national chairmen, wrote from Abuja.