The Pacesetter Frontier Magazine

Tag: 2027

  • 2027: Ogbodo rallies G17 members, vows to work for APC victory in Nkanu West

    2027: Ogbodo rallies G17 members, vows to work for APC victory in Nkanu West

    The Executive Chairman of Nkanu West Local Government Area in Enugu state, John Chukwuma Ogbodo, has reaffirmed his commitment to strengthening the All Progressives Congress (APC) ahead of the 2027 elections following the inauguration of the G17 Nkanu West Chapter.

    Speaking during the inauguration ceremony, Ogbodo urged members of the group to remain united, dedicated and focused on mobilising support for the APC at the grassroots.

    He said the group’s collective responsibility was to ensure the victory of all APC candidates in future elections and pledged to work closely with members to strengthen the party’s structure across Nkanu West.

    The council chairman also commended Enugu State Governor Peter Ndubuisi Mbah for what he described as the administration’s developmental strides across the state, praising the governor’s leadership and vision.

    The Director-General of G17 described Ogbodo as “one month, one project,” saying the chairman’s performance had demonstrated a commitment to grassroots development. He urged members to remain faithful to the objectives of the organisation.

    Also speaking, the Coordinator of the G17 Nkanu West Chapter, Dr. Chinedu Egbo, applauded Governor Mbah for ongoing development projects across Enugu State and commended Ogbodo for his leadership and commitment to building the APC at the grassroots.

    Egbo pledged to provide purposeful leadership for the chapter and called on members to remain united as they work towards the party’s success in future elections.

    Others stakeholders who spoke at the event were: Sen. Kelvin Chukwu, represented by his Chief of Staff, Dan Nwomeh, SSA to the governor on Mainstream media, Chief Godwin Nwatu, and Prof. Ike Obi, immediate past Commissioner for Health.

    The inauguration drew party faithful, community leaders and stakeholders from the 14 political wards of Nkanu West Local Government Area, with participants reaffirming their commitment to strengthening the G17 structure and mobilising support for the APC ahead of the next general elections.

  • Peter and Doubts – By Onochie Jon-Igwesi

    Peter and Doubts – By Onochie Jon-Igwesi

    By Onochie Jon-Igwesi

    The date was Thursday, 17 June 2021. The venue was the Michael Okpara Square, Independence Layout, Enugu, and the event was the well-attended ‘Oganiru Enugu East Senatorial Zone Rally’. It was a gathering of the entire political and traditional paraphernalia of the zone. All heavyweights and political juggernauts of the six local governments that make up the large spread of Enugu East Senatorial Zone were at the venue.

    First-tier governorship aspirants arrived at the venue in flamboyant fanfare, amid flying flags with their names and faces, upheld banners, loud bands and tons of supporters that shook the grounds of the square. The acrobatic display by colourful masquerades unlocked another layer of flavour. From the popular WAEC bus stop, to the gates of the Enugu State House of Assembly, all a part of the Three-Arms Zone, it was electrifying. The voting population roared in excitement as they sniffed the thick air of the political season at the time. That rally served as the perfect cue signaling the political over-readiness of the zone to produce the next governor of the state in line with the spirit of zoning that dominated the state’s political space.

    As boisterous as the atmosphere was, something remarkable to the discerning — barely a handful at the time — happened. One first-tier aspirant walked in so quietly. He was escorted into the venue by just his personal assistant, and was shown his reserved seat among other aspirants, while his driver and a few security details waited outside. Grapevine sources revealed that he had just flown into Enugu for the event and drove straight to Okpara Square from the airport. There were no crowds of supporters. There was no band. No group wore clothes or caps branded with his name or picture. There were no flags with his face flying.

    Gradually, onlookers began to murmur. For those whose lips didn’t move, their faces spoke. “How on earth was he going to emerge as the state ruling party’s flagbearer with no show of strength?”, they wondered. Peter and Doubts!

    That man Peter Mbah, who was doubted, who bestrode the political space, totally recalibrating the scale of governance in Nigeria and among subnationals, would later go on to not only win the primaries but also become the state’s fourth governor of the Fourth Republic, and the poster boy of refined governance.

    Of books, tons have been written. Yet, one of the greatest classics of all time is Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power. Law 36 of the book reads: Disdain Things You Cannot Have – Ignoring Them is the Best Revenge.

    As boring as it is, expectedly, there’s a similitude of the doubts of 2023 playing out ahead of 2027. Some persons illusorily believe that Peter Mbah’s second term is a reality that will not be. So hurt that 2023 did not play out like they had hoped, they resorted to disdaining the same seat they so coveted because they couldn’t have it at the time like they wished. Ironically, they hope, even when there’s palpable fear of failure among them, that the seat will be theirs in 2027. And so, to pull the wool over our eyes, they put on pseudo-confidence, draped in half truths, screaming scarcity where there’s sufficiency, darkness where there’s light, and drought where there’s rainfall, forgetting that a man becomes a critic when he cannot be an artist. But they speak not for all of us. For even as their lies appear to be flowering, the seeds of their disillusionment are being sown. As Martin Luther King Jr. puts it: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice” – and justice is Peter’s second term.

    One under-discussed aspect of human psychology is that if you do good, people will demand better with a sense of entitlement, and if you do extremely bad, people will beg for good with fear. Peter understands this, yet like a priest at the altar of disruptive innovation, he has dedicated himself to doing the greatest good for the greatest number.

    Peter’s mind works in a way that is esoteric. His programmes defy logical reasoning so much that it makes sense to doubt them. Yet, for every ounce of doubt you share today, he makes mincemeat of it tomorrow. They doubted the possibility of Enugu Air but today, that airline has 6 aircraft, will get to 20 aircraft and just got its Air Operator Certificate within a significant 6 months, faster than the industry timeline of 15 to 24 months. Hotel Presidential seemed like what was best for it was to be sold off, yet that monument, once dead but now resurrected, stands as a reminder of the labours of our heroes past. We did not imagine that Monday would ever return as the first day of the week, yet you can now be the judge of that. And the unending list continues, from the nationally admired International Conference Centre; dualization of the Ugwogo-Opi and Enugu-Abakaliki roads; a vehicle assembly plant; the joint venture with Landmark Africa Group that has rebranded Nike Lake Resort; the nearly completed 5-star hotel; to the gobsmacking N1.62trn 2026 Budget. Peter’s administration plans to build five more world class transport terminals in Emene, Udi, Awgu, Four-Corners (Ozalla) and Oboloafor, in addition to those already built and in use in Abakpa, Gariki, Nsukka and Holyghost. It equally set aside 15 per cent of the 2026 budget for providing 15,000 mass housing units. If all of Peter’s projects were to be mentioned, you, my reader, would probably scroll or flip pages endlessly to get to the end of this piece.

    Now, think about these projects, a tidbit of the developments that Enugu has witnessed in three years, and ask yourself whether we should reward hard work or hoaxes in 2027.

    In due course, the questions of 2027 will not be why or whether he will be re-elected, but about why the opposition attempted to mislead the people of Enugu into thinking that there’s an alternative somewhere. It will be about we the people reminding Peter that having served the first four years strikingly well, he MUST fulfill the remainder of his charter in the second term that we have given him.

    Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani was a two-term governor. Barr. Sullivan Chime was another two-term governor. Rt. Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi was also a two-term governor, and just somehow, you assume that Ndi Enugu will fail to return a moderniser-in-chief and development oracle, His Excellency Peter Ndubuisi Mbah, for a second term? Peter is the moment and he rides into May 29, 2027 on the chariot of brilliant victory. There’s no doubt about this.

    To Gov. Peter Mbah, do not grow weary. You’re convincingly on the right track. If the people – your people – have raised concerns on certain issues, where adjustments can be made, please do, like you did by slashing land-related taxes by about 60%. We are aware that some of those you trusted the most are gearing up to run against you, simply for self. We are aware of how you have continued to make efforts to reach out to, and assuage political gladiators who may have felt bruised in whatever way. It demonstrates that your fountain of meekness and accommodation overflows. In the fullness of time, you will reap your rewards.

    Onochie Jon-Igwesi, an indigene of Enugu, writes from Omuoha-Obuoffia, Awkunanaw.

  • Silence Finally Learns to Speak

    Silence Finally Learns to Speak

    -By Abdul Mahmud

    There is a special kind of silence that follows power everywhere it goes. It is not the gentle quiet of the monastery or the eerie quiet of mourning. It is the awkward, accusatory silence of a phone that once overheated from devotion and now lies cool, innocent, and suddenly uninterested. Such is the fate of the phone of Yusuf Buhari, son of the one-time military ruler and former President, who recently lamented that ever since they vacated the Presidential Villa, his phone has fallen into an eloquent silence. “After Goodluck Jonathan made that call to my dad to congratulate him on his victory as Nigeria’s next president, I used to receive up to 2,000 calls a day from different people. The calls would start coming in as early as 4 a.m. – from old classmates, acquaintances, extended family members, former maids, and servants who had once worked for the Buhari family at some point. There were also callers with bogus, untraceable explanations, but my assistant would simply come up with polite excuses to end those conversations quickly! But the moment my dad left power and handed the baton to His Excellency Bola Tinubu, the calls dropped dramatically to about 100 a day. After my dad was buried, they reduced even further to around 20 daily – usually just from siblings and business associates. The phones no longer ring. Nobody truly cares”.

    Yusuf Buhari’s lament is therefore not merely a personal reflection, it is indeed a public service announcement about the aura of power in Nigeria.

    Once upon a presidency, the phone rang like a Pentecostal bell on Sunday morning. Calls came in torrents. Old classmates rediscovered brotherhood. Distant cousins suddenly remembered shared ancestors. Former house helps developed emotional attachments that demanded urgent reconnection. Even strangers arrived armed with stories so creative they deserved the Nigerian Prize for Literature. Everyone wanted to talk. Everyone needed a moment. Everyone was important. The phone became the national shrine. Then came the unthinkable tragedy. Power packed its bags. The baton of power was handed over. Democracy did its modest little dance like Jimmy Bo Horne’s dance across the floor. And something even more devastating occurred. The phone began to rest. From two thousand calls to one hundred. From one hundred to twenty. From the roar of affection to the whisper of obligation. From the expressive euphoria of power to the familiarity of family group chats. This is not just decline. This is the austerity of pretend affection in the absence of power.

    Let us pause and admire the honesty of Yusuf Buhari. The phones no longer ring. Nobody truly cares. It is a brave thing to say out loud what the entire country already knows but pretends not to know. In Nigeria, love is renewable only when it is connected to power. Affection is strongest where one is close to the power. Once power goes, the allure of friendship wanes.

    This discovery is not unique to Nigeria. In the United States of America, it was made with cheese. Lyndon B. Johnson, once the most powerful man on earth, reportedly complained that after leaving the White House, senators who once hovered like loyal furniture suddenly developed hearing problems. The phone that rang relentlessly during legislative battles and war briefings became suspiciously quiet. Johnson, a man who could bend Congress with a stare and a threat, learned the old lesson in a new accent. Arms twist only when there is something left to extract. Power had been the caller, not friendship. Jimmy Carter also encountered the same silence, though he dressed it in Southern politeness. After leaving the White House, he once noted how Washington’s warmth cooled, how invitations thinned, and how the phone lost its urgency. Carter, a man who traded power for principle and later built houses with his own hands, learned that integrity is admirable but not bankable. Washington respects power more than character. When the office disappeared, so did the interest. The calls, it turned out, had been for the presidency, not the person. The meaning that Yusuf Buhari’s lament provides is that relevance only obeys the law of power. If you have power, or close to power, the laws of things will bend over to your wishes. Relevance in public life has very little to do with ideas, values, or service. It has everything to do with power. You call he who has power that can move the mountain for you. Who can whisper your name into the right ears at the right time. When that ability expires, so does the crowd.

    Power in Nigeria is a balm. It heals old grudges. It restores forgotten relationships. It multiplies cousins like loaves of bread. It turns silence into urgency. When you have it, people call at four in the morning to check on your spiritual wellbeing. When you lose it, they discover the importance of respecting your privacy. The pattern is so consistent. The same society that will not answer calls from the powerless will accuse them of being inaccessible. The same people who once dialed endlessly will later say they did not want to disturb you in your grief. Courtesy suddenly appears when usefulness disappears.

    But let us be fair. This is not cruelty. It is efficiency. Why waste airtime on someone who cannot move a file, sign a paper, influence a contract, or secure a favour. Friendship must also eat. Concern must have logistics. Sympathy needs a budget. The phone, after all, is not just a device. It is a moral instrument. It measures value in real time. It rings for the important and sleeps for the irrelevant. It is democratic only in theory. In practice, it obeys hierarchy. What makes this moment cheesy is the shock that accompanies the discovery. As if the silence is a betrayal rather than a curriculum. As if the phones were ringing out of love rather than calculation. As if two thousand daily calls were ever sustainable without the fuel of power. This is the Nigerian lesson that no civics class teaches. Power is the loudest ringtone. Without it, even your obituary struggles for attention. And yet, there is something profoundly instructive in this quiet. For the first time, the silence is honest. The remaining calls are few, but they are real. Siblings call because blood still remembers. Business associates call because interests endure. Everyone else has returned to their natural habitat, which is waiting for the next powerful number to save.

    In this silence, truth clears its throat. It tells us that many of our public relationships are seasonal. They follow office terms, not human bonds. They are loyal to chairs, not people. They are attached to corridors, not conscience. The lie which underlines Yusuf’s lament is that care is proven by ringing phones. But care has always been something else. Care is presence when there is nothing to gain. Care is the call that does not need to be returned. Care is the visit that cannot be monetised. By that standard, the phones were probably not ringing with care even at their loudest. So, maybe this is not a fall from grace. Maybe it is a graduation. The fact which stays stark is that silence strips away the noise and leaves behind a smaller, sturdier circle. It replaces the choruses of opportunists with a handful of humans. It enthrones reality.

    If those who inhabit the high chambers of power would cure themselves of this peculiar affliction, they must first reconcile with the enduring truth: it is when power recedes that solitude reveals its sharpest edge. They must learn to dwell within the natural order of things, where silence, long suppressed, at last finds its voice. They must accept that the kingdom of power admits no rival sovereign; there are never two kings upon its throne. Until that wisdom is embraced, every departure from office will be accompanied by the same bewildered lament, uttered only in differing accents.

    The phones no longer ring.

    They will never ring for the reason that Yusuf knows: “Soja go” with old friends; and Soja arrives with new friends who in turn arrive with new ring tones.

  • Shettima’s Passive Presence in Discussions About His Own Political Future

    Shettima’s Passive Presence in Discussions About His Own Political Future

    -By Abdul Mahmud

    Fresh political whispers drifting through news salons and media columns suggest that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is quietly weighing alternative running mates ahead of the 2027 presidential election. The names most frequently mentioned are not obscure. They are prominent northern Christian figures with national visibility and symbolic weight.

    Former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara; Defence Minister, General Christopher Musa. Plateau State Governor, Caleb Mutfwang. And the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, Matthew Hassan Kukah. The whispers share a common thread. They frame the alleged weighing of alternatives as part of a larger political calculation around religious and regional balance after the controversial Muslim-Muslim ticket of 2023. They also point to an inner circle that appears to be thinking ahead, testing options, and perhaps sending signals without formally committing to any course of action.

    The first sign came when campaign posters bearing President Tinubu’s image began appearing across the streets of Abuja, conspicuously without any trace of Shettima. Amid the whispers stands Vice President Kashim Shettima, elected on the same ticket as Tinubu, serving a mandate that runs concurrently with the President’s, and who, by constitutional logic and political convention, ought to be presumed the natural running mate in 2027 unless compelling reasons suggest otherwise.

    VP Kashim Shettima

    What makes the current moment intriguing is not simply that names are being mentioned. Politics thrives on rumours after all. What shocks observers of the polity is the manner in which the Vice President appears reduced to a passive presence in discussions about his own political future. At one moment, he is treated as an afterthought; and at another moment, as a loyal functionary dispatched on errands while others debate whether he remains relevant to the project he helped midwife. The image calls to mind Oblomov in Ivan Goncharov’s novel, Oblomov. A character defined by inertia and resignation. A man whose life unfolds around him while he lies still, allowing others to decide what becomes of his estate, his relationships, and his destiny. When Shettima is not rendered invisible in elite conversations, he is portrayed as a man running presidential errands but without real agency. Flying out to represent the President. Receiving delegations. Offering dutiful loyalty, while the central question of his political fate hangs unresolved, sometimes discussed in rooms he has just exited and sometimes in rooms he may never enter.

    The irony is sharp. Shettima is not a novice. He is a former governor, and a seasoned party man. He was not selected in 2023 as a brooch fastened to presidential clothing or an ornamental addition. He was chosen despite strong objections from many quarters, including religious leaders and civil society voices who warned against the dangers of the same-faith ticket in a deeply plural country. Those warnings did not dissipate after the election. They lingered. They hardened into criticisms that have followed the administration. International partners, including voices from the United States, have made careful but pointed remarks about inclusion and representation. At home, the perception that Christian constituencies, especially in the North, felt alienated continued to shadow the government. The renewed circulation of alternative running mates must be read against this background. It signals an attempt to correct a political imbalance that many believe cost the ruling party moral capital. By floating respected northern Christian figures, Tinubu’s presidency appears eager to reassure sceptical audiences that lessons have been learned and that the future will look different. Still, the so-called attempt at weighing alternatives raises serious questions about political ethics and loyalty. What does it say about the stability of presidential and vice presidential partnerships when a sitting vice president is treated as expendable barely midway into the first term in office? What message does it send to party loyalists who defended the 2023 ticket at great personal cost? And what precedent does it set for the future?

    The Constitution grants the President wide latitude in selecting a running mate. That power is not in dispute. Political wisdom, however, demands more than constitutional permissibility. It requires sensitivity to process, respect for incumbents, and an understanding of how power is perceived as much as how it is exercised. There is also a deeper institutional issue at play. The office of the Vice President in Nigeria has long suffered from ambiguity. Its occupant is either overly powerful, a spare tyre that is painfully useless, or surplus to requirements. Rarely is there a stable middle ground defined by clear responsibilities and mutual respect.

    From Obasanjo’s frosty relationship with Atiku Abubakar to Buhari’s cautious sidelining of Professor Osinbajo, history offers little comfort. Shettima’s predicament fits neatly into this pattern. He is visible but constrained. Present but peripheral. Trusted enough to represent the President abroad, but seemingly not trusted enough to be shielded from speculation about his replacement. The mention of figures like Dogara, Mutfwang, Musa, and Kukah adds further layers to the conversation. Dogara brings legislative gravitas and a record of defying party lines on principle. Mutfwang represents a Christian minority state scarred by violence and neglect. Musa embodies military professionalism at a time of persistent insecurity. Kukah symbolises a strain of moral authority whose polish has worn thin, weakened by his muddled interventions on claims of Christian genocide in Nigeria. Each name appeals to a different constituency. Each underscores what the current ticket lacks in the eyes of critics.

    What remains missing is an honest conversation about governance performance. Electoral arithmetic alone cannot substitute for accountability. If the administration believes that changing the face of the ticket will cure deeper discontent, it risks mistaking symptoms for causes. Nigerians are burdened by inflation, insecurity, and a sense of economic drift. No vice presidential reshuffle can obscure these realities. For Shettima himself, the moment demands clarity and resolve. Silence can be dignified, but prolonged silence in the face of open speculation risks being read as acquiescence. Political survival in Nigeria rarely rewards quiet endurance and favours strategic assertion. More’s the pity for a Vice President who finds his future debated as an abstraction rather than being confronted as a political fact. More’s the pity for a power order that normalises such uncertainty at the heart of presidential power. And more’s the pity for a country whose politics revolves around personalities and permutations rather than the hard work of governance.

    Whether these discussions are trial balloons or serious plans, they reveal an administration already looking beyond its present mandate. That alone should give pause. Power is most effective when it is anchored in purpose, not perpetually distracted by succession. But do Tinubu and his goons care?

  • Atiku’s Back to Back Party Primaries Hits, and Misses

    Atiku’s Back to Back Party Primaries Hits, and Misses

    By Demola Olarewaju

    The prowess of Atiku Abubakar when it comes to party primaries was not built in a day and his recent successes at that level are built on a foundation of loss, defeat and tears.

    His entry into politics in 1991 was marked by a bitter gubernatorial ticket rivalry between him and Bala Takaya, a rivalry so fierce that both men eventually were disqualified by the IBB regime. This disqualification was alongside the likes of Sule Lamido, Yusuf Sani, Dapo Sarumi, Femi Agbalajobi, Joe Nwodo, Hyde Onuaguluchi, Sergeant Awuse and others.

    Also disqualified were 23 aspirants for the presidential ticket in that 3rd Republic and Atiku was drafted by Shehu Musa Yar’Adua to run in his stead for President.

    With the backing of the powerful Yar’Adua machinery, Atiku came third in the first round of balloting, behind MKO Abiola and Babagana Kingibe. He was then asked to step down for Abiola and become his running mate but Abiola was forced by the SDP Governors to choose Kingibe instead. Atiku lost out, Atiku campaigned hard and Atiku delivered 140k+ Adamawa votes for SDP.

    In 1999 after running successfully for Governor, he became Vice-President and then clinched the ticket of the AC in 2007 by caucus consensus.

    By 2011, Atiku was back in the PDP and ran against sitting President Goodluck Jonathan, polling 805 delegates’ votes versus Jonathan’s 2,736. Atiku lost, Atiku campaigned hard and Atiku delivered Adamawa for PDP.

    2015, Atiku found himself in APC and ran against Muhammadu Buhari and others. He came in third place with 954 delegates’ votes. Atiku lost, Atiku campaigned hard and Atiku delivered Adamawa for APC.

    2019 – Atiku won the PDP presidential primaries in Port-Harcourt. Wike had then blackmailed PDP into bringing the National Convention to PH and within 24 hours, every single presidential suite in the city had become reserved. Wike claimed they said Atiku had paid for them and that he had asked them to return the man’s deposit. Atiku won the majority delegates’ votes defeating Saraki, Tambuwal, Sule Lamido etc.

    2023 – Atiku won the PDP presidential primaries after being stepped down for by Tambuwal, much to the chagrin of Wike who has been embittered since then.

    But notice Atiku never gets bitter after any primary or general election – he stays loyal and delivers votes for the candidate who defeated him and the party that hurt him.

    And that’s one secret of how the man does it: by staying loyal to the general cause even when his interest is threatened or eliminated, Atiku has built an army of trusted political friends that span into every single state, political party or group interest.

    By always subsuming his interest to the general interest per time, Atiku maintains razorlike focus on each KPI and in the process builds allies and sets up structure from the bottom up. Atiku doesn’t focus on the presidential primaries when Ward Excos are being elected, Atiku doesn’t think of his own aspiration while the party is looking for a National HQ building: to every political activity there is a time.

    Thirdly, Atiku’s structures aren’t ever only for him – this House of Reps aspirant, that senatorial or gubernatorial hopeful – his structural interests even push down to state excos – as I found out to my own party electoral loss when I ran for Lagos State PDP Publicity Secretary. Atiku never walks alone, he always aggregates other political interests.

    These are just three reasons (observable from outside) for why he is so formidable in party primaries. Those who think it is about money can go and ask Nyesom Wike about 2019 and 2023.

    I hope other presidential aspirants can learn from Atiku on both how to win primaries and how to accept defeat gracefully.

    As long as we agree that whoever loses will still work for the greater interest against the person now in Aso Rock, as Atiku has always done: we can meet at the primaries.

  • 2026 and the Architecture of Power: Understanding The Tinubu Presidency

    2026 and the Architecture of Power: Understanding The Tinubu Presidency

    -By Abdul Mahmud

    This new year scarcely requires a seer to reveal its gravity. It stands as a decisive threshold for both Nigeria’s political class and the country itself. As the final full year before the 2027 general election, it unfolds within an atmosphere markedly defined not by open contestation but by cooptation, not by ideological opposition but by realignment, not by persuasion but by careful calibration of power. The familiar nuances of electoral politics have been subdued, replaced by a quieter, sinister and more strategic choreography in which alliances are absorbed, dissent is neutralised, and political outcomes are increasingly prefigured long before the ballot is cast. Tinubu’s Presidency has thus inaugurated a governing order that resists casual description and demands sustained, rigorous analysis. Authority has grown more personalised, institutions have been subtly but decisively reoriented, and the space of democratic life has narrowed. Power is no longer primarily fought over; it is managed, conserved, and deployed through configurations that feel increasingly distant from Nigeria’s recent political experience. What is taking shape is not simply a new leadership style, but a political condition in which the contest for power has yielded to the meticulous administration of power already secured.

    So, what’s really taking shape?

    Tinubu’s presidency marks a formative phase of governance characterised by the consolidation of authority through elite bargaining, the steady attenuation of democratic institutions, and the managed retreat of competitive politics. It does not announce itself as ideological. No manifesto declares its worldview, and no doctrine articulates its philosophical commitments. Instead, it operates as a governing illogic grounded in transactional politics, and the strategic deployment of state power in the service of endurance. Its coherence lies not in ideas but in method. At the centre of this method is elite cooptation and coordination. Power circulates within a narrow political circle where loyalty is sustained by access, protection, and reciprocal advantage. Alliances cohere less around programmes than around proximity to authority. The ruling party functions primarily as an instrument of aggregation, not as a forum for deliberation or contest. Opposition persists within formal constitutional boundaries, but its capacity to shape outcomes continues to contract. Politics increasingly resembles a closed conversation conducted beyond the reach of popular intervention. Elections still punctuate the political calendar. Ballots are cast, results announced, courts convened, and ceremonies observed. Democratic form remains intact. Democratic substance, however, undergoes a quiet but persistent erosion. Participation thins as belief in the consequences of electoral choice diminishes. Voters engage with the process less in hope than in resignation. Political competition loses its transformative promise, reduced to a symbolic presence within an already determined architecture of power. The vote comes to affirm authority more than to interrogate it.

    This configuration invites comparison with certain early authoritarian systems, not in ideology or historical circumstance, but in structural logic. In those settings, power was consolidated through the fusion of party, state, and patronage, yielding stability through alignment rather than consent. Tinubu’s presidency reflects a comparable pattern. Control advances less through open persuasion than through administrative coordination. Loyalty steadily displaces representation as the central political currency, while stability is secured through managed inclusion and calibrated exclusion. What emerges is not the silencing of politics but its careful containment, a narrowing of the space in which dissent may operate without ever quite disappearing. It is within this logic that the recently constituted high-level party committee must be understood. Comprising governors of the ruling party, members of the Federal Executive Council, and other strategically placed stakeholders, the committee is chaired by the Governor of Yobe State, Mai Mala Buni, with Muiz Banire, former Legal Adviser of the APC, serving as Member-Secretary. Its membership spans the commanding heights of political power: Senator Adamu Aliero; AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq of Kwara State, who chairs the Nigeria Governors’ Forum; Hope Uzodimma of Imo State, Chairman of the Progressive Governors’ Forum; and governors from Benue, Jigawa, Cross River, Ekiti, and Delta. It also includes Governors Uba Sani of Kaduna and Siminalayi Fubara of Rivers, senior ministers of the Tinubu administration, former governors, and key presidential aides. The committee’s composition is revealing. It gathers together not merely party functionaries, but custodians of state power, administrative reach, and regional influence, signalling an effort to synchronise authority across multiple layers of governance.

    This architecture points to a broader project: the consolidation of a pan-Tinubu suzerainty that extends beyond party boundaries while steadily hollowing out the opposition. President Tinubu’s rhetoric of accommodation and tolerance, framed as a defence of democratic resilience, sits uneasily alongside the political realities taking shape. As Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde has suggested, the role attributed to Nyesom Wike within this order is not incidental but instrumental, working across party lines in ways that weaken and fragment the opposition, particularly the PDP. The aim is not the outright abolition of rival parties, but their domestication. Opposition is permitted to exist, but only in diminished, divided, and ultimately manageable forms. In this sense, inclusion becomes conditional, tolerance selective, and pluralism subordinated to the overriding imperative of control. What is being constructed is a political order in which unity is achieved not through persuasion or shared purpose, but through dominance carefully disguised as consensus.

    Governance within this order privileges coherence and control over pluralism and dissent. Institutions remain visible, but their autonomy steadily contracts. Courts continue to function, though within a narrowing interpretive space. Legislatures exercise oversight through accommodation and bargaining rather than confrontation. Regulatory bodies increasingly align their conduct with executive priorities. Media organisations operate under diffuse but effective pressures that shape tone, emphasis, and silence. The outward continuity of institutional life thus conceals a deeper transformation in which independence yields to accommodation and restraint is replaced by compliance. Law sits at the centre of this transformation. Legal process retains its formal authority, but its connection to justice and accountability grows attenuated. Rules are deployed less as limits on power than as instruments for preserving stability. Procedure displaces principle. Political conflict is absorbed into litigation, translated from public disagreement into technical argument. Judicial outcomes, in turn, tend to affirm the prevailing distribution of power, conferring legal legitimacy on arrangements fashioned elsewhere. In this way, law operates not as an impartial arbiter but as a governing mechanism, ordering conflict rather than resolving it. Economic governance extends this same logic into the material lives of citizens. Policies presented as reform advance largely through executive fiat, with minimal public deliberation. Hardship is framed as necessity rather than consequence, sacrifice as virtue rather than failure. Social pain is moralised as discipline, while the language of inevitability accompanies decisions that reorder livelihoods, deepen inequality, and strain communal bonds. As legal process neutralises political contestation and institutions absorb dissent, economic policy completes the circuit of control. Public consent recedes in importance, displaced by appeals to expertise, urgency, and endurance. What emerges is a political economy in which adjustment replaces accountability, and endurance stands in for consent.

    In this political atmosphere, citizenship is quietly reconfigured. Active participation gives way to managed inclusion, while political agency is reduced from the capacity to shape outcomes to the freedom to comment upon them. Protest increasingly attracts securitised responses, and dissent is recoded as disruption rather than recognised as democratic expression. The public sphere does not collapse through decree; it contracts through mood and expectation. Fear need not be declared to be effective. Caution becomes internalised. Silence acquires the character of prudence rather than resignation. This transformation proceeds without the spectacle of overt repression. No dramatic bans signal a rupture with constitutional order. No formal emergency suspends democratic norms. Instead, change unfolds cumulatively. Each adjustment appears technical, even reasonable, when taken alone. Together, they produce a political climate marked by compliance, calculation, and quiet withdrawal. Democratic life thins through attrition rather than shock. What remains is not an absence of politics, but a diminished version of it, one in which engagement is carefully weighed against consequence, and participation is increasingly symbolic.

    Opposition is also redefined under these conditions. Critics are rarely confronted head-on; they are more often absorbed into negotiation, fragmented through inducement, or marginalised by selective exclusion. Disagreement persists, but it is stripped of leverage. Public intellectuals, activists, and commentators operate within a narrowing field where critique circulates without effect. Alternative visions struggle to gain traction because power presents itself not as a contingent arrangement open to challenge, but as a settled fact to be navigated. Politics shifts from contest over direction to adjustment within constraint. Patronage functions as the stabilising mechanism of this order. Access to state resources becomes the primary currency of loyalty. Appointments reward alignment, contracts reinforce networks, and economic opportunity increasingly follows political obedience. Dependency and compliance intersect, recasting the state from guarantor of collective welfare into distributor of selective benefit. As perceptions of fairness decline, public trust erodes. The language of corruption loses its moral urgency, reframed as an unavoidable feature of governance rather than an ethical failure demanding redress. Against this backdrop, the idea of reform assumes strategic importance. Reform rhetoric provides the moral cover through which consolidation is presented as progress. Structural adjustment is dressed in the language of modernisation; disruption is recast as courage. Resistance to reform is portrayed as nostalgia, sentimentality, or irresponsibility. In this way, critique is neutralised not by rebuttal but by delegitimation. Power is framed as necessity rather than choice, endurance as virtue rather than submission. The effect is not merely to govern policy outcomes, but to shape the terms on which political judgment itself is made.

    This condition shapes the national mood as Nigeria approaches 2026. Political expectation declines, cynicism spreads, and withdrawal often replaces engagement. Survival displaces aspiration. Younger generations encounter politics as a closed system rather than an open field, and hope shifts from public institutions to private strategies. Migration, informal economies, and personal networks emerge as alternative pathways to security. The danger lies not only in democratic erosion, but in habituation: as citizens adjust to limited agency, the possibility of recovery diminishes. Democratic capacity weakens through disuse, and memory of contest fades. Power consolidates not merely through control, but through the quiet acceptance of constraint. Naming this phase of governance as a distinct moment in Nigeria’s democratic trajectory performs both analytic and political work. It resists the personalisation of critique, framing Tinubu’s presidency as a system of governance rather than a reflection of temperament. It signals temporality, marking a phase rather than an immutable fate. Such naming preserves space for reflection, intervention, and alternative futures.

    The New Year is here. The architecture of power established during this formative period will shape what is possible. Whether this governing illogic hardens into permanence or encounters disruption will depend upon forces both within and beyond the state. That inquiry belongs to the next part of this essay, which turns to the prospects for politics and democracy under conditions shaped by consolidation, fatigue, and quiet resistance. For now, Tinubu’s presidency stands as a defining moment in Nigeria’s democratic journey: a moment of form without substance, of power without persuasion, and of consequences whose reverberations will extend far into 2027.

    Happy New Year. 

  • Mbah’s Defection to APC Strategic for Enugu, South East – USA Igwesi

    Mbah’s Defection to APC Strategic for Enugu, South East – USA Igwesi

    Former House of Representatives member, USA Igwesi, has described Governor Peter Mbah’s defection to the All Progressives Congress (APC) as a bold and strategic move for the people of Enugu State and the South East region.

    Speaking with journalists in Enugu, Igwesi said Mbah’s decision to move with the entire Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) structure was “timely and visionary,” reconnecting the Coal City State to the nation’s political mainstream after years in opposition.

    “Governor Mbah is smart and strategic. He knows what and when to act. Everyone who followed events in the PDP knows he had had enough of the shenanigans in that party. The PDP is irredeemable, and its crises are self-inflicted. Enugu people are happy with his decision,” he stated.

    Igwesi, a former Majority Leader of the Enugu State House of Assembly, said the governor’s alignment with the Federal Government would accelerate development across the state. “With Enugu and Abuja now under the same party, Mbah’s mission to reposition the state is fully assured,” he said.

    He noted that the massive turnout during Mbah’s defection reflected genuine grassroots support. “The holistic political shift from PDP to APC will reinforce the governor’s visionary infrastructural revolution,” he added.

    According to him, Governor Mbah will be remembered for reconnecting Enugu to the national political grid after years of isolation.

    Igwesi lamented that despite the South East’s decades-long loyalty to the PDP, the zone gained little in return. He argued that Mbah’s switch to the APC serves the region’s strategic interests.

    “The move is significant because it aligns Enugu and, by extension, the South East with the political mainstream. It makes no sense for Enugu, the capital of the region, to remain in opposition,” he said.

    Igwesi further praised Mbah’s leadership record, noting that his defection would give fresh impetus to the state’s infrastructural transformation.

    “Governor Mbah’s defection will strengthen Enugu’s ties with the Federal Government and help the entire South East benefit from President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda,” he said.

  • 2027: Enugu APC Stakeholders Woo Governor Mbah to Join Party

    2027: Enugu APC Stakeholders Woo Governor Mbah to Join Party

    Doris Ewoh, Enugu

    At a strategic stakeholders’ meeting in Enugu, APC leaders, including Dr. Ben Nwoye and Barr. Eugene Odo, have signaled their readiness to welcome Governor Peter Mbah into the party, as internal rifts over leadership and integrity continue to stir debate.

    This declaration was made during the Enugu APC Stakeholders’ Meeting held on Tuesday, August 26, 2025, at De Sheriff Hotel, Enugu, which was monitored by several members of the press, including PACESETTER correspondent. The meeting focused on the theme: “Repositioning APC Enugu State to Win Elections in 2027 and Beyond.”

    Speaking at the meeting, Dr. Nwoye emphasized that the only way to sustain the current legacy and development in Enugu State is for Governor Mbah to continue beyond 2027. He appealed to Mbah to join the APC, noting that every new member strengthens the party.

    Following this, a motion was moved by Dr. El Ajah to formally accept Governor Mbah into the party if he chooses to join. The motion was seconded by Comrade Ngene Obama, and unanimously supported by all members present.

    Barr. Eugene Odo, former Enugu House of Assembly Speaker, also expressed his support, stating that he would be pleased if Mbah joined the APC. He went further to reference a recent Enugu State High Court ruling declaring that Ugo Agballa is no longer the state chairman of the party and should cease parading himself as such.

    Odo also addressed ongoing controversies involving the Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Hon. Uche Nnaji, who, he said, has been accused of presenting a fake certificate. He called on the party leadership to set up a committee to visit the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, to verify the Minister’s academic credentials.

    “We want to advise the leadership of the party to possibly set up a committee to go to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, to confirm, so we can know what the Minister represents,” Odo said.

    Also speaking, Barr. Bartholomew Ugwuoke, former ACN chairman, noted that the “genuine APC” is back in Enugu and called on former members to return, saying, “We are moving fast.”

    In his remarks, Hon. Sunday Onah, Deputy Chairman of the party, cautioned Chief Uche Nnaji on the continued support of Barr. Ugo Agballah, alleging that Agballah was expelled as state party chairman.

    He noted that the State Working Committee would be left with no option but to take disciplinary action if the support continued.

    Barr. Godwin Onwusi, Chairman of the 2023 House of Assembly APC Aspirants Congress, criticized the party’s recurring practice of suspending members.

    “I have never seen a party where the stock-in-trade is to sack people. People come in, and when asked to view things from different angles, they get suspended. We cannot leave our party to birds of passage. These people will come and go. Hopefully, we are here to take back our party,” he said.

    Mrs. Kate Nwafor, former Enugu State APC Publicity Secretary, expressed optimism, stating that with the renewed direction, the APC in Enugu is returning to its original path and purpose.

    “With this new trend, I’m confident we are going back to our original stance to become what we used to be,” she said.

    Reacting to the allegation of forgery of results by the Minister, an Enugu APC youth leader, Chidiebere Ezeh, who spoke to our correspondent over the phone, stated that the allegations were “just propaganda”.

    “This is a non-issue, as it’s just propaganda by the opposition to tarnish the image and name of Chief Uche Nnaji.

    “The DSS and other relevant bodies screened him before his assumption of office, so if there are any issues of certificate forgery, the DSS and NYSC should be in a position to address that.”

  • GEJ, Please, Don’t Go There – By Oseloka H. OBAZE

    GEJ, Please, Don’t Go There – By Oseloka H. OBAZE

    Good day, President Jonathan.  In the local parlance of Otu Eke and Otu Nkwo, I come in peace.  Sir, may I ask a question you need to ponder deeply before you respond? Did you forget anything at the Aso Rock Villa?  Regardless of the answer, Sir, here is the generalized message.  Please do not under any circumstance be lured or swayed by any individual, group or political party into seriously considering running again for the Nigerian presidency, especially in 2027. GEJ, please, don’t go there.

    Those who contrive such machinations merely wish to deal you a bad and devilish political hand. Your running will not serve your purpose; and it will not add fillip to nation-building.  It will merely worsen the prevailing leadership hubris, political disequilibrium, distrust and national miasma.

    Hence, you must reject the poisoned chalice being dangled before you. The purveyors are the same political cabals that betrayed you, destroyed your erstwhile presidency and hounded you out of the same presidential office that they are now egging you on to attempt to reoccupy. What changed? Nothing! Please don’t even think of it. If you do, you may face a stormy backlash. History will forever be unkind to you. That’s the truth; and I will offer other cogent reasons.

    First, the constitutional validity of your making another (technically third) run at the Nigerian presidency after having been sworn in twice is fraught with controversy and imponderables. In my simple, but not-so-legal mind, you are no longer eligible to contest. If you run and win, the same cabal will use the courts to abort your victory, and take over the presidency. Please don’t humour them!

    Second, those pushing you to run were the same people who tried to block you from legally succeeding indisposed President Umaru Yar’Adua, thus compelling the invocation of the Doctrine of Necessity. They only want to use your running in 2027 to forestall Peter Obi and the southeast from having a shot at the Nigerian presidency. They serve primordial interests and are neither reformed nor converted.

    Third, to those pushing for your presidential run, your candidacy merely represents a default fourth strategic option. First, they are disgusted with the Tinubu-Shettima Muslim-Muslim ticket, which they foisted on secular Nigeria.  Second, they don’t want Peter Obi and his one term declamation out of fear that it might turn into a full eight-year term. And third, they know that no Northerner can win the presidency in 2027, given that it is the second segment of a southern eight-year mandate. Ostensibly, you are their fourth choice and expedient tool; not necessarily a credible alternative. They believe that constitutionally, you are, ab initio, limited to one term. That’s what makes you attractive to them.

    Fourth, in April 2011, the southeast zone delivered the largest chunk of 22.4 million votes that guaranteed your winning that presidential election.  The southeast zone delivered 97.2% of their cumulative votes to you. Mr. President if you run and foreclose on a southeast candidate, you won’t get those southeast votes, and your candidacy will surely smack of ingratitude. Nigerians don’t know you as an ungrateful person. Don’t alter that attribute and humility. Keep your credibility intact.

    Fifth, the incumbent administration has notoriously weaponized the use of governmental institutions to harass the political opposition or “forgive the sins” of those malleable few, who are willing to join them.  Don’t bet that they will not come after you if you ever decide to challenge the status quo.

    Sixth, it’s only the cabal’s groupthink that makes it utterly seductive to suggest that your candidacy represents the most formidable rallying impetus for the national alliance required to unseat President Bola Tinubu and the APC. Yet, your candidacy will be the proverbial double-edged Brutusque sword that cuts both ways, and very deep too.

    Finally, Sir, your credentials as an elder statesman have grown exponentially both at home and abroad since you left office on 29th May 2015. Don’t alter that trajectory for no just cause.  Your  decision not to run will do more for nation-building than the decision to run.  Nonetheless, the decision is yours.  But history will ultimately, be the judge. If my analysis seems presumptuous, please pardon me.  As a student of politics and a patriot, I’ve only elected to speak truth to power.

    ——

    Obaze is MD/CEO, Selonnes Consult – a policy, governance and management consulting firm in Awka.

  • Run, Peter, Run…

    Run, Peter, Run…

    By Oseloka H. Obaze

    When I appeared on Arise Prime Time interview with Charles Aniagolu on 2nd June, 2025, I said amongst other things, that any political opposition coalition for the 2027 presidency, which did not include Peter Obi, will not succeed. I stand by that statement. From the caption of this piece, any discerning reader would have already guessed the singular objective of this write-up; to encourage Peter Obi not to be deterred by any force or persuasion from running for the Nigeria presidency in 2027. Here’s the upshot. If Obi runs, he might not win; if he does not run, he is guaranteed not to win.

    The fate of Nigeria hangs on the balance. Most of the Nigerian masses desirous of real leadership change, regardless of their social stratification, education, religion, tribe or political affiliation, hardly consider any person – not Bola Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar, Goodluck Jonathan, Rabui Kwankwaso, Rotimi Amaechi, Aminu Tambuwal, Bukola Saraki or Nasir El-Rufai – as genuinely representing their hope, better than Peter Obi. As contentious as this assertion may seem, it’s no hyperbole. That’s the conflated perception and reality in present day Nigeria.

    Some politicians with vested interests, who understand this reality fully, are already fighting back. They are strategically deploying all forms of trolls and subterfuge to demarket Peter Obi. Corruption is also fighting back, albeit, covertly. The onslaught against Peter Obi is so well oiled and funded; you’d think he is the only person running for the presidency in 2027. Obi’s delegitimization and demythologization are being orchestrated by those awestruck by fear. Two years away from the 2027 presidential election, pre-purposed and pre-positioned media goons are already traducing and pummeling Peter Obi without let or hindrance. Also, those hired hands pretending to be from Obi’s Igbo tribe, are rendering what they want many to believe are even more persuasive, potent, and factually damaging anti-Obi sentiments. They are dredging up vexatious dregs. The assault was long anticipated by those of us aligned with Obi. Still, some heady questions persist: who is afraid of Peter Obi’s presidency and whatever hope it holds out for Nigeria or whatever ill-fate it portends for members of Nigeria’s political elite that belong to the roguish fringe?

    Peter Obi is not a saint. He is the first to admit that publicly. Those who have worked closely with him don’t always agree with him. But he listens. He reads and accepts bad news. He accepts criticisms with saint like equanimity. Because he is human, he does make mistakes. But he is also a servant leader who is willing to adapt; correct his ways and apologize if he errs. He is as deliberate as he is frugal. Also, Peter Obi has the ability to cultivate friends, allies, and adversaries. He is visibly doing that nationwide to the chagrin of his political adversaries. He has left most confused.

    Those who still claim Obi is not known in the North, only tell yesterday’s tales. When ahead of his initial presidential run, they said he was not known in the North and rarely visited the region; he toured the 19 Northern States in two weeks despite the prevailing insecurity. Of recent, more than any rich Nigerian we know, Obi has spent his personal wealth and resources doing altruist work and offering social welfare support around the nation, in the most critical and collectively beneficial sectors. He has given a new face and modality to philanthropy. His public munificence contradicts boldly, the allegations of his stinginess. Yet, some say he is only showboating and wasting his time and resources. Interestingly, his political peers, who possess or have acquired huge largesse from public coffers, have not done half as much.

    I was fully entrenched in the national political mix in April 2022, when Nigerian youths begged the political class to give them Peter Obi. They paid the PDP for Obi’s presidential nomination form, yet PDP’s leadership demurred. Obi and his embryonic Obidient Movement left PDP and found a political haven elsewhere. When thereafter, Peter Obi’s critics and opponents contended that he had no political structure, except for “four men in a room tweeting,” he rallied and grew his “Mustard Seed” support base to well over 20 million voters, and astounded the nation by winning the 2023 presidential elections handily, only for that mandate to be wrested away from him via the INEC legerdemain and judicial subterfuge. When the grab-jacking of the 2023 elections, and the consequent charade of judicial petitions and verdict did not dissuade Peter Obi from further politicking, pro-establishment forces went after his Labour Party, infiltrated it’s ranks with rogue elements, causing its inevitable implosion.
    As an insider, I know and can aver that perhaps, Peter Obi’s main oversight in 2023, was that you never become the leader of labyrinthine Nigeria, without first negotiating with the so-called “owners of Nigeria” about their individual and collective safeguards. Such expedient guardrails not only protect their vested interests, but also form the stickum that holds the Nigeria mosaic in place. Peter Obi needed the “owners of Nigeria” to know, understand, trust, and accept him. The often proffered notion of the “failure to protect his votes,” has merit but was hardly the core culprit. Lack of national elite consensus on the need for sweeping political change was fully at play.

    There were other discernible, if tangential factors. For balance, Obi needed a Northern Muslim running mate. Some of the Northern Muslim politicians, who were approached to run with Peter Obi in 2023, pulled back or pulled out. Almost all wanted Obi to be the number two on any such ticket. Three years later, almost all may have realized their strategic mistake and have changed their minds. Given a second chance, they will readily pair with him in 2027, with Obi heading the ticket.

    Broad realizations of what Nigeria has become, and may yet become, now compels a new thinking. Setting aside the rabble rousing and the revanchists’ default to the tired narrative about the strategic votes required from various parts of the nation to win the presidential elections; the political groundswell for change will trump every other consideration. For most Nigerians, 2027 cannot be business as usual. Nigeria’s political elite know this fact and certainly understand the dire consequences of overplaying their hand.

    Nigerians have heard Peter Obi say routinely that he is not desperate to be president. Yet, many Nigerians at home and abroad are desperate on his behalf. They’ve also heard him say that he will be on the presidential ballot in 2027. Of that I’m dead certain. This has nothing to do with sentiments. As is already unfolding, there will be all forms of political permutations and combinations. Some insidious forces will be planted to derail Peter Obi from running. Some will aim to foreclose on his running. Others will be orchestrated to purvey presumably, better winning options and combinations that can unseat the incumbent. Of the latter, Obi might even be offered yet again, the place of the second fiddle on a ticket. For most Nigerians, this option is off the table as it was in 2023.

    The reality is that the top 2023 presidential candidates, Bola Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar and Rabui Kwankwaso, all knew that Peter Obi defeated them in that election. So, too, did INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu. Of late, some of those politicos initially opposed to Peter Obi are openly confessing that he won the 2023 presidential election. The electoral mandate stolen in 2023 was not just Peter Obi’s votes and victory. It was the votes Nigerians freely cast for Obi and for the betterment of Nigeria and her posterity. The second time around, such votes will double and will be amply protected, even with blood and lives. That much is certain. That’s the present national mindset.

    Four variables make Obi’s run in 2027 imperative. Regardless of the party platform he chooses, his popular support will not wane. His run will also sustain the zoning arrangement that underpins the equity and efficacy of Nigeria’s wobbly federalism; add fillip to Nigeria’s democratic credentials and affirm that a new Nigeria is indeed possible. Every man, woman, and child old enough and registered to vote in 2027 will endeavour to do so. It will most ill-advised for entrenched forces of government and politics, to risk profound fissures and conflict that would arise from any attempt to support or uphold illegalities that will upend the votes and choices freely made by Nigerians. There is only one factor that could change the realities in 2027; that Peter Obi is not willing to be on the ballot. And that is not even an option anymore. Nigerians own Peter Obi as much as he owns himself. He is now a national asset.

    Of Nigeria’s 95 million eligible registered voters, over 33 million or one-third are Nigerian youths, and their votes far outnumber the votes collectively garnered by Tinubu, Atiku, Obi and Kwankwaso in the 2023 presidential election. In 2027, most of those votes, if not all, will go to Peter Obi. They will be protected and will count. Those who think or say otherwise, only unmask their naïveté or profound fears of the prospects of a Peter Obi presidency. Despite all imponderables relative to 2027, I’ll only state by way of advice, support, and affirmation; Run, Peter, Run. Let history take its rightful course.

    ——
    Obaze is MD/CEO, Selonnes Consult – a policy, governance, and management consulting firm in Awka.

  • Imperatives of a Single Term Presidency

    Imperatives of a Single Term Presidency

    By Oseloka H. Obaze

    When Governor Charles Soludo of Anambra State recently took a dig at his political opponents, from Anambra South, who had pledged to serve a single four-year term, in lieu of an abridged term for the incumbent, he stirred a hornet’s nest. Some by conjecture and others by acute rationalization believed Soludo’s Igboukwu Doctrine was targeted at Peter Obi. As it were, by sheer coincidence, Obi had earlier on, made public his willingness to serve in the Nigerian presidency for one term, if elected in 2027. That unscripted arrangement would guarantee maintaining the unwritten zoning arrangement between the North and the South.

    Only Gov. Soludo can say for sure, who his barb about such candidates and aspirants requiring “psychiatric evaluation” was meant for. The reactions elicited by Soludo’s remarks, have been trenchantly acerbic. His rebutters and traducers include defenders of Peter Obi, as well as the governorship candidates from Anambra South. In summary, they have categorized the governor’s contention as pretentious, pedestrian , nd induced by fear of potential loss of power.

    Incidentally, the only guardrail and determinant of the one-off single term narrative , e it at the presidential or gubernatorial levels, is the constitutional validity of such a decision. In the case of the presidency, and in the broader Nigerian context, the sole determinant of that single story narrative that Soludo stoked, ought to be the Doctrine of Necessity, anchored on the provisions of the 1999 Constitution, as amended.

    Both at the national level and at the state level in Anambra, the pledge by aspirants and candidates to serve for one term is not unconstitutional. Not by any means. Second, it respects and seeks not to upend the extant zoning arrangements. Third, the offer arises primarily from the conclusions that the incumbents have not acquitted themselves creditably in office to merit a second term. For people peddling that notion, as it is with President Bola Tinubu, so it is with Gov. Charles Soludo.

    This much is clear. The 1999 Constitution delimits every presidential or governorship tenure to four years, in the first instance. While the second term is statutorily allowed, it is not mandatory. Thus, to do one term only, or two consecutive terms, is the prerogative of the candidate. History, including Nigerian political history, is replete with leaders who served a single term by design or default and still accomplished much. Even some who left office via natural attrition had accomplished much in those short periods. It is all about personal leadership commitment, dedication , and focus.

    Clearly, Peter Obi’s offer to do only one term is necessitated by political realities, well beyond his control. Such a pledge, in real terms, ought to be a mark of sincerity, statesmanship, integrity and respect for zoning and regional equity, not the contrary. Regrettably, in Nigerian politics , skepticism is habitual.

    Those who argue that not much can be accomplished during one term or that any such pledge is a sign of desperation, utterly miss the impetus and thrust of the evolving debate. They default to the proverbial single story narrative. The ultimate selling point of that proposal is that a president committed or constrained to one term, will not be saddled with reelection responsibilities and will inevitably focus on his or her legacy projects and programmes, and other good governance deliverables and dividends.

    It has become customary, given the complex nature of Nigerian politics to adopt in the national interest, the Doctrine of Necessity when seeking to solve thorny political pproblems That same principle should apply now, just as it did, in 1999, when Olusegun Obasanjo was chosen as the “safe hands” to lead Nigeria, but in essence, his choice was meant to assuage the southwest for the annulment of the 1993 presidential election and truncating MKO Abiola’s presidency. The same principles would apply in the succession battle for bed-ridden President Umaru Yar’Adua. Applying the Doctrine of Necessity as an interim measure for arresting Nigeria’s drift, restoring confidence in the presidency , and moving Nigeria forward has become imperative.

    Also, applying the Doctrine of Necessity to give effect to a one-term arrangement will, in the present instance, address several festering sectoral concerns. First, it keeps the North-South zoning arrangement intact. Second, it offers common grounds for the political opposition to rally to a consensus and form a formidable bloc capable of unseating the incumbent president. Third, it guarantees the North (whether monolithic or not) the uncontested assumption of the presidency in 2031 for an eight-year term, just as was the case in 2015.

    Fourth, it guarantees the South that their zoned eight-year tenure, 2023 to 2031, will be respected. Fifth, it reassures the progressive elements within the southwest, especially those in political opposition, that in seeking to unseat their kith and kin, they will not be accused of breaching the zoning arrangement due to ethnic considerations. Sixth, and perhaps the most salient, it compels, the southeast, to make a huge sacrifice to serve only one term; to vouch to do so and indeed, to do so as an affirmation that they can be trusted as integral players in Nigerian. This aspect will also bring to closure, residual discomfitures from the Nigerian-Biafran civil war. Such a guarantee is one the entire southeast zone has to make, regardless of whether the presidential candidate is Peter Obi or not.

    Finally, if that arrangement works, and achieves its ultimate goal of defeating President Bola Tinubu, it will offer President Tinubu the unique opportunity to remediate and buttress his questionable bonafides as a democrat; and also as an incumbent, who ran credible elections, was defeated and willingly handed power to the opposition. He would join the league of sitting African heads of state that lost popular elections and did not use executive and extraordinary means to stay in power.

    The one-off single term presidency debate in Nigeria is now beyond an academic discourse. It is what Nigeria requires to move forward. It will address several distressing and persisting concerns, some subliminal and others, transparently concrete. The core North in its enlightened self-interest should support the plan since their unfettered support for a Muslim-Muslim ticket in 2023 in a secular state like Nigeria has yielded less than the desirable dividends They must also put to rest the prevailing belief that the North cannot trust an Igbo man with the Nigerian presidency. To help the North make up its mind, they need to revisit the 1960, 1963, and 1979 North-East alliances that yielded tangible political results, especially as regards equity and political stability.

    Bluntly, the stark reality is that despite the North’s long and overwhelming dominance of national leadership in Nigeria, their region remains the poorest, most undeveloped, and now, the most insecure. Their hitherto robust and thriving agricultural, mining, hides and skins, textiles, and manufacturing industries are all in ruins. Perhaps, it’s time for the North to think progressively outside the box. Finally, the North might use the four-year single term to address its persisting internal contradictions; specifically the internecine ethnic and religious conflicts and the rise of home grown non-state actors, who as bandits are putting the North asunder.

    Some vested interests in the south will indubitably oppose the single term presidency for the Southeast under various pretexts. Expectedly, most of their supporting arguments will be counter-intuitive. But they will surely be made, covertly or overtly. Peter Obi made a valid point that “if service is the motive, turning the tide in four years is possible.” There’s not much to add to that non-axiomatic contention. All we need to bear in mind is that we need to save and turn around Nigeria.

    The singular challenge confronting Nigeria’s political establishment at this juncture is mainly that of trust. Trust is Nigeria’s red herring. The trust deficit chasm in Nigeria is wide and expanding daily. In the several discussions I’ve been involved in on this issue; the recurring question still revolves around trust. Can Peter Obi be trusted? Can the North be trusted? Can the Igbo be trusted? Can INEC be trusted? Can the Coalition members be trusted? Can the judiciary be trusted? Can the Southwest be trusted? What is left for Nigerians to ask is: Can God or Allah be trusted?

    If Nigerians can find the courage this time around to exhibit a modicum of trust in their compatriots, then we stand a chance of making headway. Then again, arriving at a consensus on issues even as basic as elemental trust within our body politics might require a Doctrine of Necessity. That is where we are and who we have become as a nation.

    ——
    Obaze is MD/CEO, Selonnes Consult – a policy, governance and management consulting firm in Awka.

  • PDP Problems Require Legal and Not Political Solution

    PDP Problems Require Legal and Not Political Solution

    By Godswill Eketabubu

    The above caption appears strange given the well advertised succession of political problems that have afflicted the PDP since 2015; problems that became exacerbated during the 2023 presidential election cycle. Yet, as grave as these political maladies appear, they currently pale into relative insignificance in relation to the complex legal challenge the party is facing. My theory of the case is thus very simple: tackle and resolve this knotty legal challenge and the party’s political pathologies will begin to disappear rapidly but ignore it, throw it under the bus or attend to it half heartedly and the envisaged political solution canvassed for will only bring temporary relief.

    PDP’s 2023 Political ‘Wahala’

    The enormity of the crippling political crises that the PDP faced during the 2023 presidential election season are very well known. From the party’s ambiguous decision over the zoning of the presidential ticket, the refusal of Dr. Iyorcha Ayu, then National Chairman of the party to resign and the open rebellion mounted by the Nyesom Wike led G-5 Governors, the party’s fate and fortune was quickly sealed. Its perennial candidate, Atiku Abubakar, lost the presidential election, Wike landed the top job as President Bola Tinubu’s minister of the FCT, and a vicious political war was levied at the heart of the party’s functioning as a coherent political apparatus. Those angry about the party’s behaviour in 2023 were then resolved to get their pound of flesh and to achieve this, the party must be taught a lesson and made to suffer so much so that it would have broken into many pieces before 2027- thus paving the way for President Tinubu’s leisurely re-entry into office.

    At this stage the driving force in the party’s persistent crises was political contestation – who will control the party’s institutional machinery, determine its direction and to what use it will be put to. There are three forces engaged in this political rofo-rofo: those who insist that the party must remain an autonomous political entity, free from external control so that it can wage and possibly win the political war of 2027; those who want the party to be tied to the apron strings of President Tinubu and the ruling APC; and those who neither want the party to be strong, firm and united because “they have no portion in it again” nor want Tinubu to have anything to do with it. Without a shadow of a doubt, the Governor of Bauchi state and Chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum, Sen. Bala Mohammed best exemplifies the first tendency. He has of late been joined in that space by the Ag. National Chairman of the party Amb. Illiya Damagun whose loyalty to the party was initially perceived to be questionable.

    PDP Lands Itself in a Legal Quagmire

    The noise over these political challenges was so loud and heavy that scant attention was paid to the legal challenge that sneaked into the party’s core: what has now become the epic battle over the National Secretary position. Why this struggle is existential to the party is not merely the perception of institutional disorder but that unless it is resolved the future of the party will be in grave danger. The matter is fairly straightforward. There are three claimants to that throne- the elected National Secretary, Sen. SamDaddy Anyanwu; Comrade Ude Okoye who the South East Caucus of the party nominated to takeover the position when Sen. Anyanwu contested for the Governorship of Imo state; and Setonji Kosheodo, the Deputy National Secretary who emerged as the Ag. National Secretary to resolve the fight between two brothers.

    Any member or leader of the party who fails to recognize the centrality of this legal tussle to the future survival of the party is either being mischievous or is downright clueless and politically idiotic. If this tussle is resolved speedily, the party will be able to hold a valid and legally sound NEC, ratify the appointment of valid and legally tenable convention and zoning of elective positions committees, hold a valid and legally sound National Convention where it will elect a new NWC, and thereafter in 2026 hold presidential primaries that will produce its Presidential Candidate for the 2027 general elections. If the party does the wrong thing with regard to the National Secretary position, retain the wrong person and proceed to unleash the processes I enumerated above thereof, the fate that befell APC in Zamfara state in 2019 will befall it. This will not only be with regard to all PDP candidates in off season elections but indeed all its governorship, senatorial, House of Representatives and State House of Assembly elections in 2027. Period.

    INEC Holds the Ace in Resolving PDP’s Legal Problem

    There is a loud noise out there that it is unbecoming of the party to call upon INEC to help resolve its problems, that INEC has no business interfering in its affairs or summoning its leaders to a meeting, that the June 30th NEC meeting is sacrosanct and must hold and that Sen. SamDaddy Anyanwu can never return as its National Secretary. While it may be necessary to let off steam and hold onto this kind of outlandish immature political reasoning approaching and tackling the reality on ground must be done devoid of this kind of emotion and sentiment. Only by such a deliberate, rational and logical mode of reasoning and acting will the party come out this mess and solve its problem.

    In Nigerian Constitutional democracy and with regard to multiparty political practices, INEC is the Alpha and Omega. As awful as this sounds, it is the truth. As a regulator INEC has powers that few people comprehend. INEC’s legal team is deep and formidable because of the nature of its work and the legal challenges it faces on a daily basis. I will rather go with INEC’s interpretation of the Supreme Court ruling on the question of who the National Secretary of the party is than that of 100 SANs combined! On this matter INEC has spoken and as regrettable and odious as it may sound to many people, this stance is FINAL. If the PDP does otherwise, trust me, it will be the end of the party, not today but after the 2027 elections – especially if it succeeds in dethroning President Bola Tinubu.

    What is this INEC position? Simply put and devoid of sentiment it is this: that the 30th June NEC meeting was illegally convened and thus cannot hold; that the National Secretary ought to have co-singed the notice with the Ag. National Chairman; that Sen. Anyanwu remains the party’s National Secretary till its next elective convention; and that anything to the contrary will spell legal doom for the party down the road. This picture is stark and clear whether INEC has said so directly or not. A visit to INEC secretariat and a perusal of its records will attest to this loud and clear.

    Gov. Bala Mohammed’s Rescue Mission

    The Governor of Bauchi state and the Chairman of the PDP Governors Forum appears to have recognized this fact given his tenacity, relentless drive and immense sacrifices in hosting countless meetings of the various organs of the party in the search for solution to this problem. He appears to have recognized that Sen. Anyanwu’s moral conduct in refusing to resign when he became the party’s flag bearer in the Imo governorship election or the kind of friends he keeps are irrelevant in the task of saving the party. His embrace of Sen. Anyanwu is thus a logic of common sense and wisdom that emotions and sentiments don’t win legal arguments. The Ag. National Chairman appears to have embraced this position given his stance on the postponement of the 30th June NEC and Sen. Anyanwu’s restoration as the party’s National Secretary. Sen. Bukola Saraki, the Chairman of the Reconciliation Committee appointed by the Gov. Bala Mohammed led PDPGF and other stakeholders appears to be working towards this sound outcome.

    My charge to all members of the party, sympathizers like myself and indeed all lovers of multiparty democracy which is under severe pressure by a frightened APC and its vauntingly ambitious Presidency is to rally round those working day and night to salvage it. If the likes of Gov. Bala Mohammed is to turn his back on the party as this point in time, one wonders what its fate will be. Rather than being vilified and called names, patriotic party faithful will gain more by chipping in their bit in the urgent task of rescuing the party from the jaws of APC sharks.

    Plea to South East Party Leaders

    My plea to the South East leaders of the party, particularly to the dynamic, high performing Gov. Peter Mbah of Enugu state and Sen. Adolphus Wabara who is the Chairman of the party’s BOT, as a neighbour from the South South and a long time PDP sympathizer, is to calm down, rise above your righteous anger over Sen. Anyanwu’s apparent betrayal of trust and unethical conduct and allow peace to reign. You cannot destroy that which you created. You cannot win this case in the eyes of INEC and the eyes of INEC is ultimately the eyes of the law in this regard. This may sound harsh and defeatist but it is the truth. Trust me. Unless you have some other reason why you want to leave the party which you formed that will be fine. It cannot be because of Sen. Anyanwu, whose tenure will lapse in November of this year.

    What will it profit you to ruin it all because you cannot stomach your anger for three or four months and demand that the party re-zones the position to the South East at the next convention so that you can finally get your person in for four years.

    The South East leaders of the PDP has everything to gain by working with the likes of Ag. Chairman Damagun and Gov. Bala Mohammed to put to rest, once and for all, the vexatious issue of the National Secretary, abandon the delusion of a NEC meeting on 30th June 2025 and see that gathering as an Expanded National Caucus during which the party can resolve the date of the next NEC and the upcoming National Convention. To do otherwise is to play into the hands of the enemies of the party and partake in its ultimate ruination.

    Dr. Eketabubu wrote from Port Harcourt Rivers state