2027: Sycophants And ‘No Vacancy In Aso Rock’

 By Dan Onwukwe

The first phase in the struggle for the presidency in 2027 has already started long before the flag off of campaigns.Well, does the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) matter any more?

If you care to know, this is a prelude to rigging the 2027 presidential election. In politics, no less than war, the lessons of the last campaign are prized beyond their application to the present one. But like each battle, each political campaign is dependent upon the experience of the past, but every political campaign is in itself unique. Is it a surprise to you that about 27 months to the next general elections, the desperate pursuit to re-elect President Bola Tinubu has been at fever pitch for days? That’s why Nigerian politics rings alarm. It’s about the manner of characters that pollute our democratic process and makes it look like a sham, if not a scam.

Call these politicians charlatans and sycophants, you may not be far from this malaise that has afflicted our politics. For want of proper definition, these politicians are malicious tricksters who deceive for personal profit. They are servile flatterers, ass-kissers, and yes men. Their aim is to seek through the revolving doors of the powerful and influential. It’s the currency of their fame. They are poison in our democracy. That’s why our democracy heaves with hysteria. But the man in power loves to surround himself with these sycophants.

Reason: he uses them as oxygen of publicity to gauge public opinions of what he intends to do. It’s also part of his tool to intimidate political opponents. Sycophants have a clear-cut pattern. Their  flattering often comes ahead of the next election. For now, the game is dubbed, “No vacancy in Aso Rock”.     However, after consolidating his grip on power, he discards some of them  like disposable napkins because their relevance to him has expired. And there they come again. But let’s go back in time before coming to the present. In 2002, a year before the 2003 presidential election, Chief Tony Anenih, fondly called “Mr Fix it” because of his wiles and schemes to manipulate the political process, declared defiantly, “No vacancy in Aso Rock”. He said nothing would stop the then President Olusegun Obasanjo from being re-elected for a second term in 2003.                       

At a dinner with some editors late in 2002 at his residence in Asokoro, (I was Editor, Sunday Champion then), I asked chief Anenih what he meant by “No vacancy in Aso Rock”, he said, the ‘incumbent is in the ring and nobody can dislodge him”, but that, he said, didn’t mean to shut the door against voters’ choice. For me, that comment signaled the ‘do-or-die’ politics that has become the hallmark of the present Nigerian politics, where politicians see politics as war, and all things fair.

Again, on December 6, 2010, few months to 2011 presidential election, same Anenih told  leaders of South South PDP in Benin city, Edo state during the inauguration of Jonathan/Sambo campaign Organisation that ‘No vacancy in the presidency’. He described Jonathan presidential ambition as “Nigeria’s project”…Anenih also claimed that Jonathan who had succeeded the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua by accident of death, as someone who “possessed all the qualities” that would enable him overrun any candidate, both in the PDP primary and at  the presidential election.                             

Concluding his speech that blustery day, Anenih wowed the crowd by saying, “mark what I said today, I don’t waste my words, we have sent a signal to those inside and outside”. Anenih died on October 28, 2018, aged 85. But, long before his death, his relationship with Obasanjo who ‘used’ to great effect, strained irreparably. Who says our politics is not a fun to follow?  Now, fast-forward to the present.

Like a parent trying to reason like a child, last week, without originality of his own, George Akume, a former Gov of Benue state and current Secretary to the Government of the Federation(SGF), was at his lowest , worst sycophantic, threadbare, tendentious level, when he declared in a Television Continental (TVC) interview, that aspirants who are nursing presidential ambition in 2027, especially from the Northern part of the country should shelve their ambition until 2031 because, “there is no vacancy in Aso Rock”.         

Akume knows the medium to air his opinion on ‘No vacancy in Aso Rock, come 2027. TVC is it, and we know why. That’s why he pointedly asked former vice president Atiku Abubakar to perish the idea of contesting for the next presidential election. For politicians like Anenih and Akume, treating people to the ballot box on Election Day is a mere fulfillment of ‘all righteousness’. They believe, albeit wrongly, in the myth that the incumbent President must always be re-elected. For the two men, and a horde of others who think like them, elections in Nigeria do NOT offer valid choices. They may be right in so far as the electoral process can be manipulated to favour the incumbent .   

But this myth had been demystified several times in many democracies and in Nigeria in 2015, when Goodluck Jonathan as incumbent president lost to Muhammadu Buhari  against the run of plan that turned out to be Nigeria’s worst nightmare. This much is clear: No incumbent President has made such a huge, unpardonable classic errors in strategy and judgement in almost every dimension of our economy and livelihood as Bola Tinubu. In the past 19 months of his presidency, there’s no conscious effort to develop a coherent policy strategy that will steer the country in the right direction.                           

No doubt, Buhari was an unapologetic, nepotistic president. But Tinubu has already surpassed Buhari’s missteps, and in comparison, could make Buhari a ‘star’. That’s why the man from Daura is watching, and not talking. He’s enjoying what is unfolding. Nigerians  have a calamity in their hands right now. Truth is, anyone who believes that anything good will come from the present government must be living in utopian world. Therefore, contrary to Akume’s twisted logic of ‘No vacancy in Aso Rock ‘, there is vacancy in Aso Rock in 2027.         

The only way of discouraging a serious challenge to the man in power is for him to demonstrate competence and performance. Nigerians haven’t seen any improvement in their lives in the last 19 months. Never before have the citizens been visited with such hard – damn hard – tough times as they are experiencing now. When they say, ‘No vacancy in the presidency’, the president’s henchmen are expressing a ‘fear factor’,  that based on the president’s abysmal performance, and record low in public standing, he’s very beatable in the next election in 2027.                                       

If you are not aware, APC is playing the expectation game. One of its offensive political weapons is to decimate the opposition and cause mass defections of opposition lawmakers. For now, that strategy is working. Watch out for more defections in the weeks ahead. The ultimate plan is that by the time APC is through with destroying opposition parties, the gate to Aso Rock will be wide open for Tinubu to remain in power even beyond 2031 if he so desires.

That’s state capture and the emergence of one party rule in the country just for the sake of one man. Akume and his ilk need to be told that politics is not given to simple theorising. That means,  don’t overlook unforeseen events that may upset all political permutations. Here’s the message: Mr President, beware: 2027 may be 27 months away, but it’s too early to be so confident that the race is won and lost even when no single ballot has been cast yet.

*Onwukwe is a commentator on public issues