Bola Tinubu’s First Major Political Blunder

 By Emmanuel Aziken

Just a week ago, President Bola Tinubu was hailed and nailed on this page over his score in his first two years in office as assessed by the 2023 Social Democratic Party, SDP, presidential candidate, Adewole Adebayo.

*Tinubu

Adebayo had in his assessment of the two years spent by Tinubu in power scored him an F9 in governance and an A1 in politics.

The reasons for the scores were robustly marshaled. On one side he was ‘hailed’ for becoming the first chief executive in the country to reduce the totality of the opposition into insignificance. On the other hand, he was scorched for the foibles that have forced Nigerians into their worst living condition in generations.

Since the publication of that article, there is perhaps little reason to suggest a lift for the president on governance issues. However, at the same time, it has emerged that the A1 score he received for politicking may have been an exaggeration.

Suggestions that the president has triumphed and extinguished his political rivals and wrapped himself in imperial political majesty are indeed overblown. Those who think President Tinubu is politically invincible should see the alarming reaction of his minions to the emergence of the African Democratic Congress, ADC as the umbrella canopy of the mainstream of the opposition. The ADC emerged after the frustrations the oppositionists met in registering a brand new party.

It was also little comfort for his minions that the president shocked even some of his supporters by embarking on a visit to the tourist hub of Saint Lucia at a time that the nation was so much embroiled in many crises.

Whatever, last Tuesday’s successful aggregation of the opposition into the ADC may indicate that Tinubu may yet not proclaim insuperability.

The emergence of the ADC as the platform for the opposition followed the realisation that the two major opposition political platforms, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and Labour Party had been thrown into intractable crises. Whether he was involved in the crises in the two opposition parties or not, the president has not restrained himself from mocking the two parties even on their death pangs.

Delivering his address before a joint sitting of the National Assembly on the occasion of the June 12 Democracy Day, Tinubu said he was happy to see the opposition in disarray. That speech appeared to give an element of credence to claims that the intractable crises in the two major opposition parties were being sponsored by the APC.

 The president’s most celebrated minister, Nyesom Wike even as late as last Thursday was gushing on national television on his success in reducing the PDP to infantile kicks. Under its present circumstances, the PDP cannot field a presidential candidate except Wike has a change of heart. 

The Labour Party is no less factionalised. A Supreme Court decision that ordinarily should have vested authority in the tendency aligned to Peter Obi was reportedly frustrated by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

INEC, according to some informed sources in Labour Party spurned the Supreme Court decision ostensibly to please Tinubu and the APC with the purpose that the two major political parties are reduced to smithereens.

By ensuring that the opposition is completely decimated, the Tinubu camp has unwittingly galvanised the various critics of the president scattered in PDP, Labour and even within the APC into a single platform. The ADC in its first few days after reinvention, has given the sharpest articulation against the president since his advent two years ago.

While the oppositionists are yet to win the garb of credibility given their past roles in governance, they have nevertheless for the first time set the Tinubu camp on the wrong foot in the political arena.

So, Tinubu’s major political mistake this correspondent thinks was in applying to the extreme the 15th law of Robert Greene’s 48 laws of power.

That law speaks to crushing your enemies. However, in a democratic setting like Nigeria applying that law is totally unrealisable. This correspondent believes that the Tinubu camp should have shown more tact in allowing the PDP and Labour to live albeit if insidiously melting it from inside.

The brutish exertions that have made it impossible for the PDP to have regular meetings or the Labour Party to have a recognised executive prompted the opposition leaders to jump ship even before it was too late into the ADC.

Having discovered the ridiculousness of the earlier gambit, this correspondent understands that efforts are now being made to hand over legitimacy to the Nenadi Usman-led executive of Labour Party. But it is too late.

Tinubu also knows that what gave him the presidency was the division in the ranks of the opposition in 2023. That allowed him with about 38% of the votes to be sworn in as President. Now, if he successfully allows those who controlled the 62% share to come together it would be to his disadvantage. That 62% may also have been stuffed by critics within the APC who formed a sizeable proportion of those who congregated against Tinubu this week.

So in effect, the A1 grade given to the president by the SDP’s Adewole Adebayo in politics may now be re-evaluated.  Tinubu’s resort for rediscovery is to reinvent himself and work towards a better score than the F9 the same Adebayo gave him in governance. Indeed, if he ratches up governance, the oppositionists would have been robbed of any lethal weapon against him.

*Aziken is a commentator on public issues