2027: The Gathering Storm Against Tinubu

This week’s defection of former governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir Ahmed el-Rufai, to the Social Democratic Party (SDP), marked the beginning of a journey towards creating a rainbow political coalition that is determined to wrest power from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in 2027.

Coming less than two years to the mid-term celebration of the Tinubu-led administration, many are predicting heady days ahead for the government that has been engaged in battling the tides of economic hardship, including bringing to an end various forms of insurgencies ripping across the country.

Testing The Waters                                                                

The el-Rufai defection has been followed by a flurry of news reports announcing planned defections, especially in the North, that may rock major political parties in preparation to challenge the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the months to come. This week, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 election, Mr. Peter Obi, was a guest of Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State. At the end of their closed-door meeting, the chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Governors’ Forum told reporters that he was willing to work with Obi for the growth of the country.

While talks of imminent defection of key groups in the APC, PDP, among others, have made the rounds, a group in the SDP is seeking to replace the national secretary of the party, Dr. Olu Ogunloye, on account of his trial by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). To strengthen the SDP and transform it into a major political force, some believe that Agunloye must be shown the way out in order to frustrate any effort to compromise and weaken the party ahead of the general elections.

2015 Not 2027

If the focus to wrest power from Tinubu must be accomplished, a top member of the SDP told me this week, then, nothing should be left to chance in sacking Agunloye. Of course, the scribe may be currently embroiled in a legal trial, but the real point of disagreement over Agunloye is predicated on the need to clean the party of moles that may be deployed to give support for the president in 2027. The clear implications, as contained in the battle to oust the SDP scribe, is the enthronement of ethnicity to square up against Tinubu who is an old warhorse that is schooled in the dialectics of Nigeria’s politics.

Ethnicity and regionalism have always been part of Nigeria’s politics. When the former vice president and serial presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, visited the family of the Niger Delta leader, Chief Edwin Clark, to commiserate with them over the demise of the patriarch, the former Kaduna State governor, while extolling the patriotic attributes of Clark, recalled the presidency of former President Olusegun Obasanjo that did a lot for the South-South. He also reminded his hosts whom he had gone to console over the death of their father that Atiku was instrumental to the successes of the Obasanjo-led administration that governed between 1999 and 2007. For bringing politics during a condolence visit, not a few have faulted el-Rufai whose footprints in the corridor of power, especially in Kaduna State, has been dotted with recurring violent attacks on communities by herdsmen and human rights violation allegations.

Without doubt, the 2015 scenario that led to the emergence of General Muhammadu Buhari as president won’t be the same in 2027. In 2015, we had a president who was too willing to be pushed aside, if only to preserve the peace of the country. He was more concerned with playing the statesman than being the politician that his aides wanted him to be.

Tortuous Path Ahead

Less than two years to the Tinubu midterm report, there seems to be a deliberate departure from the past where religion and ethnicity were once transformed into weapons of coercion rather than unity. Patriotism took a backseat just as nepotism was enthroned as the pathway to walking into the hallway of power. Insecurity and economic hardship became the order of the day and by the time Buhari completed his tenure, Nigeria had become worse off. In attesting to this dismal failure of the Buhari government, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, in one of his new books, described the Buhari administration as the worst in the history of the country.

Unlike in 2015 when the opposition was united and all efforts directed at unseating Jonathan, 2027 promises to be a different ball game. Some of the politicians championing moves to defeat Tinubu have demonstrated a lacklustre performance in the various positions they were elected between 2015 and 2023.  Even Buhari, who was described as the expected Messiah, failed woefully.

Clearly, the parameters that defined the outcome of the 2015 polls will definitely be different in 2027. New dynamics and dialectics are set to be introduced and that is what shall define the results of the polls. More importantly, there is a change of guards in the corridor of power. Unlike the past, the current president is not a stranger to the underbelly of the power game that is more subtly orchestrated than seen. Though the present economic suffering still remains one of the greatest concerns militating against the country, there is no obliterating the chances that the economy may recover and brighten Tinubu’s re-election bid.

The gathering storm, as manifested in the defections of politicians to unite against Tinubu’s comeback, may end up as a breeze. Politics in Nigeria and elsewhere is all about negotiation and renegotiation for personal interest. Tinubu is a master strategist that is ahead in dealing with his political foes. Something tells me that those who are out to defeat Tinubu are only embarking on a tortuous trip that may yield nothing but a mirage. The lack of unity among opposition platforms and the selfishness of the political class remain the albatross of current efforts to upstage the president in 2027.