By Williams Adegoke
The APC presidential campaign has been a fiasco so far. The takeaways and talking points that have emanated from Plateau, Ebonyi, and Lagos, rallies have been of ridicule.
The party has repeatedly failed to sway any independent voter or anyone who has not been paid. As things stand, the immediate future is bleak for the APC come 2023.
The presidential candidate of the APC, Bola Tinubu has not helped issues. His constant gaffes have produced more comical relief than hope for Nigeria.
On paper as of today, if Tinubu wins, it is because his party controls the establishment, the structures, and institutions that will determine the outcome of the 2023 presidential elections not because of his popularity.
If the presidential election were to hold today without any devious plan of deploying touts and hoodlums to threaten voters or disrupt voting processes, Tinubu’s “Emi Lokan” dream will evaporate.
In 2014, when President Muhammadu Buhari was repackaged for Nigerians, he got huge acceptability because his running mate was a new kid out of the block. He was brilliant, eloquent, and a people person.
He rode in buses, went to markets, and met with people in their homes. His approach was unconventional and it worked, not only in 2014 but also in 2019.
He was more than the backbone that Buhari needed. In many cases, he spoke for his boss, providing balance when needed. Nigerians had hope and many didn’t have to be bribed to vote the APC presidential candidate.
Fast forward to 2022 and the supporting cast of Tinubu is almost nothing to write home about. Many can dismiss this as paper talk but the handwriting is on the wall. Osun State governorship is a case study.
Osinbajo and Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola both stayed away from the APC candidate, Adegboyega Oyetola and the outcome is clear. APC is down one state ahead of the 2023 general election.
For those counting on the G5 governors, I laugh at their political naivety. Wike and his boys will not join APC they are more PDP today than they were before the party primaries.
In a matter of weeks, things will become clearer and APC will be grasping at straws if they do not have an ace up their sleeve.
Tinubu needs a man like Osinbajo, he needs him now more than ever before. His decision to run with a same-faith ticket is a disservice to Nigeria. It lacks equity, fairness, and justice but he needs to find a way to make Osinbajo join the campaign.
The same goes for Aregbesola. If Tinubu thinks he is unstoppable then he is not a good student of history. The biggest dynasties in the history of mankind came crashing because of the megalomania of the leader.
Tinubu also needs to reach out to others within the party that has refused the same faith ticket or for other political reasons otherwise, he is about to smell what ‘The Rock’ is cooking.
As of today, his supporting cast offers little or no value to his campaign. They do not give prospective voters a sense of direction, they simply look like they have lost the script.
MKO Abiola once said shame to money when it failed to save his wife from death. Speaking of Abiola, some people have equated his 1993 victory to what could happen in 2023 but they forget that he won because he was popular not because he was buying votes.
Time is of the essence for Tinubu and the APC. We just hope that INEC and the security agencies will do their jobs properly in 2023. If Tinubu wants to win, he needs to do what is right immediately.
Adegoke wrote from Ilesa, Osun State
