By Eric Elezuo
With the presidential candidates of the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, battling to legally upturn the results of the February 25, 2023 Presidential Elections at the Tribunal, President Bola Tinubu is devising plans to ensure that his declared victory remains sacrosanct.
Tinubu has not hidden his intention to ensure his four years stewardship runs smoothly without legal interruption, considering that all the parties at the tribunal seem to have a 50/50 chance of coming out victorious.
With the camp of Peter Obi, who alone scored a ‘mandatory’ 25% victory in the Federal Capital Territory, believing that the election victory is theirs, and Atiku proving that most of his legitimate votes were allocated to Tinubu especially in the North, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Tinubu have a lot of defence to put up to convince the judges that his election is legit. So far, the camps of Atiku and Peter Obi have submitted exhibits, which have been admitted by the tribunal as well as tons of paper evidences and witnesses to help them prove the election of Tinubu is as discredited as many organisations and governments have testified.
But Tinubu is not lying down or leaving matters to chance. The President has from the day of inauguration began a massive policy re-engineering, reorientation and somersault that he believes will sway public sympathy to his side in anticipation of the Tribunal’s verdict at the end of the sitting. While many applauded his inauguration ground of removal of subsidy from fuel products, a lot of Nigerians have said that the timing was both wrong and anti-people. The President is hoping the long, cumbersome, expensive and windy process of the Tribunal will provide an opportunity for him to win the hearts of majority of Nigerians, who supposedly voted against him, gain legitimacy and somehow achieve a kind of backdoor referendum instead of election.
Consequently, he is moving at the speed of light to win Nigerians over; Nigerians who may easily give up on the judicial process. For that purpose, he has turned Aso Rock an Okija of some sort for as many that are willing to share in the national privilege, and help him consolidate his position should there be a rerun or referendum, and so all manner of visitors have flooded the villa since he assumed office. He has therefore, also succeeded in installing leaders of the National Assembly across board beginning with Senator Godswill Akpabio as Senate president and Tajudeen Abass as Speaker, House of Representatives, and open the doors of the villa to all and sundry who will easilyrespond to his whims and caprice.
Among those who have visited the presidential villa in the past weeks Tinubu became president are governors elected on the platform of the APC, former Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, former governors of Kano State, Rabiu Kwankwaso and Abdullahi Ganduje, Chairman of Dangote Industries, Aliko Dangote, Niger Delta militant, Asari Dokubo, service chiefs, and a host of others.
The duo of Emefiele and Bawa also visited the Villa before the hammer of sack fell on them.
Tinubu, who lost his homebase, Lagos, by a slim margin to the LP candidate, according to the results released by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) though still being contested in Lagos, fired the Central Bank of Nigeria governor, Godwin Emefiele, knowing it will tickle the fancy of Nigerians if the challenges of the naira redesign policy is anything to go by. It would be recalled that Emefiele’s naira redesign policy had led to scarcity of naira, plunging families into untold sufferings and leading to deaths of many. Tinubu was quick to capitalise on Emefiele’s fall to gain sympathy. It is on record that seven days, after, Emefiele is still in the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS), which arrested him shortly after he was removed.
Days later, Tinubu followed up with the removal of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa for alleged abuse of office. Bawa has also been arrested.
Willie Bassey, Director, Information, office of the SGF, who revealed the information to journalists noted that, Bawa’s suspension was to enable security agents conduct proper investigation into his conduct while in office.
There has been several allegations against Bawa since he assumed office as EFCC chair, including a former governor of Zamfara State, Bello Matawalle, accusing him of demanding $2 million bribe from him.
Bawa denied the allegation, asking the former governor to provide evidence to back his claim.
Tinubu, according to stakeholders, is riding on what late afrobeat king, Fela, will call Initial gra gra; IGG for short.
“What he is doing is not governance; he is only struggling to gain sympathy from Nigerians towards assuming relevance, knowing that the verdict of the presidential election tribunal can go anyway. The initial idea of this government is to try within the shortest time to gain sympathy with the tribunal,” a political stakeholder, who crave anonymity said, adding that “the only way this nation can move forward is through the rule of law, and not sympathy.”
Tinubu has followed up his ‘good gestures’ with the signing of Students Loan Bill, which has continued to get support from interested stakeholders, including the National Association of Nigeria Students (NANS). The association, which has also visited the presidential villa, praised Tinubu for its signing while urging him to review the constitution of the special committee that will oversee the new Nigerian Education Loan Fund to include student representatives.
“We are here to congratulate you and to thank you for what you have been doing for the country since you assumed responsibility as the president. We want to equally thank you for the Students Loan Bill,” NANS president, Umar Barambu, who led other student leaders on a visit to Tinubu in his office, said.
The president has also promised to review worker’s salary as a way of cushioning the effect for the just removed subsidy on fuel.
Recall that Tinubu was announced winner of the election, garnering a total of 8,794,726 votes, the highest of all the candidates, thus meeting the first constitutional requirement to be declared the winner.
Atiku polled a total of 6,984,520 votes in the election while Peter Obi of the Labour Party came third with a total of 6,101,533 votes and Rabiu Kwankwaso of the NNPP came fourth with 1,496,687 votes.
Meanwhile, the duo of Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar are at the tribunal, attempting to legally upturn the outcome of the February 25 presidential election, claiming that irregularities, harassment, violence and vote stealing marred the election.
Tinubu, according to a cross section of Nigerians, is positioning himself for a possible rerun or referendum, should the judgment of the Tribunal goes against his election.
