Today, in just a matter of few hours, in Enugu, the capital city of South Eastern Nigeria, the Labour Party, LP presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Mr. Peter Obi will formally become a member of the African Democratic Congress, ADC.
The question now is what next?
For President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, of course.
This is a man many regard as a political genius. Your guess is as good as mine whether it is for good or evil.
They always refer to him as master strategist, especially when it comes to grabbing power and running away with it.
His strategy, immediately he was sworn in, included turning Nigeria into a one-party nation. To do that, he first dismantled LP, the party whose presidential candidate that ran against him in 2023 was widely believed by concerned Nigerians as having won the election. Next, he planted very destructive maggots deep inside the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to rob her of any unity to mount any reasonable opposition.
On both counts, Jagaban succeeded.
But his advisers forgot to whisper to him that Nigeria is too big to be pocketed by just one man, even if that man is a power-drunk executive president of the world’s most populous black nation. As smart as he believes he is, there are equally as smart and even far smarter Nigerians in all walks of life.
Some of the politicians he neglected got to work, swept away Jagaban’s carpet under his feet and got ADC registered… and the chess game began!
Tried as he did, Jagaban’s stooges couldn’t derail the force ADC emerged with. His subtle release of the iron grips he held LP with did not yield the results he expected.
In trying to outsmart everyone, Tinubu unwittingly united the two men who ran him aground in 2023 on separate ballots to challenge him under one umbrella in 2027. Alarm bells!
Now, let’s see how Jagaban navigates this one. In the words of the great football commentator, Ernest Okonkwo, the clouds are gathering.
And while the All Progressives Congress, APC leader starts swimming in the murky water he infested with sharks, he’s equally got to be looking over his shoulders for President Donald Trump’s Tomahawks.
How Jagaban would pay anything to get No. 47 off his back at this exceedingly critical time! But DJT is not one who retreats whenever he smells blood. The Christians’ safety in Nigeria is now his concern.
Tinubu should not blame anybody for attracting Trump’s interest to Nigeria. The Commander-in-Chief should rather hold himself responsible. The file the FBI, arguably the world’s most thorough investigative agency, has on the former Lagos State governor must be as thick as the list of his tribesmen appointed across government agencies since his tenure, in what many view as an unprecedented display of nepotism. Even worse for Emulakan is the certainty that DJT must have read that dossier from cover to cover.