2027: Fragmented opposition is Jack Okude’s Tinubu presidency

I was just wondering. Why is there a debate about who will win the 2027 presidential election? It’s not child’s play.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will defeat all the fragmented opposition candidates by a wide margin. Every time I hear anyone argue on this topic, I cringe at the gross lack of political acuity among some Nigerians.

Whatever the reason, the same opposition that held midnight meetings, organized conferences and formulated strategies in hastily organized town hall meetings, has collapsed.
Chipped. Disintegrated. Dismembered. Like a deck of cards, the opposition crashed with a heavy thud and splintered into fragments of localized hegemonies. And if you consider that presidential elections in Nigeria are not won with votes localized along ethnic and religious divides, you will be spared the trauma of having to figure out who will take the cake in the 2027 presidential election. Tinubu will.

Tinubu is currently competing against a dozen opposition candidates. Even for the purposes of realistic expectation, we apply a filter and reduce the crowd of opposition presidential candidates to just five, it still does not appear, either mathematically or logically, that the opposition in its current state will pose any challenge. A divided camp, an army, a politician, a family, or any other group, cannot overwhelm the enemy in a competition. Whether it’s elections, real wars, or simply a competition between schools, the lack of unity in a field becomes the chink in its armor. Disunity is the chink in the opposition’s armor. And this counts to Tinubu’s advantage.

This is the current situation the opposition finds itself in now. They could not include their fat egos in the basic duty of service to the people. Every man with his inflated ego and conceit came to the opposition’s discussion table. The ego, especially one imbued with a tinge of delusions of grandeur, is the cheapest catalyst for self-destruction. In this circumstance no one gives an inch; no compromise. Every man wants it in his own way. Yet politics is a question of compromise, of give and take. Politics is not rigid, neither in Europe, nor in Asia, nor in any part of the world. In politics we don’t just exchange ideas, we exchange places and positions. Such flexibility is what makes politics dynamic and evolutionary.

Let’s go back to the opposition. They couldn’t reach a compromise. They could not exchange positions or places. They came trading like traders in a fixed price market. They were blinded by their ego. Hardened by their inflated presumption. At one time they even argued among themselves; throwing shots at each other and dissipating energy before the match. Enthusiastic about their elephant-sized individual egos and unwilling to concede to anyone but themselves, they didn’t just walk away from the bargaining table, they smashed it to smithereens. At the moment there is no table to hold the talks; no place or meeting point. Each to his tent. Everyone to their own party. Some opposition parties even have factions, a typical divided house. The implication of the ego-driven division among opponents is clear: they have become too weak to win. They have grown too thin to make much of an impression nationally.

In both nominal and merit terms, President Tinubu will win in 2027. His performance in infrastructure, agriculture, economic renewal, human capital development, healthcare, education and social welfare is sufficient to ensure electoral victory. Under Tinubu, the Nigerian security apparatus established a collaborative synergy with the United States military. This is a big step forward in the fight against insecurity, especially considering that the United States itself has refrained from collaborating with Nigeria in the past, including selling military equipment to the Nigerian government.

But it must be said. Tinubu is a lucky man. Luck favors him. Not only because of his sheer audacity in daring, as they say, “fortune favors the bold”, but above all because there seems to be an invisible hand fighting on his behalf. When he was about to contest for the presidential ticket of his party, APC, clashes and controversies were thrown his way. He scaled them down. And ahead of the 2023 presidential election, more challenges have arisen from several directions. There has been a curiously artificial monetary tightening that has created a higher level of suffering among citizens. Here too Tinubu triumphed. And as the opposition gained momentum in their collective bid to oust him during the 2027 election cycle, something happened to Tinubu’s advantage. The coalition of opposition parties and men, due to their load of diversity – religious, ethnic and pure and simple selfishness – has fallen apart; dividing itself into micro units each with its own vainglorious ambition. The disintegration of the once united opposition has been riddled with bad faith, so much so that other variations of opposition have arisen within the opposition family to oppose and challenge the truths of the larger opposition. A case of opposition against opposition. Something like “wahala for corpse and owner of the corpse,” apologizes to the transcendental Fela Anikulapo Kuti.

Whether this was done intentionally or by default, the current fragmented opposition cannot challenge Tinubu in 2027. A divided opposition cannot cow a sitting president with over 30 out of 36 governors working for him. Add to this the Federal Capital Territory Minister, Nyesom Wike, who is a staunch Tinubu, even though he is officially part of an opposition party. He also openly declared his support for the president. The latest FCT council elections set the tone for the outcome of the 2027 elections. The prognosis is clear: where Tinubu lost in 2023, he is poised to win in 2027, and by a very wide margin.

The fate of the opposition is doomed before the competition. They managed to balkanize themselves into microgroups. To be sure, the forecast is grim for the opposition. And the blame lies with no one but the opposition politicians themselves. They fractured under the weight of their own presumption. This is what happens when the motive for winning elections is not to serve the people but to self-aggrandize; for a selfish selfish journey, not for altruistic public service. The selfish nature displayed and still demonstrated by the opposition should be a warning sign to Nigerians. The opposition should be rejected individually and collectively.

*Okude, a public policy analyst, writes from Abuja.