In Jos Tinubu demonstrated his irrelevance to Nigerians…

The optics are terrible and a reminder that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is spiraling into irrelevance. Instead of arresting the slide, his desire to remain president has blinded him to placing power above Nigerians, above everything.

As Nigerians await military action in parts occupied by terrorists and bandits, armored tankers are being deployed to protect INEC headquarters, and one was even on hand for Governor Caleb Muftwang to visit communities around Jos that were attacked on Palm Sunday.

Tinubu was at his best, the puppeteer in INEC’s entanglement with the Africa Democratic Congress, ADC. Its spokesperson Bayo Onanuga was angry with the ADC’s position that there is no legal basis for INEC to dismantle its leadership.

INEC went further, warning the ADC that any decision taken by David Mark’s leadership would put its candidates in danger of being declared losers, even if they won, as beneficiaries of illegal party leadership. INEC Chairman, Professor Joash Ojo Amupitan, SAN, said this on television.

When Amupitan was appointed INEC president, many applauded the choice, thinking it would be different.

The ADC leadership at stake is a question before the Court of Appeal which, by remanding the case, ordered the “status quo ante bellum”. Neither Tinubu nor INEC can wait for the matter to be decided before taking action.

At no point was the interpretation of “status quo ante bellum”, a Latin expression for “to stand before the controversy”, subjected to different meanings, all to find an appropriate course of action to “legalise” Tinubu’s determination to be returned “unopposed” and the sole qualified candidate for the presidency in 2027.

He is determined to establish his “victory” before the election.

Tinubu, the supposed democrat, Nigeria’s so-called best political strategist, realizing that he cannot win the 2027 elections, has chosen to decimate the opposition.

32 governors are part of the ruling party, as are many legislators and others. More and more “big” politicians are joining the ruling party as they find the opposition being squeezed out of existence by the APC which calls itself “progressive”.

This provided no comfort to Tinubu. No Nigerian president has come close to re-election with such massive support. The more support he gets, the more scared Tinubu appears.

Everything scares him. His poor performance places him firmly as Nigeria’s worst president ever. He knows it.

It is in the running to avoid definitive disgrace in 2027.

An Onanuga can be anything to support Tinubu. Now he is a lawyer and judge rolled into one.
“Status quo ante or status quo ante bellum: “The state of affairs before a specific event.

“The related phrase status quo ante, literally ‘the status before,’ refers to the state of affairs that existed previously.

“In the case between Nafiu Gombe v ADC, David Mark and Rauf Aregbesola, ‘status quo ante bellum’ means returning to the ADC as it existed before Ralph Nwoye sold the party to Abubakar Atiku to serve as the SPV for the 2027 elections. According to reports, Gombe claims that he is still the vice-president of the ADC, that he never resigned and that he should have automatically become president after the resignation of the longest-serving president of the party, Nwoye, The ADC should stop blaming President Tinubu, INEC, for its self-inflicted woes,” Onanuga posted on X.

Onanuga is wrong and knows it, but being a beneficiary of this interpretation, he is beyond embarrassed to suggest that the court had ordered a return to pre-Mark leadership. Then the allegation that Ralph Nwoye sold the newspaper to Mark, obviously not a “buyer” chosen by Onanuga if there had been such a transaction.

Mark has led the ADC since July 2025. Gombe resigned, in a letter acknowledged by INEC. Gombe also made a social media post welcoming the new leadership.

INEC has been managing Mark ever since.

Shouldn’t the take-off point for the “status quo ante bellum”, in this case, be Mark’s take-off point and Gombe’s thesis?

Onanuga knows the truth.

Why is the “status quo ante bellum” an issue in a matter that is still in court? Couldn’t INEC have gone back to court for an interpretation or sued to obtain a court order to stop the ADC national convention to which it was invited?

Tinubu, for whom Onanuga spoke, knows more than any Nigerian that strategies for his cherished return in 2027 have failed. He trembles with fear at the ruinous consequences of his bad government, which he fills with bluster.

His strategizing expertise includes the farce of a trip so hastily organized to divert national attention to Jos that no one told the president he needed a 40-minute drive to the crime scene. Or did he even plan to visit people? The traumatized residents of Anguwan Rukuba ended up visiting the President at the airport and were accused of “your airport has no light”. Jos was unworthy of the president’s presence. Jos Airport is named after General Yakubu Gowon, Nigeria’s head of state from 1966 to 1975. The unlit airport is owned by the federal government.

Much of Tinubu’s “mandate” is based on his 2022 campaign that he would fix electricity or be eliminated if it failed. He forgot this failure when he complained about the lack of electricity at the airport.

The insignificance of the visit to Jos was too obvious to hide. The President failed to put together a decent message for his “guests” at the airport.

Onanuga told us how much the visit disturbed the President who, having had a previous meeting with the President of Chad, canceled a visit to Ogun State (Onanuga is from there) to make the trip to Jos airport.

The apologies violated all decency.

For the record, Tinubu has always found visits to victims of his administration’s lax approach to insecurity to be troublesome. When he visited Makurdi the victims were not brought to him?

His speeches are murmurs rooted in his administration’s non-kinetic policy against terrorism and banditry. Politics muffles his speeches.

National Security Advisor Nuhu Ribadu introduces the speeches by specifically promoting “non-kinetic” approaches. Even more shocking, the Chief of Defense Staff, Lieutenant General Olufemi Oluyede, days ago joined the call to treat terrorists and bandits who are killing troops under his care as prodigal sons who should be given room for repentance. It seems like giving them permission to continue killing our soldiers and our people. The justification, given by Oluyede, is that most of them are Nigerians.

Are other Nigerians who kill given a chance to repent? Does Oluyede know that this remark, not made at the officers’ mess but during a conference to establish the Joint Army Doctrine and Welfare Center to cater for the personnel and families of fallen troops, is saying that the war against terrorists and bandits has been lost due to repentance?

Tinubu has nothing to offer the people of Jos who are calling on the government to stop the killings. Further town hall meetings will not stop the killings. The 5,000 drones promised by Tinubu will not stop the killings unless there are consequences for the crimes.

Will Tinubu’s drones be deployed in other areas where killings occur or just in Jos?
Nigerians must resist Tinubu’s efforts to imitate the bad examples of one-party “democracies” in some African countries, cloaked in the pretense of rule of law through the judiciary and legislature.

The battle ahead is for our individual survival and for our country. Tinubu’s democracy cannot accommodate our diversity.

A scared and desperate commander in chief who is losing territory to terrorists and bandits is more interested in launching armored tankers at protesters of his policies than at terrorists.

Sequestering Tinubu in the comfort of the airport to utter his half-hearted “this will never happen again” is too lighthearted behavior for the war against terrorism. Didn’t the attacks continue after your visit?

Nigerians declined in Tinubu’s first term. Every Nigerian should consider participating in Tinubu’s departure a national duty to be performed with absolute passion.

Encourage those whom Tinubu has served well to allow free, fair and transparent elections. He won’t do it because he knows he can’t win.

Finally…
Happy Easter Nigerians. Please spare your thoughts and offer more prayers that our country will be freed from the vicious grip of all anti-democratic forces.

■ ISIGUZO is a great commentator on minor issues.

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