Arewa and 2027 sucker theory

EVEN before President Bola Ahmed Tinubu announced on Wednesday, during the inauguration of his armada-esque campaign council for his re-election, that he would be making just a cameo appearance on the soapbox this election cycle, Nigerians were already chewing on the rumour that his surrogates (mostly governors) would largely be asking for votes from the electorate on his behalf.

So it is either there are leakers in his inner circle, or the decision was deliberately planted in the public space by his own to gauge public mood on it before making it official.

Playing and gaming the Nigerian public isn’t new with the presidency.

It’s like throwing a bone to a salivating dog to excuse it from the meat of the matter.

At least a former presidential spokesperson, journalism elder, Alhaji Garba Shehu, recently confirmed the act of “planting” reports to divert public attention from very important state matters with national implications.

Even when the state matter is as serious as the true state of the health of the president!

In his post-service memoir titled “According to the President: Lessons from a Presidential Spokesperson’s Experience”, Oga Garba confessed to fabricating the infamous 2017 story about rats invading the Presidential Villa and chasing his then principal, now late Muhammadu Buhari, away, forcing him to work from home!

The author called the fabrication a spin to divert public attention from the mounting concerns over Buhari’s severe health problem after returning from a three-month medical sojourn in the United Kingdom on August 19, 2017.

The confession is contained in the chapter of the book titled “Rats, Spin and All That”.

Oga Shehu is supposed to be a journalism icon, an editor and a former president of the Nigerian Guild of Editors.

Do we just say duty called, and he answered even when he had to lie blatantly?

But the Tinubu presidency isn’t caught in a lie in this matter, even if it is assumed that the initial leak was from inside it. Maybe it was released as a rumour to see if the decision would have a major dent on the re-electability of the president.

Well, it is official now and it might be too early to correctly gauge the impacts of a president canvassing for votes largely using his surrogates, though the political climate is somehow charged over it.

In the near absence of a sound national rapid response team defending the president from the opposition’s darts, Lagos APC spokesperson, Hon. Seye Oladejo, has taken it upon himself to lead the charge against opposition leaders, asking the Nigerian leader to step aside if too weak to directly come to the electorate for the renewal of his mandate.

The president says his running mandate is at a critical stage for him to abandon it for a renewal campaign.

Logical?

That is like prioritising governance over politics and, in its ordinary sense, the president should be commended for it. But he has been mostly pilloried for it and the rumour mill is buzzing about the alleged spiralling of his health.

Of course, Nigerians are loud about their president allegedly dodging accountability to them, especially in the social media space.

Some have likened his decision to the Yoruba rhetorical proverb that has its base in Genesis 4:7.

It’s a conversation between God and Cain.

Here is God remonstrating, “If you do well, will you not be accepted…?”

The Yoruba version is “ti iwo ba se rere ara ki o a ya o bi”.

But those pushing the narrative that the president is using governance as an excuse not to face the electorate (believed to be mostly hostile towards him due to his punishing economic policies and taxation) across the country because he hasn’t discharged himself creditably well in his first term might be playing the omniscient, which they aren’t.

Without a periscopic advantage on an issue, it may be difficult to speak factually about it.

Governance isn’t about the tangibles alone, though it would have been much easier to defend the Nigerian leader if he had taken charge as the main salesman of his administration for Nigerians to consider a mandate renewal for him.

I dare say that, as crucial as state matters are and are meant to be, and given the fact that governance must be a priority, I doubt if there is any major policy implementation now in what is left of the running term of this administration that would and should warrant the president taking the backstage in rendering stewardship accounts to Nigerians who elected him and expected to re-elect him.

But that won’t detract from the sadankata (salutation) the president should get for prioritising governance, considering the recent report of a record number of Nigerians sliding into acute poverty amid the living cost crisis the citizens have been grappling with since this administration launched its economic policies.

But the seeming patriotic move by the president doesn’t seem to impress a lot of Nigerians, and they have been sounding off on the matter since it was officially made public.

Beyond the reason given by the president, different theories are also being circulated, some reasonable, some very wild.

The popular theory is that the president is still in poor health and just keeping to doctors’ advice not to stress himself, considering how rigorous campaigning can be, especially the moving around.

And the campaign energy in this election cycle has been different!

This doctors’ report theory carries some plausibility, considering the president just returned from what was arguably a medical vacation in France. The mere fact that his stay had to be extended and his return to Nigeria delayed will further strengthen the argument that the Nigerian leader is still too feeble for rigorous engagements and should therefore step away (maybe for a while and not seek a mandate renewal) from his presidency.

Oladejo practically cracked the head of the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Adewole Adebayo, who championed the resignation call.

With or without Asiwaju participating, Adebayo will certainly not win the presidency next year except a miracle happens, but a lot of Nigerians appear to be listening to him.

The future also appears shimmering for the brilliant politician whom the Lagos APC spokesperson derided as structure-less.

However, there are other theorists not with Adebayo.

This group believes the president is faking being fragile to deceive the North into voting for him again, in the anticipation that he would die midway into his second term, constitutionally surrendering the mantle of national leadership to his deputy and, by extension, Northern Nigeria!

These conspiracy theorists are beating their chests that similar subterfuge was employed by the president to get massive Northern support in 2023!

READ ALSO: Revisiting the trouble in the House of Arewa

Did the election outcome justify this claim? Maybe.

Even with Atiku Abubakar running as the PDP’s candidate from the North and the disputed imprimatur of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) on his candidacy, the final result of the poll showed that the North, in a practical sense, elected Tinubu president.

His numbers from the North, even in Atiku’s North-East, were far higher than what came from his Southern base, which Peter Obi, then of Labour, dominated.

Does this confirm anything? I doubt.

The “crazy” theory being flown around is that in 2023, Tinubu was deliberately putting himself through flubs on the campaign trail to suggest mental impairment from general unwellness, to give the North the impression he would not last in office.

How absurd!

For the theorists, the Northern political establishment, which wasn’t really crazy about an Atiku presidency but desirous of power returning to the zone quickly, allegedly fell for the idea of an infirm president from the South and an agile deputy from the North, who would always be a heartbeat away from the number one seat as long as Tinubu ailed or ails.

As the story goes, enough Northern votes eventually went for the Muslim/Muslim ticket to secure Asiwaju the presidency, though the president isn’t that well regarded as a Muslim in the Muslim North.

Truth be told, the Nigerian leader didn’t also acquit himself in that regard. Several videos from campaign grounds in the North during the last election cycle showed the then-candidate Tinubu bungling the most preliminary of Islamic greetings to the mostly Muslim gatherings, to the barely concealed consternation and embarrassment of APC leaders from the North.

Yet the Muslim-majority “protectorate” delivered him, and the wacky, unproven theory is that he faked ill health for the zone to assume he was close to his grave, to their assumed advantage!

Well, as far-fetched as the theory is, latter-day BATists like Reno Omokri didn’t help matters. In his bid to further worm his way into the heart of his new benefactor after the latter gained the presidency, Reno, who used to be with Atiku against his new employer, tried spinning the campaign flubs of his new boss with the same wacky theory that Asiwaju was deliberately being decrepit on the campaign podium for the North to see him as a quicker route back to power, without appearing unfair to the South on power rotation.

I guess the goateed one was trying to minimise the opprobrium that trailed those clumsy moments, which became crude internet jokes. While Reno was not as explicit as the current purveyors of the rumour, he was clear enough that his new boss could spin it as desired.

Will this be correct?

The theory is akin to what Olusegun Obasanjo is being accused of doing to the North in 2007 when he was leaving power by allegedly giving the zone an infirm son to represent it. The then president was allegedly angry over the failure of his alleged third-term bid, for which he allegedly held Northern political leaders responsible.

Well, his pick would go on to die in office after about three years in the saddle amid intermittent medical vacations.

God forbid that affliction rise a second time!

Now, the claim is back: Tinubu is trying to play Arewa for a sucker again, pretending to be infirm to get a largely antagonistic North to vote for him in the belief that he would drop dead along the way.

How absurd for anyone to assume.

But the president is likely a victim of his own successfully curated persona as possibly the most strategic politician of his generation.

His own hail him as a political genius who makes impossible political feats look like a piece of cake!

He loves the deification too.

In a well-televised meeting with his party governors, while assuring them that the opposition would not see his back, he boasted that if he could, as a private citizen, achieve the presidency when the odds were stacked against him, how could he lose such a position now in the driver’s seat?

Hubris, rooted in self-belief, is unmistakable in the viral video. The president spoke godlike. In my head, I asked for mercy for him, especially when I remembered that Biblical king whom God struck down while he was boasting on his throne.

Again, may mercy speak for Mr President.

I understand those who believe nothing is beyond Mr President when it comes to power. He is on record as saying power is like a woman; you don’t share it, among his other controversial takes on power.

When it comes to power, Mr President is widely assumed to be desperate, especially when cornered, like the North is trying to hem him in now, using the same Atiku.

However, the fact that the assumption is widely embraced won’t make it factual.

While this may be viewed as another open display of desperation on his part, the mere fact that he can drop his close family member, Gboyega Oyetola, and embrace Governor Jackson Adeleke as the coordinator of his campaign in Osun is an acceptance of reality on his part, despite Adeleke belonging to a different political party that just gave the president’s party a bloody nose in a gubernatorial election the Nigerian leader did everything possible to win for his party.

He even got a former associate who is now like a rival, Senator Iyiola Omisore, in as a campaign adviser!

On the eve of the Osun election, the president and the Ife strongman ended their telephone call on a charged note, almost like what my Ijesa people would describe as “han leri mo ra rin han” (dared each other to a relevance contest in the state).

The outcome is there for all to see; Omisore prevailed.

The president won’t nurse a grudge for too long; he opened his arms wide to the one he didn’t want.

Instead of casting the president as downright cunning, I would rather think him pragmatic, though his political journey has shown he can be foxy when required.

I’m also persuaded that no one would use himself as a death bait to fool anyone. Maybe another person can be used as the morbid prop, though many globally have faked their own deaths to gain an advantage, especially those running from justice.

Well, schoolchildren can also get naughty once in a while and fake illness, not to show up at school.

You say what about adults who want to stay out of a company or a trip?

What about wives faking ill health to deny conjugal duty to their spouses?

What about debtors (someone says especially tenants) who do not want to pay or do not have money to pay?

What about politicians who want opponents to think they are down, to spring a surprise?

Yes, many possibilities and realities, but I’m still not persuaded that a politician will fake severe ill health, with accompanying worrying displays, to those he thinks would always wish him dead, to gain their temporary empathy and shoo himself into an office where there is limitless cash to make him live for ever, if there is anything like that.

So far, my fact-checking says the rumour is unproven and thereby false.

But wait, am I putting some things past Nigerian politicians, including the president?

Exactly my point.

There will always be that line not to cross.

I remember adults warning us in our much younger years not to think or say certain things because “Angels might be passing” and just confirm the ill wish.

Let no one feign fainting jare.