It is becoming clearer by the day that President Bola Tinubu’s route to 2027 is paved, not with people’s votes, but with power play.
Coming from a government that has presided over a reduction of purchasing power to its lowest since 1999, with people poorer than ever before and disillusioned with the government, it’s difficult to imagine how the president believes his administration enjoys public support.
Removing the fuel subsidy without a safety net, a deteriorating naira, rising food prices, and now taxation through intimidation: all these just exacerbate the lack of connection between the government and the people with a destroyed “social contract.”
It therefore becomes pertinent to ask: What is Tinubu basing his hope for a second term ambition on? Certainly not goodwill.
What the administration appears to be counting on, however, is the power of politics, state capture, control of institutions, and the move towards what the senate president, Godswill Akpabio, boldly asserted would result in “one-party politics.” That was no slip of the tongue. It was a statement. And all that has happened since then has reinforced the sense that plural democracy in this country could actually be weakened.
Opposition politics is slowly being decimated by defections triggered by intimidation and the sharing of benefits. The checks to run the system are now too soft. The dominant political party casts a long shadow not because the party has kindled hopes, but because the party has wielded power. This kind of politics can make the ballot box a ritual of destiny.
It is here that the new taxes make their entry. A government that feels it has the support of the people would exercise care in taxing people in times of suffering. What Tinubu’s government is rather doing is making life harder for people who are currently paying for fuel, water, electricity, health care, and security through their own pooled resources. The government is extracting without providing any services.
Once leaders begin to rely not merely upon the consent of the people, but upon nothing except the force of party power and elite support, democracy is simply a front. The citizenry becomes nothing more than spectators. Policies lack legitimacy; they simply are imposed.
History is unkind to such arrangements. You can suppress dissent, but you cannot erase suffering. You can weaken opposition, but you cannot permanently silence hunger. A one-party system may guarantee temporary political stability, but it breeds long-term instability by shutting out peaceful channels for change.
If President Tinubu thinks that power is all he needs to clinch the presidency in 2027, well, this is Nigeria, he might just win. But he will definitely lose democratically. Nigeria will pay the price.
The question here is not the extent to which political power may affect the election; this is obvious. The question here is how well the country of Nigeria might survive in light of the fact that the governing body feels as though it no longer has the obligation to convince the people it leads.