Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, the first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.
By Chido Nwangwu. Follow on X (Twitter) @Chido247
The forthcoming 2027 presidential campaign and elections in Nigeria will, critically, test the worthiness, usefulness and articulation of competing viewpoints and strategies for improving an increasingly embattled Nigeria.
The youth of Nigeria have seen exploitation and the explosion of their hopes and dreams! No; they are sick and tired of being sick and tired!
It was the famous, incisive American journalist, the late Ambrose Bierce who defined politics as “A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.”
Nigeria’s President Tinubu’s political bulldozers are, consequentially, clearing the path for the “private advantage” of One major candidate (Tinubu) for the (re)election of Tinubu in 2027.
The opposition parties have been making a case for change.
There’s also the usually tepid verbiage; what I’ll characterize as the familiar, polite criticism from some leaders and organizations in the international community.
Sadly, we have witnessed many of our leaders and politicians drop to the crass rascality of ethnic warlords, and wailers in obscurantism! They have since derogated themselves to unfamiliar apparitions.
For millions of Nigerians, their economically distressing conditions, the massive unemployment, the malevolent insecurity and the hunger for basic food in the most populous country in the African continent require taking it forward through stringent financial accountability, economic discipline and restructuring!
The competition in this battle for a new direction will test the physical stamina and honesty and public morality and private purposes of the candidates.
The same purposes and fights for personal leverage are the driving forces of most politicians, especially in Nigeria, most parts of the African continent and of course, here in the U.S.
Tinubu has shown a capacity to distract and make his opponents to become stuck in the swamp of domestic fights with their fellow party members.
Evidently, Tinubu has contingents of political businessmen for hire who make trouble against his opponents, distract and disqualify them ahead of 2027.
Maybe former Governor Peter Obi and the other holiness aspirants will likely wake up, soon, to the non-sentimental operational methods and tactics of the incumbent president.
Tinubu operates without the complaining mentality and defensive approach of most of the opposition parties in Nigeria today.
You can bet that his confrontational and pugnacious ally, Tinubu’s “man Friday”, former Governor of the Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, is yet to fully unleash his no-holds-barred, all manner of tools of engagement and scorpion’s sting on the opposition.
Beyond Wike & Co., I know that many Nigerians insist and assert that a new Nigeria is emerging. Otherwise, Nigerians and Nigeria could remain on dangerous and very difficult ground.
They declare and proclaim that they will confound President Tinubu, and his armada of billionaires and trillionaires.
The critical question remains: are Nigerians better today than they were when Tinubu took over in 2023 from the parochial and divisive Muhammadu Buhari presidency of small things? Time will tell.
- Chido Nwangwu, author of the forthcoming book, MLK, Mandela & Achebe: Power, Leadership and Identity., is the Founder of the first African-owned, U.S-based newspaper on the internet, USAfricaonline.com, and established USAfrica in 1992 in Houston. He has received U.S Congressional recognition and National Immigration awards for his works which foster the business and international public policy of the United States and Africa.. Follow him on X @Chido247
