By Dr Uche Diala

It’s premature to be talking about 2027 elections less than 2 years into our first tenure, but what’s happening in the political arena is forcing me to speak to it, for as they say, ‘a stitch in time saves nine’.

As an APC member, I naturally would want my party to win re-election in 2027.

However, as a realist, I have my concerns.

I recall that around the 2019 party Primaries, when I saw the way our party was handling the Primaries, I wrote that if the party wasn’t careful, it could go the way of the PDP which lost power after 16 years.

I predicted then that if we didn’t return to our promised progressive path and instead stayed obsessed with just winning elections at any and all cost, just like the PDP, we could lose power at the federal level by 2031.

When I wrote that, we were not faced with the current situation we are faced with. Indeed, I never imagined that we would be in the current situation any time soon, surely not under Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Note: I’m not talking about the present economic situation and the likes. I’m talking about the ghaghagha in our party and among APC members and supporters of the PBAT administration.

Incidentally, many Nigerians have a short memory.

Permit me to juggle the memory of some short memoried and uninitiated political neophytes.

Many will recall that, as we approached the 2023 presidential election, with the conduct of some individuals, I desperately cautioned that we should be careful and not play with the North. Somehow, common sense prevailed, and we succeeded unarguably with the unquantifiable help of the North.

Less than 2 years into the tenure, we are witnesses to how the relationship between the North and President Tinubu or rather his administration is quickly deteriorating, driven by the words and conduct of unfortunately, many from the President’s geopolitical zone and tribe. Truth be told.

I have read and heard the arrogant posturing and braggadacio by people I refer to as political rabble rousers, but I get more worried each day as it keeps looking more and more like a movie we had seen before.

May I remind some persons that, more than the performance or lack thereof of the President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan administration, it was his attitude towards the North that ultimately brought him down and by extension the PDP that had boasted that it would rule Nigeria for 60 years.

In the lead up to the 2015 Presidential election, inspite of the popularity of General Muhammadu Buhari Rtd and the gathering of political heavyweights under the umbrella of the then newly formed APC, one key factor that led to former President Jonathan and the PDP losing that election was underestimating the North and the disrespect and insult directed towards to North, notably led by the then first lady and accentuated by elements from the South South and particularly his Ijaw kinsmen, many of them with little or no political weight and many of whom were living full time in NICON and Sheraton hotels Abuja then.

Funny enough, many of these individuals contributed little or nothing to Jonathan’s victory in 2011.

Indeed, many of them forgot that it was the agitation by groups like the Save Nigeria Group, spearheaded by the likes of Mallam Nasir El-Rufai that eventually led to Jonathan becoming the acting President in the first place following the incapacitation of former President Shehu Musa Yaradua (God rest his soul).

Driven by ego and the arrogance of power, these South South and PDP elements increasingly and I dare add naively went against the North, where the PDP still had considerable influence and support then, in the most condescending manner and in so doing gradually lost the support of the North to the advantage of Buhari and the APC coalition. The rest, as they say, is history.

Today, as I Iook at the rambunctiousness of some APC members and fellow supporters of Asiwaju, especially from the South west, I wonder if people have any sense of history and if they truly understand Nigerian politics.

I read some people say, PBAT is not PGEJ, Jagaban is a political juggernaut, etc. All that I totally agree with. No question. However, politics is not a one champion show.

While GEJ lacked equivalent political gravitas and sophistication (with all due respect) as PBAT, he had the PDP behemoth which could have actually seen him through but for the grievous political mistake of messing with the North.

Love or loathe that fact, the North remains the kingmaker in Nigerian politics as of today. Any politician or political party that plays with that reality might pay a steep political price for it.

People who ignore history are bound to repeat the mistakes of the past.

I just want to prod our political senses, in case some of us are forgetting, in the euphoria of tribal and geopolitical politics. I hope better sense will prevail and soon too.

In all, I continue to wish PBAT and my party well.

GodBlessNigeria

©️ Uche Diala