Nigeria: Winning With Bola Ahmed Tinubu By Tijjani Ibrahim

Nigeria: Winning With Bola Ahmed Tinubu

By

Tijjani Ibrahim

The battle for the 2023 presidential elections has been fought, won and lost at the political level. Any other battle after that historic declaration of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the lawful winner and his certificate of return issued to him can only be at the election petition tribunal and or the courts if any of or both the winner or first runner up decide(s) not to stop at the election petition tribunal.

During the campaigns some parties especially the two leading opposition parties instead of focusing on convincing voters to buy into their programmes and policies they unfortunately based their message on personality, character assassination, sectional, religious and tribal bigotry.

While political observers expected solution messages on how the economy will be fixed, security improved, unemployment cut and how the country could generally be stabilized they were shocked to deal with all kinds of inanities and regurgitation of previously dispensed and totally unproven allegations especially against the candidate of the All-Progressives congress Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu; now President Elect Federal Republic of Nigeria.

The most ridiculous of what the two main opposition parties dwelt on were an imaginary yet discarded drug case and an unproven health issue against Bola Tinubu which he completely debunked verbally and physically by leading the most comprehensive and rigorous campaign in the history of political campaigning in Nigeria. Bola Tinubu crisscrossed 35 states including the FCT visiting some states more than ones. The only state he didn’t campaign in was Taraba because of APC’s Governorship ticket tussle between Senator Emmanuel Bwacha and David Kente which hadn’t been decided as at the time official political campaign window was closing.

While Asiwaju Bola Tinubu took his Renewed Hope Gospel to the nooks and crannies of Nigeria converting undecided voters and opposition supporters to his side and securing reassurance from the already converted, the PDP and Labour Party candidates focused on challenges facing the country and constantly exaggerating them without proffering any convincing solution.

Bola Ahmed Tinubu also showed class over his major rivals in constituting his media team. Asiwaju set up an intimidating media team led by accomplished Lawyers and seasoned Journalists like Hon. Minister of State for Labour and Productivity Mr. Festus Keyamo SAN, Former Minister of Aviation Mr. Femi Fani Kayode, Mr. Dele Alake, Veteran Journalist and Former Commissioner of Information and Strategy during the administration of Bola Tinubu as Governor of Lagos State and Mr. Bayo Onanuga Publisher and Former Managing Director News Agency of Nigeria NAN. All together These men led a vibrant and intelligent team of young Nigerians in an never-seen-before political campaign strategy to complement the president elect to sell the renewed hope message.

Again, while Tinubu had a crack team and strategy to push his message, Atiku constituted a lackluster media team led by a comical character in the person of Senator Dino Melaye who characteristically was busy dropping skits on the social media, jesting on campaign grounds and goofing about every time he appeared on live TV programmes as he completely derailed the PDP media campaign which failed to get any meaningful campaign message across to the people. On the other hand, Peter Obi’s media team was practically directionless as they ran a mob system that cursed, bullied, intimated and abused everyone and anyone who dared to see things from different perspective across the social and traditional media.

Now that the election has been won and lost the right thing to do is to look forward to building a more peaceful, prosperous and stable Nigeria. And this will happen if the major opposition parties accept their defeat in good faith and rein in their supporters to tone down the rhetorics and tension. While the leaders of these parties must do the needful by congratulating the winner the way President Goodluck Jonathan did in 2015 when he congratulated President Buhari even while the votes were still being counted. Since that has not happened the next best thing is to go to court which both Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi have hinted they will. It is however disheartening to see Atiku on the streets protesting. You shouldn’t be in the court and be on the streets at the same time especially as a former Vice President of the federal Republic of Nigeria. We hope last week’s public disturbance will be the last as we expect aggrieved persons to seek redress in court.

To the President Elect, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the time to begin to rework Nigeria is now. We hope after the Governorship election this Saturday work will begin in earnest. We want action from day one because the challenge we face can not be overcome in four years but if we start early, we can quickly consolidate on the achievements recorded by the outgoing government and halt any drift wherever we have a drift in preparation to recover and develop our country.

The incoming President must prioritize youth employment and empowerment, work to reduce the number of out of school children, start fixing the health sector and seriously work on discouraging the brain drain in all sectors and work to cut medical tourism. Our education sector must be rejigged and incessant strikes and school closures put behind us. Our security architecture must be upscaled with top notch equipment and other security gadgets, and improve other non-kinetic method to fix our security challenges including appointing our best within the security circle to lead a renewed charge to secure our nation.

Furthermore, it is no news that our Civil Service is cesspool of corruption and a hub of incompetence and inefficiency which only a thorough reform can correct. Redundancy and duplicity of role in ministries departments and agencies must be seriously looked at. We must merge agencies performing similar roles to achieve a smaller and more efficient civil service. We must consider salary harmonization in the civil service as this is causing serious bad blood and affecting productivity. Fuel subsidy must go, power generation and distribution must be decentralized and new investments brought in to revamp the sector. Same with the agriculture sector and other areas already captured in the Renewed Hope action plan.
The capacity, competence and foresight of President Elect Bola Ahmed are not in doubt this is just a call that he can not afford to let Nigeria down and I strongly believe he will not let Nigeria down. As an unrepentant Asiwaju Supporter and fan I will continue to pray for him to succeed.
Once again, I say congratulations to our President Elect, I pray God helps him to be able to change the course of our country for good.

Tijjani Ibrahim is a Journalist, Data Analysts, Public Affairs Analysts, Digital and Traditional Communication Expert and Political Communications Specialist. He can be reached on 08034386837 and email is drtijjaniibrahim@gmail.com.