The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu will officially kickoff his campaign for the 2023 presidential election today in Jos, the Plateau State capital.
The Tinubu/Shettima campaign for the 2023 presidential election has been long in coming, having been bugged by different setbacks, occasioned primarily by what some chose to call internal wranglings, first on the composition of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, to charges of exclusion of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC), by the PCC.
Despite the initial setbacks, the APC and its PCC have finally set things straight and will, barring last minute changes, embark on the campaign train today, Tuesday the 15th of November, 2022, almost two months after the campaign whistle was blown by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The delay notwithstanding, Jos, in North-Central Nigeria is currently agog, as foot soldiers, party faithful and supporters have already converged on the city, waiting for the campaign to kickoff officially and again, open Nigerians up to another round of circus shows and display of absurdities, where citizens will again be inundated with grandiose promises, just as it has always been!
What is however not clear is the manner or shades of promises, APC, as represented by Tinubu, its flag bearer, will be making to Nigerians as the campaigns go from state to state, local government areas and communities across the country.
What will Tinubu tell Nigerians he will do differently from what the current APC administration has done or is doing? Will Tinubu admit, with the majority of Nigerians, that the Muhammadu Buhari administration has failed in its responsibilities and have been largely unable to fulfill its promises?
Will Tinubu be bold enough to rock the boat by admitting failure on the part of his party and Buhari to drive down the exchange rate in relation to the dollar? Will he accept that insecurity today is actually worse than it was in 2015? And that, in 2015, you do not need seven days of fasting and prayers before you could safely travel between Abuja and Kaduna, neither do you need blood pressure threatening apprehension to go from Lagos to Ibadan?
Will Tinubu be sincere enough to say to Nigerians, yes, I accept the fact that in 2015, you don’t need to a super rich or a very comfortable middle class Nigerian to be able to afford a bag of rice and other food stuff in manageable quantities. Neither do you need to break the banks to feed a family of five in a month?
Can Tinubu be true to his conscience in admitting that Nigeria has indeed moved from top to bottom, instead for the bottom to the top Nigerians were expecting from the all promising APC?
The truth, the obvious and nagging truth, truth known to every Nigerian is that Nigeria is worse today than it was in 2015 when Buhari took over from former President Goodluck Jonathan, and Tinubu will be doing himself and his credibility a world of wrong, if he chooses to see or think otherwise.
The question now is, what will or can Tinubu promise Nigerians? What can he say to strike a cord with the long suffering masses of our people who have been at the receiving end of terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, high cost of living, epileptic power supply and many more?
To start with, the former Lagos State governor must be sincere enough to admit the failure of his Party in meeting the expectations of the people. He must not try to colour things or offer excuses for the failures. Nigerians are wiser now to be deceived by any form of insincerity and too impatient for excuses that are not tenable.
Tinubu must also be moderate in his promises to Nigerians in the campaigns and not fall into the 2015 trap! One of the major undoing of the Buhari administration is that it promised heaven but could barely deliver a blurry semblance of earth! Tinubu will do well to promise just the earth and successfully deliver heaven, that’s the way of the kind of performers Nigerians are now yearning for.
The APC PCC must also rein in their many spokespersons, officials and supporters against making statements that tend to translate to bogus promises the candidate has not made. Much of this may happen in the next few weeks, out of desperation to sell the party’s candidate to the electorate!
Whatever happens on the Tinubu campaign train will be interesting, as it is either going to be in support and solidarity with Nigerians or in defence of Buhari and the APC. How Nigerians will respond to Tinubu and his ‘lifelong ambition’ will squarely depend on the path he has chosen to thread.
