By Lekan Sote
Barring a court ruling setting his election aside, Bola Tinubu, who polled 8,794,726 of the votes cast on February 25, 2023, will be sworn in
as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on Monday, May 29, 2023. Because he is leading in just 12 out of 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, this may not be an exactly tidy win.
Yet, he garnered the highest number of votes, and scored at least 25 per cent of votes in 30 states, to satisfy Section 134 of Nigeria’s Constitution, which says, “A candidate for an election to the office of President shall be deemed to have been duly elected, where… he has the majority of votes cast at the election; and he has not less than one quarter of the votes cast at the election in each of at least two-thirds of all the States in the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.”
You’ll wonder how the election, that is not exactly flawless, could have been rigged for Tinubu if he, Director General of his campaign council, and other chieftains of his party, the All Progressives Congress such as the President, APC Chairman, Abdullahi Adamu, APC Secretary, Kano State Governor Ganduje and Kaduna State Governor Nasir el Rufai, lost their states.
But that is something for the courts to sort out. Some of the contestants, like first runner-up, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of Peoples Democratic Party and second runner-up former Anambra State Governor Peter Obi of Labour Party say they will go to court.
The Director of Public Affairs of the Abubakar Campaign Council, Senator Dino Melaye, says Tinubu’s winning of the presidential election is “a grave injustice which will not stand.”
Obi said, “We will explore all legal and peaceful option(s) to recover our mandate. We won the election and we will prove it to Nigerians.”
Abubakar and Obi rebuffed Tinubu’s peace offering and asked the courts for leave to inspect the election documents. Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Delta, Edo and Sokoto states that asked the courts to declare Tinubu’s election as null, void and of no effect, have withdrawn their petition, which their lawyer hints may become fodder for a presidential tribunal.
Abubakar led top chieftains of the PDP, all clad in mournful black clothes on a protest march to tell INEC that the presidential election result is unacceptable to them. Also, an Igbo group was reported to be on the march demanding Obi as President.
Tinubu, who probably realises that he will inherit a fractious nation, should be magnanimous in victory, and avoid gloatful celebration. Thankfully, he told his fellow contestants, “I extend the hand of friendship… Let’s collaborate and work together.”
Some suggest that Tinubu should form a government of national unity, because northern region of Nigeria, that fielded former Vice President Abubakar, demanded a make up for the four years of Goodluck Jonathan presidency, which, they argue, should have been the second term of President Umaru Yar’Adua, had he not died.
The Igbo of South-East Nigeria certainly feel that by denying Obi the presidency, the rest of Nigeria has once again conspired to exclude them from the inner court of Nigeria’s political commonwealth.
President-elect Tinubu must urgently begin to gear up for his duties by engaging his counsellors to come up with appropriate strategies to consolidate his (contested) victory, heal the wounds caused by the rhetoric of the campaigns, unify the country and turn the economy around.
He needs to start to assemble the men and women who will help him further articulate and achieve his policies and programmes. A friend has suggested that very few of the “community” of 18 presidential candidates adequately articulated their manifestos. The campaigns have largely been much mudslinging, fake news and hate speech.
If the President, Muhammdu Buhari does not speedily rectify the botched naira recolouring policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria, the President-elect must immediately speak to the issue. He must think of a strategy to contain the needless crisis caused by the poor policy implementation. Yet he must not act as if he wants to wrestle Buhari’s presidential powers.
Incidentally, a member of the media team of APC Presidential Campaign Council and former Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Kehinde Bamigbetan, has already spoken on this issue after the grand finale of the APC presidential campaign held in Lagos.
The President-elect must speak and comport himself in a manner that shows willingness to overcome the trust deficit engendered by the government of President Buhari. His utterances and conduct must henceforth be the building block of the implementation of his government’s policies and programmes.
If well handled, his pronouncements and actions may begin to significantly reduce both the inflation rate and the foreign exchange rate, the way it happened in 1993, when inflation rate was dropping as the National Electoral Commission, led by Prof Humphrey Nwosu, was announcing the presidential elections results presumed to have been won by Bashorun MKO Abiola.
Though, when the devil in the military government of Gen Ibrahim Babangida (retd) reared its head, stopped the announcements and annulled the election, with an unsigned statement, the prices of all goods, as well as foreign exchange rate, shot up like projectiles of water from a geyser.
And things have never been the same since. So, this President-elect must understand the nuances of speech and actions, which communication scientists describe as semiotics; the use of symbolism, and act accordingly. If he can pull this through, maybe half of his battle is won.
But it does appear that he understands that the issues that confront Nigerians are insecurity, poverty, corruption and infrastructure deficit. He has promised to re-engineer Nigeria’s security architecture to enable farmers return to their farms, enhance the government’s capacity to generate more revenue to fund development projects, and ensure uninterrupted generation, transmission and distribution of electricity.
As he waxed poetically in his acceptance speech, Tinubu managed to promise, “Where there is poverty, let us create prosperity and jobs. Where there is hunger, let us feed the people, chasing hunger from their midst. Where there is scarcity, let us rediscover abundance. Where there is brutality, may we replace it with brotherhood.”
To the aggrieved and disillusioned youths, vanguards of the #EndSARS movement that seems to hate his guts, he assures, “I hear you loud and clear. I understand your pains, your yearnings for good governance, a functional economy and a safe nation that protects you and your future.”
But he must immediately demonstrate ability and intention to deliver on the hopes he has raised. It was deeply reassuring when he told the world that “The Nigerian Eagle shall fly.” On the other hand, President Buhari, who promised security, improved economy and a fight against corruption, woefully disappointed with actions that didn’t match his words.
The President-elect’s PR team must activate a communication strategy to re-sell and re-connect him to his constituency, the business community, the professionals, trade unions and workers, to ready them all for seamless take-off of a more robust economic future for Nigerians.
And he can’t drop the ball of commitment to a vision of Nigeria’s economic renaissance. In addition to the security of the lives and property of Nigerians, their economic prosperity is Job One.
Twitter@lekansote1, lekansote.com Kindly share this story:
In this article