I borrowed the title from a book by the late Dr. David Hawkins. It fits like a glove. Especially now, as Nigeria stares down the barrel of another Presidential Election in 2027.
After Buhari’s eight-year misadventure – an era marked more by absence than presence – he handed over power, reluctantly but inevitably, to Tinubu. A classic Pattern Player. On Day One, Tinubu struck with surgical precision: “Fuel subsidy is gone.” Just like that. Shock and awe.
Forget economic cushioning or gradual transitions. That’s not his style. What needed doing got done. Swift. Cold. Decisive.
Next move? Genius or madness – depends on where you stand – but he pulled the rug from under the opposition by keeping their loudest funder turned antagonist fed. Appointed him Minister. Gave him juice. Watched him take his entire party – the motivated opposition – down with him. Textbook divide-and-conquer.
Then came the masterstroke.
In record time, Tinubu secured endorsements from nearly every sitting governor for a 2027 rerun. No constitutional somersaults needed. With that one move, he built a N40 trillion campaign machine. In a hungry country where even the so-called big men are starving, that’s not a war chest, it’s a scary steamroller.
And in case you missed it, he has moved the country towards Regional Development which we all begged for, but constitutional conferences could not deliver. And his Tax Reforms, they’ll move us forward in a fair and development-focused way.
So this Administration could well move Nigeria forward, unless something else shows up to stop it.
So now, the opposition. Or what’s left of it.
All the usual suspects have rushed into ADC, a registered, dusty shell just sitting on INEC’s shelf. They know full well a fresh party won’t get registered in time, not in this system. So they pile into ADC, hoping to remake it into something that can carry weight.
Problem is, ADC today isn’t one thing, but three very different groups held together by desperation and delusion.
First, the has-beens. Familiar names, long out of relevance, sniffing around for scraps. Some will even sell out to the ruling party for access to power they’ll never wield.
Second, the recent ex-this, ex-that brigade. Flush with looted funds, they fund the opposition not from courage, but from fear. Fear of probes. Fear of becoming nobodies. Fear of tomorrow.
Third, the hopefuls. A mixed bag of naive idealists, self-declared messiahs, and those still drunk on public praise. Some ride fake polls. Some carry the burden of ethnic expectations. Others are simply not done nursing their wounds from 2023.
This third group is already talking nonsense like promising one-term handovers, cooking up census figures, and rehashing divisive rhetoric dressed up as political calculation. They’re loud. But they’re not serious.
None of them stand a chance. Not like this.
For anything to change, something new, essentially something we haven’t seen yet has to emerge. And it won’t come from noise, or sentiment, or media stunts.
It’ll come from Strategy. From real distributed decision-making. From the democratisation of choice. It’ll take clarity, not clout. It’ll need movement, not messiahs.
And most of all, it’ll need Power.
Because only true Power can neutralize the brute Force of a N40 trillion incumbent machine rolling downhill.
Money may be King for now. But as the scripture says, “Let Power repudiate it.”
2027 won’t be a normal election. But never forget the opposition, even if it wins, may not be better. Think Goodluck-Buhari.
If a credible opposition ever arises, It’ll be hand-to-hand combat.
If you’re serious – whether the Ruling Party or the opposition – you should already be hunting for the smartest strategists around. Not sycophants. Not hype men. Strategists.
Whoever wins will need more than hope.
The conditions have never been better for The People to take back power and decide who truly gets sworn in come 2027.
Dr Sam Ikoku
#FocusOnResults
Gatekeepers News is not liable for opinions expressed in this article, they’re strictly the writer’s
