By Steve Osuji 

Trouble Sleep, Yanga Wake Am: President Tinubu and the ruling APC seem to be  playing with fire. As one wrote this, Fela’s immortal lines keep playing in my head:

“when trouble Sleep, Yanga go wake am, wetin he dey fine, palava, e dey fine, palava e go get oh, palava, e go get.” 

The Afrobeat icon sang these lines 54 years ago warning about willful stirring of the hornet’s nest. It’s about one courting trouble and living dangerously and indeed, recklessly without heeding to wisdom.

This seems to be what President Bola Tinubu is on to in the head up to the 2027 elections. 

The APC and President Tinubu have clearly adopted a scorch earth stratagem to infiltrate and disrupt opposition political parties. The ultimate goal is to ensure that serious opposition candidates do not get in the ballot. It seems like “Operation bar then from the ballot.”

Of course the APC and its leader, Tinubu have denied this vile tactic but it has happened too many times for it to be coincidental.

The People’s Democratic Party, PDP,  was crushed by this demonic method; right before the eyes of Nigerians. The Labour Party which featured the inimitable and formidable candidate, Mr Peter Obi as flag bearer in 2023 was destroyed and disheveled by the same shenanigans of unleashing shadowy nincompoops obviously on the payroll of the ruling party. The LP was embroiled in an endless, orchestra of court cases until Mr Obi had to leave the fold.  

The sad irony was that both the courts and the INEC seemed to be in cahoots with the paid scallywags used for the dirty jobs for as soon as Mr. Obi left the party, both the courts and the electoral umpire immediately released the chokehold and allowed the party to breathe once again.

Today, the battle has shifted to the burgeoning coalition, Africa Democratic Congress (ADC).

A nonentity has been suborned to muck-rake in the ADC. The dark crow of a fellow woke up one morning to proclaim he never resigned. And indeed, being vice chairman of the party, he was in line to succeed the chairman of the party.  A myriad of court cases   were instigated solely to cripple and distract the ADC at this critical juncture of party convention and primaries. 

Of course, the ruling party denies it has no hand in the crises bedeviling the opposition folds, but that is just hiding behind a finger. This column can see through the ruse. So is nigh all Nigerians seeing through the smokescreen. They know the genie behind the mayhem.

DESTROYING DEMOCRACY: In going through this devious route,  INEC and the judiciary are coerced and dragged in. Not in recent history have important institutions of state been so damaged.

The handwriting is on the wall. Democracy is tied to the stakes. Nigerians watch as the ruling party connives to shrink the democratic spaces and plot a one party state.

It has become obvious that both the president and his party are in panic mode.

A FARCICAL GOVERNMENT: APC has rendered a most abysmal performance, or shall we call it an abysmal non-performance, over the past three years. The populace is disillusioned. Nigerians are virtually roaring to vote out this farcical government. Before the eyes of Nigerians, their world has become a surreal nightmare. 

A so-called reform has turned out to be the hallucinations of a mangled mind. The economy has contracted just as the people have atrophied. All economic indices have fallen so much that even data manipulation, which is the hallmark of this administration, can no longer be sustained. 

Today, it seems the only miracle that would save  the Tinubu administration from an electoral shellack in 2027 is to make sure no credible opposition is on the ballot against President Tinubu. But that too is trouble.

TINUBU PLAYING WITH FIRE: To try to block the main opposition from contesting in the coming election is akin to playing with fire.  

The coalition of politicians in the ADC are way too big and too many to be shut down by the ruling party without getting a bloody fight in return. In fact, without getting a bloody nose.

This needs to be said and said clearly too without trifling or shuffling. There portends a danger of a serious national upheaval if the ruling party and its leaders persist in trying to scuttle opposition.

Nigerians are already totally disillusioned and on the cliff’s edge. The populace is as it were, a tinderbox waiting to conflagrate.

The President and his party goons must recall their hounds out there scheming to kill the ADC. Any more assault on the main opposition coalition could arouse the beast in the streets. It is an augury seeming at once dark and scarlet.

LAST LINE: NIGERIA’S PAGAN POLICE:

It is often said that if you want to know the civility quotient of a country, observe her police at work.

And to say the least, the Nigeria Police at work is an ugly sight to behold. 

From junk operational vehicles to scruffy, unregulated uniforms and boots. Add to that, sordid roadblocks solely for the purpose of taking bribes and even making change openly. (Can’t the IGP at least stop his men from making change at checkpoints in full view of the world? It’s the most perverse sight one ever beheld!).

The brutal murder of the young man in Effurun Delta State by the police a couple of days ago, is just a tip of the rot in the force. 

While the IGP has scurried to some ad-hoc, face- saving measures, it only proves that nothing has changed since the #EndSARS protests.

As this column once pointed out, it’s a pagan police force Nigeria has today and we wager that it’s beyond any IGP to carry out the required institutional surgery. At least not this one. Sorry to say, he’s a part of the woodwork.