2023 Presidency: We Needn’t Consult Crystal Ball Where Pendulum Will Swing, By Sola Olatunji

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, jolted Nigerians during the week when, like a bolt from the blue, the body released a staggering 93 million voters figure for the 2023 general election, the highest ever.

What follows is quite ecstatic. Frenzy ecstasy if you like!. And the political calculation has suddenly changed. The release has turned almost every Nigerian to a mathematician doing all manners of permutation that reminds me of my early days in my town, in Ondo State, when pool betters and forecasters gathered every Saturday at the sites for betting.

I vividly remembered an uncle who would tell other forecasters that any week Arsenal are playing Everton at home and Birmingham are away to Newcastle, then Nos 1,2, 3 are sure banker for that week. He would urge his fellow betters to stake heavily. Another loquacious uncle would thunder, nooooooo, any week Manchester United are on No. 12, the count three figures up and three down. That means Nos 9 and 15 are sure banker for the week.

As a young boy, I would continue to play draught game with some masters of the game and would laughed hysterically. At exactly six o’clock in the evening, these people would milk around an antiquated radio transition to listen to the results on the British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC.

After the results, your guess is as good as mine. Forlorn faces, gnashing of teeth and biting of fingers.

This is exactly the wave that has been creeping across Nigeria since the INEC bombshell. With Lagos topping the list with   7,075,192, followed by Kano’s 5,927,565; Kaduna with 4,345,469’ Rivers with 3,532,990, Katsina 3,519,260 and Oyo 3,275,045 making the top six, historians, political watchers and political leaders with the power of clairvoyance are unanimous that no one needs to consult an oracle, either an Ifa oracle or marabouts about where the 2023 presidential pendulum will swing. It could only be in one direction.

There are actually 18 political parties jostling for the mantle but analysts have narrowed the struggle to just three – APC, PDP and LP. But looking at their comparative advantage through the INEC spectrum, the APC can conveniently beat their chest that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu has a mandate with history. And it is going to be moon slide, unassailable and total.

It is therefore important to note that this election is important to the rest of the world just as it is to us as a people.

Looking at the political space from the radar, available INEC data shows that 18 political parties are fielding presidential candidates with each candidate aspiring to succeed Buhari as the next occupant of Aso Rock.  No doubt this game is highly intense and   characterized by a lot  of intrigues,  all manners of Nollywood drama and entertainment.

In my view, the result of the presidential election on February 25 will undoubtedly define and shape the directions and results of the remaining  elections.

It is obvious that only two presidential candidates have the national outlook and wider political coverage to weather the political storm.  Atiku Abubakar, the former vice president and his PDP would have been listed as a likely threats to the ruling party, but looking at the image of the presidential candidate, his lack of track record, and his not too credible financial accountability as a leader,  the party can’t pose any threat to the ruling party at the general elections.

You and I know that this election will be won by the most tested and trusted presidential candidate who must have been preparing for this job for more than two decades.  His charisma, capacity to mobilize array of followership across the country is second to none.

It is therefore the dawn of a renewed hope. All odds are working in favour of just this wonderful leader; a political enigma of our time called Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. His sense of humor, political sagacity, his public and private sectors track records and emergence as the presidential candidate of the ruling party, APC must be a recipe for good political watchers and analysts.

From the South West to South South, North East to North West, North Central to South East, it’s same song – standing on Bola Tinubu’s mandate. This song is so appealing and reverberating that more than 65% of eligible voters are just waiting for the D-Day to come so that they can just do the needful for their most preferred and trusted candidate.

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So as we stand today, the 93 million voters figure released by INEC further rekindles our confidence that come rain or sunshine, Asiwaju has a date with history on February 25 next year.

We don’t quarrel with our opponents who see our presidential candidate as their enemy for exercising his right as a citizen of this country. From Dele Momodu to Baba Ayo Adebanjo to Prof Banji Akintoye and our brothers from south East, we say lower your political temperature.  Election is about the celebration of democracy and not the spread of fake news and hate speech.  Ours is renewed Hope ‘ 23.

.Otunba Sola Olatunji, Chairman Ikale Heritage Development Association, writes from Lagos