Undoubtedly, Bola Tinubu is one of the formidable presidential candidates ahead of the 2023 elections.
The former governor of Lagos state who has nursed the ambition of being president since 2007, has invested a lot of political capital in building a humongous structure across Nigeria.
TheLeadng has carefully picked out things that might make Tinubu lose out in his quest to become the President of Nigeria in 2023.
Extreme poverty and inflation
It is no longer news that APC’s Next Level agenda brought extreme poverty and runaway inflation- the worst in the history of this country.
The World Bank in 2019 reported that about 87 million Nigerians live in absolute poverty. It is said that at least six people fall into poverty every minute in Nigeria.
“In 2018, 40% of Nigerians (83 million people) lived below the poverty line, while another 25% (53 million) were vulnerable. With Nigeria’s population growth continuing to outpace poverty reduction, the number of Nigerians living in extreme poverty is set to rise by 7.7 million between 2019 and 2024.
“While the economy is projected to grow at an average of 3.2% in 2022-2024, the growth outlook is subject to downside risks including further declines in oil production and heightened insecurity. Meanwhile, continued scarcity of foreign exchange and tighter liquidity could affect the economic activity in the non-oil sector and undermine the overall macroeconomic stability. The uncertainty is also expected to be accompanied by high inflation and continued fiscal and debt pressures.” An economic overview of Nigeria by Worldbank in September reads.
Nigerians are getting poorer because of the woeful economic management strategy or lack of strategy of the APC government.
Although Nigeria was not a prosperous economy when President Muhammadu Buhari took over, the Nigerian economy has now gone from bad to worse.
Recall Tinubu like other aspirants before the APC primaries, were showering Buhari with praises not blames despite the evident calamity of many nigerians.
The simple truth is that Tinubu gets credit as the major architect of APC formation, and for this, many Nigerians might not vote for him.
Insurgency
Tinubu might lose the 2023 poll for the visible fact that President Buhari, the Commander in Chief of the Armed forces has failed to secure the country from insurgency.
Recall that combating insurgency was the most important reason why Nigerians considered Buhari in 2015. But more than 7 years later, the security situation in the country has become worse.
The North-West has been overrun by bandits, farmers have been chased from their farms all over the country, Boko-haram is still very much around and ISWAP has found their way to the south west and the southeast continues to witness unrest resulting from separatist agitations.
Links between Boko Haram and other Islamist groups has further intensify regional security concerns.
Tinubu’s health controversies
Nigerians have had their share of pain and frustration with managing a sick leader. Late President Yar’adua was mourned while in office.His illness made it easier for his government to be hijacked by cabals.
Today, managing Buhari’s health as President has been a major drain to the national reserve. His frequent health vacation during his first term in office led to his government being hijacked by cabals.
Several videos online have captured Tinubu’s right hand shaking uncontrollably. On other occasions, he was assisted for balance by people nearby, or was found dozing off at public events.
Although the candidate has not disclosed information about his health condition, the only hint about Tinubu’s medical condition probably was conveyed in Professor Wole Soyinka’s criticism of Emilokan’s song by the members of Pyrate Confraternity.
According to Soyinka, Tinubu “suffered from Parkinson’s disease, but remained alert, lucid and combative for decades after the onset of the disease.”
Tinubu has refuted the claim saying, “I’m not competing to be a WWE wrestler. They say he is sick; he is not well. Am I sick? I’m not. When I applied for this job, I didn’t apply to Governor Abdullahi Sule to be a concrete mixer.”
His opponents wouldn’t stop talking about his health.
Controversies about his age, education
The opposition claimed that nothing about him is straightforward – his age, his name, his certificates, his schools (primary, secondary, university), his parents, his source of wealth, the state of his health, his ever-changing ideology, etc.
Dr. Femi Aribisala, an educationist and newspaper columnist, tweeted and said: “I wrote in 2014 that Tinubu’s affidavit that he attended Government College Ibadan, GCI, between 1965 and 1968 is false. I was in GCI from 1962-1968, and Tinubu was not there. Tinubu now tells INEC he did not go to primary or secondary school. This means he committed perjury.”
Muslim-Muslim ticket
Personsally, this might be the most unreasonable move by Bola Tinubu so far because Buhari’s performance makes it very difficult to sell a Muslim-Muslim ticket to Nigerians in 2023.
While a Muslim-Muslim ticket could win the presidency in 1993, it was unacceptable in 2015. And that was why Bola Tinubu was not named the Vice President to Buhari then.
It is unwise for Tinubu to think Nigerians with two major religion will care less about whether their leader is Muslim or Christian.
Pastor Yemi Osinbajo as Buhari’s deputy helped deflect the perception of Buhari as an Islamist. However, Buhari’s obscene mismanagement of Nigeria’s diversity has heightened ethno-religious tension in Nigeria
Therefore the Muslim-Muslim ticket move has complicated Tinubu’s political career on so many levels.
Endorsement of a Northern candidate
There are indications that the Arewa Consultative Forum, the Northern Elders Forum and some other associations in the North might endorse the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar ahead of the 2023 poll.
Sensing this, Kaduna governor, Malam Nasir El-Rufai, who was with Tinubu when he addressed the northern leaders at Arewa House, noted, “He (Tinubu) was told that this whole arrangement was to endorse a particular candidate but he insisted that even if the arrangement is to endorse a particular candidate ‘I will come and change their minds’. We thank you for your courage”
Division in Southern APC
Two prominent members of the APC in the South, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, are yet to openly identify with his presidential campaign.
Amaechi and Osinbajo, who were the first and second runners-up at the APC presidential primaries, are said not to be in support of Tinubu’s ambition. Couple with the emergence of Peter Obi as presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Tinubu might find it difficult to win some states in the South
