My Take On The 3 Tickets Of APC, PDP And Labour Party – By Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa

In these three pieces, human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa bares his mind on the presidential ambitions of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Mr Peter Obi.

I will share my thoughts on the way forward, in the coming days.

God bless Nigeria.

THE GRAVE IMPLICATIONS OF APC MUSLIM-MUSLIM TICKET

1. Others don’t matter. Shows absence of consideration for unity and plurality.
2. Desperation and over-ambition. We just want power at all costs and we don’t care what others think or do.
3. We can win the elections without you, especially by other means other than by open ballot.
4. It is a cruel affirmation of supposed superiority complex. That only one region determines electoral victory. That the presidential candidate of the APC is not acceptable to Northern Muslims.
5. It is an indication of a hidden agenda. The spirit of Hope 93 died with MKO and those who betrayed him and his mandate. May Boko Haram, terrorists and insurgents, their sponsors and sympathizers not win the 2023 elections.
6. That Nigeria is not a secular state but rather being ruled to satisfy certain religious tendencies.
7. That the APC has absolute control of the electoral system and thus electoral victory may not be determined through free, fair and credible elections.
8. That certain political tendencies and interests do not trust others to accommodate them if they are entrusted with power whereas they have been in power and accommodated by others.
9. That the APC presidential candidate has no mind of his own and he will be unable to defend the unity of Nigeria in crucial moments of decision making.
10. That the APC is incompetent to manage a complex nation like Nigeria with diverse interests, different tongues and tribes and consisting of different faiths.

THE OMINOUS DANGERS OF AN ATIKU PRESIDENCY

1. Undue and unbridled desperation for power leads to ineffectiveness. This has been the case with Buhari and so it shall be with Atiku, who has lusted for power beyond human understanding.
2. In order to satisfy the political ambition of Atiku, PDP ate its own vomit, threw away its own Constitution and rejected decency and justice embedded in the power rotation doctrine. If PDP will not honour it’s own Constitution, how can it be trusted with the Constitution of Nigeria?
3. In seeking to succeed Buhari from the same Northern region, Atiku and his supporters do not believe in the plurality and unity of Nigeria.
4. In seeking to succeed Buhari who is a Muslim of the same faith with him, Atiku does not believe in the secularity of Nigeria as stated in our Constitution.
5. In rejecting the popular decision of the PDP Committee set up to select his Vice-Presidential candidate, Atiku has shown himself to be an incurable dictator, who may be worse than Buhari if trusted with power.
6. An Atiku presidency will translate to 16 years of unbroken presidency of the North, which will lead to more agitations and may snowball into disintegration.
7. An Atiku presidency will translate to 16 years of Muslim-Muslim presidency, which will facilitate more terrorist attacks, lead to marginalization of people of other faiths and likely increased persecution.
8. Having regard to our collective experience under the inglorious Obasanjo/Atiku regime, an

Atiku presidency will translate into loss of national assets, mortgaging of our commonwealth and uncontrolled senseless capitalism, leading to poverty of the masses.

Atiku cannot be the option for today’s Nigeria. I therefore all urge all people of good conscience to reject PDP and it’s leprous ticket.

THE FUTILITY OF OBI/BABA-AHMED TICKET

1. They are usurpers with no legitimate party or structure, leveraging on their financial prowess to corner a ticket meant for genuine representatives of the working class.
2. They revel in parading dubious statistics, gathering a mob support without ideology or principle other than raw anger against the status quo, which their idols were part and parcel of.
3. The supposed anger of bourgeois renegades against their fellow capitalists can never result into any benefit for the masses that they have all wickedly trampled upon with glee.
4. What does Peter Obi offer or represent in present-day Nigeria other than ethnic and religious sentiments? Were those not the same factors that produced the error of the Buhari regime?
5. Are we not to rate aspirants in line with their track records? Or what exactly can we find for inspiration in Obi’s 8-year adventure in Anambra State?
6. Hajia Harira Jibril was gruesomely murdered in cold blood in Anambra State, yet the “peoples’ President” neither visited the family nor issue a single statement in condemnation.
7. Do we now hand over Nigeria to opportunists or inventors of commercial degrees?
8. Had the stained and leaking umbrella of the PDP shaded Obi, would he have ever emerged as the disgruntled representative of the disorganized “new movement”?
9. The Nigeria Labour Congress, promoters of Obi’s new-found Labour Party, has become a toothless entity, incapable of prosecuting any meaningful struggle since the advent of the APC administration, which has perfected the egregious style of persecuting or compromising all opposition strongholds.
10. The price for crass opportunism is a principled rejection of all its apostles and beneficiaries.
11. I cannot see the benefit for Nigeria in the Obi/Baba-Ahmed stillborn ticket, neither do I discern any marked difference between Atiku/Obi/Tinubu. In fact, a decamped or frustrated member of the oligarchy is worse than his masters.