Sam, Oluwole & The Gospel According To The Urban Bandit - By Paul Ibe.

Sam Omatseye calls me Atiku Abubakar’s “song writer.” The good news, Sam, is that the song is poised to win a Grammy award. I signed the statement welcoming the Supreme Court’s verdict in Zamfara in 2019, and I stand by it. If Sam’s charge is that I applauded a judgment when it went against the APC and now question one that goes against the ADC, let us put both decisions on the table. The difference is in what the courts decided and where each case stands.

In Zamfara, the Supreme Court held that the APC had failed to conduct valid primaries for the 2019 elections and therefore had no valid candidates. The court settled that dispute. Nafiu Bala Gombe’s suit began as a challenge to the legitimacy of the David Mark-led ADC leadership. In April, the Supreme Court sent the pending matters back to the trial court for determination. On November 5, Justice Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court removed the Mark-led leadership and, according to published reports, invalidated its decisions, including the process that produced Atiku as the ADC’s presidential candidate. That judgment carries grave consequences and is subject to appeal.

Omatseye asks whether Atiku’s blood is bluer than that of Zamfara’s Mukhtar Idris. Both men are entitled to the same legal standard, including the right to challenge an adverse judgment through the courts. As of November 9, the ADC said it was still waiting for a certified copy of Justice Lifu’s decision. A party facing exclusion from an election must be able to obtain the court’s reasons and challenge them in time for an appeal to matter. The electoral calendar keeps moving while the party waits.

Sam also asks whether Atiku still believes in the justice he invoked during Ramadan. I do, and so does Atiku. Fair process applies even to people whose politics we oppose. Calling the ADC coalition a gang of bandits may please Sam’s audience, but it answers none of the questions he raises about what the party constitution required or whether the relief granted followed from the case before the court.

Then comes the sentence that gives the column away. “Tinubu does not want Atiku in the sweepstakes,” Omatseye writes. That is an extraordinary admission of the President’s political interest from the chairman of The Nation’s editorial board. Sam is eager to interrogate Atiku’s motives. Where is that curiosity when the beneficiary of the opposition’s exclusion would be the incumbent?

In July, speaking to Catholic bishops at the Presidential Villa about those seeking to unseat him, Tinubu said, “All is fair in politics, and there is equal opportunity.” Let us take both halves of that declaration seriously. The first tells us how broadly the President is willing to define fair play. The second gives Nigerians a standard by which to judge him. If he believes in equal opportunity, he should say plainly that he welcomes a contest with Atiku and the ADC on 16 January 2027, subject to the same lawful requirements that apply to every party.

The biblical image is the voice of Jacob and the hands of Esau. Gombe is the named litigant. In my view, Tinubu’s declaration, read alongside Omatseye’s account of what the President wants, gives Nigerians reason to scrutinise the ruling party’s interest in the litigation. It is becoming clearer by the day that Tinubu is Gombe and Gombe is Tinubu as far as the litigation against the bid to sack the Mark-led ADC executive is concerned. The danger of weaponising the judicial process is already plain enough. If delay prevents a meaningful appeal before ballots are settled, an unresolved dispute can decide who gets to compete. The courts can protect their own credibility by making their reasons available promptly and hearing any appeal in time for it to count.

There is another side of the coin that Sam barely turns over in this column. What has Tinubu done with the power he already has? A mother who goes to the market with the same money and comes home with less food has a more urgent question than whether Atiku’s blood is bluer than anyone’s. So does the small business owner who pays for electricity and still has to buy fuel/diesel to keep the doors open. In communities where insecurity keeps farmers away from their fields, families pay twice, first in lost livelihoods and again in the price of food.

The World Bank’s October update called on the Tinubu administration to ensure that its much trumpeted economic growth translates into jobs, lower poverty and better living standards. The World Food Programme says about 35 million Nigerians face acute food insecurity. These are the questions a columnist with Sam’s access should be putting to the President. How many families can now afford a full basket of food? When will electricity and transport costs ease? When can displaced farmers safely go home? A government asking for another term owes voters answers they can measure against their own lives not tales by moonlight.

The forgery in this psalm is the false equivalence at its centre. Sam takes a final Supreme Court ruling from 2019 and uses it to sing the closing hymn over a case still open to appellate review. He assures us that heaven will not fall if Atiku is left off the ticket. Heaven can look after itself. As the abode of the Almighty God, it will sustain for all eternity. The question here on earth is whether Nigerians will have a fair chance to choose who governs them.

Sam should be more concerned about the shaky political foundation of Tinubu’s second term. But because Tinubu has him on a tight leash, it is difficult for him to appreciate the President's shaky political fortunes. Worse still, his man is shaking like leaves in harmattan season, an indication that he is better off in a homecare than a campaign venue. 

Nigerians have a more immediate concern. They deserve a presidential contest in which the rules are applied fairly and any challenge to a candidate’s eligibility is resolved in time for voters to exercise a meaningful choice.

President Tinubu has a record to defend. Let him defend it before the voters on 16 January, with Atiku on the ballot. If the President means what he says about equal opportunity, he should welcome that contest.