Nigeria 2023; Never Say Never -By Sunday O. Oladepo

There’s nothing impossible in the Nigerian political sphere. I realized this truth in 2015. In fact, I’m beginning to see the possibility of Bola Tinubu’s emergence against popular rationality.
Some of us may’ve to reconsider our stance against our projected impossibility of his victory. A lot of political scheming has gone in the pipeline and I’m afraid Nigeria may reexperience the 2015 shock. From the 2015 lessons, once you’ve the financial effrontery and ability to dominate the media spaces for social acceptability, there’s no political feat that’s unachievable here.

In the news is Yemi Osinbajo, too. He’s no better substitute. Aside his intelligence and
impressive oratory skill, he’s just as corrupt as Bola Tinubu. I’ve got sufficient sentiments for my
conclusion. Osinbajo worked closely with Bola Tinubu as a commissioner for two tenures. He
was his corrupt ally. A somewhat sordid loyalty that even earned him a recommendation from
Bola Tinubu. The same Osinbajo is Buhari’s corrupt ally. A fraud that feigns frailty and incapacity whenever national responsibilities collide with political interests.

I don’t want to believe the stories of Goodluck Jonathan’s reintroduction to the race. As much
as I don’t want to believe it, the echo is sadly becoming louder to ignore. Jonathan wouldn’t
only humiliate himself to accept such a dicey offer, but his choice by any popular party is itself a
ruin. The push by some blocs to pull him to power would be a really difficult task. It’ll even be
more politically laborious for APC to market the Jonathan candidacy than Tinubu’s. There’s
nothing more aching than a self-inflicted injury. Former Special Adviser to President
Muhammadu Buhari on the House of Representatives, Abdulrahman Sumaila, once described the move to make Jonathan the presidential candidate of APC as a major disservice that’s
capable of ruining the party’s chance in 2023.

Atiku Ababakar is predictably going to secure the PDP’s presidential ticket with the present
arrangement of the party. He’s a household name in the political space. And, a lot of odds are
rightly in his favor. Aside being a candidate from a region with notorious desperacy for
unbroken rulership, he’s equally from the dominant religion of the area. Atiku, like others, is
also notorious for corruption. Nigeria was estimated to have lost over $400 billion to corruption since its independence. In 2018, the country ranked 144th in the 180 countries listed in
Transparency International’s Corruption Index. Atiku Abubakar is disreputed as one of the
major enablers of Nigeria’s woes.

Amid these x-rays is the reality that nothing is impossible here. Politics and rationality don’t
intersect; and we’ve had this sad truth repeatedly playing out. It’s a truism of Charles Dickens’s
exclamation of “never say never.”

Sunday O. Oladepo is a journalist ad PR expert. He writes from Osogbo.