Forget IBB, the so-called evil genius. He should wear shorts, grab a backpack, and enroll in Bola Ahmed Tinubu\u2019s coven. Because in the grand chessboard of Nigerian politics, Tinubu isn\u2019t just a player, nor even a puppeteer. He\u2019s the board, the pieces, and the rulebook. His moves are ruthless. Surgical. Cold-blooded.<\/p>\n
Democracy is presumed to be a delicate balance of power. But Tinubu has tilted the scale so far in his favour that what remains is an empty shell of representative governance. An illusion of choice, and a mirage of fairness.<\/p>\n
The appointment of Professor Joash Ojo Amupitan as Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is not another bureaucratic reshuffle. It is the final piece in a puzzle meticulously assembled since the day Tinubu engineered a fuel crisis at Eagle Square. Amupitan is Yoruba. From Kogi State, yes\u2014but Yoruba nonetheless. His identity is not incidental. It fits the pattern too perfectly to be coincidence.<\/p>\n
The Chief Justice of Nigeria.
\nThe Inspector General of Police.
\nThe Governor of the Central Bank. The Ministers of Finance, Interior, Power, Communications. Every sector that play a direct or remote role has a Yoruba helmsman.
\nAnd now, the umpire of Nigeria\u2019s electoral integrity.<\/p>\n
Some people are misdirecting us about the professor’s credentials. Hilarious. Tinubu has never picked a tool that’s not qualified. But he\u2019s just become the second president to pick his tribesman as INEC boss. Covert. A man from Ayetoro Gbede in Ijumu LGA, part of the Okun subgroup in Kogi State. Though geographically North-Central, his cultural and linguistic identity is unmistakably Yoruba. His appointment is not just symbolic. It extends Tinubu\u2019s Yoruba footprint into a region traditionally seen as ethnically diverse and politically neutral. Checkmate.<\/p>\n
He also has two influential politicians from the oil-rich states. The bulldozer called Wike, and the Senate President, a loyalist so pliant he might as well be Bola’s toy boy.
\nThe first son and the first daughter have the students unions and market women pacified.<\/p>\n
This is the whole nine yards away from federal character.
\nThis is federal capture.<\/p>\n
Tinubu has not stormed Aso Rock with tanks. He has done something far more insidious. He has weaponised appointments. Turned ethnicity into a tool of domination. Armed a fleet of keyboard mercenaries to defend his series of outrage. He has replaced the unpredictability of democracy with the cold efficiency of a patronage machine. And he has done it all under the stealth of legality. Cloaked in the language of merit. Wrapped in the flag of national reformation.<\/p>\n
The North, once his uneasy ally, now watches with growing suspicion.
\nThe Southeast, long agitating for Biafra, finds itself further exiled from the corridors of power. He has the option of offering them Mazi Kanu to undermine the threat of Peter Obi. Or even keep the political prisoner and make him an albatross around the neck of the opposition who keeps him awake late at night.
\nThe Middle Belt, diverse and complex, is being carved into ethnic fiefdoms. Preoccupied with fleeing from bandits.
\nAnd the South-South? An elected governor has just been suspended like a school boy. They’ve been reduced to a cheering gallery. Rewarded with ultimately empty gestures.<\/p>\n
This is not governance.
\nThis is conquest.
\nThe conquest of what Pa Ikhide R Ikheloa calls a vast crime scene.<\/p>\n
Tinubu\u2019s genius lies in his instinct for control. He understands that power is not just about winning elections, but about owning the institutions that count the votes. Interpret the laws. Enforce the rules. Control the purse. He has taken Machiavelli\u2019s playbook and rewritten it in Yoruba language.<\/p>\n
And yet, the most chilling part is not what he has done.
\nIt\u2019s how easily he has done it.
\nWith barely a whisper of resistance.
\nWith the media distracted.
\nWith the opposition fragmented.
\nWith civil society fatigued\u2014or compromised.<\/p>\n
He has turned a democracy into a dynasty.
\nA country into a republic of loyalists.<\/p>\n
So let us call it what it is.
\nA slow-motion coup d’\u00e9tat.<\/p>\n
Tinubu has invented a whole new stratosphere of rigging, by rewriting every expectation. And unless Nigeria wakes up from this trance, we may soon find ourselves living in a country where elections still happen\u2014but only one man is designed to win
\n#nigeria #politics #Tinubu #INEC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Forget IBB, the so-called evil genius. He should wear shorts, grab a backpack, and enroll in Bola Ahmed Tinubu\u2019s coven. Because in the grand chessboard of Nigerian politics, Tinubu isn\u2019t just a player, nor even a puppeteer. He\u2019s the board, the pieces, and the rulebook. His moves are ruthless. Surgical. Cold-blooded. Democracy is presumed to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":15934,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","category-opinion"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/BOLA-TINUBU-e1760403180934.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-8jh","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31947"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31949,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31947\/revisions\/31949"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}