By Ikeddy ISIGUZO

THE optics are awful and reminders that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is dizzyingly descending into irrelevance. Instead of arresting the slide, his cravings for remaining President have blinded him to placing power above Nigerians, above everything.

While Nigerians await military actions in parts that terrorists and bandits have occupied, armoured tankers are deployed to protect INEC headquarters, and one was even available for Governor Caleb Muftwang to visit communities around Jos that were attacked on Palm Sunday.

Tinubu was at his best, the puppeteer in INEC’s tangle with the Africa Democratic Congress, ADC. His spokesman Bayo Onanuga was angry with ADC’s position that no legal basis exists for INEC to dismantle its leadership.

INEC has gone further to warn ADC that any decision the David Mark leadership takes would place its candidates in danger of being declared losers, even if they win, as beneficiaries of an illegal party leadership. INEC Chairman Professor Joash Ojo Amupitan, SAN, so stated on television.

When Amupitan was appointed INEC Chairman, many applauded the choice, thinking he would be different.

The ADC leadership at stake is a matter before the Court of Appeal which while adjourning the case ordered “status quo ante bellum”. Neither Tinubu nor INEC can wait for determination of the matter to act.

At no time has the interpretation of “status quo ante bellum”, a Latin expression for “standing before the dispute” been subjected to different meanings, all to find a suitable action to “legalise” Tinubu’s determination to be returned “unopposed” and the sole, qualified presidential candidate in 2027.

He Is determined to establish his “victory” before the election.

Tinubu, the supposed democrat, Nigeria’s so-called best political strategist, realising he cannot win the 2027 election has chosen to decimate the opposition.

Governors, 32 are in the ruling party, so are many legislators, and others. More “big” politicians are joining the ruling party as they discover that existence is being squeezed out of opposition by APC that claims “progressives”.

These have provided no comfort for Tinubu. No Nigerian President has approached re-election with such massive support. The more support he gets, the more frightened Tinubu appears.

Everything scares him. His poor performance record places him firmly as the worst Nigerian President ever. He knows.

He is in a scramble to avoid the ultimate disgrace in 2027.

An Onanuga can be anything to support Tinubu. He is now a lawyer and judge rolled into one.

“Status quo ante or status quo ante bellum: “The state of affairs prior to a specific event.

“The related phrase status quo ante, literally ‘the status before’, refers to the state of affairs that existed previously.

“In the case between Nafiu Gombe versus ADC, David Mark, and Rauf Aregbesola, ‘status quo ante bellum’ means reverting to the ADC as it existed before Ralph Nwoye sold the party to Abubakar Atiku to serve as an SPV for the 2027 election. According to reports, Gombe claims he is still the vice chairman of the ADC, that he never resigned, and that he ought to have become the automatic chairman following the resignation of the party’s longest-serving chairman, Nwoye. The ADC should stop blaming President Tinubu, INEC for its self-inflicted woes,” Onanuga posted on X.

Onanuga is wrong and he knows but being a beneficiary of this interpretation, he is beyond embarrassment in suggesting that the court had ordered a return to the pre-Mark leadership. Then the allegation that Ralph Nwoye sold the paper to Mark, obviously not a “buyer” of Onanuga’s choice if there was such a transaction.

Mark has led ADC since July 2025. Gombe resigned, in a letter that INEC acknowledged. Gombe also made a social media post where he welcomed the new leadership.

INEC has dealt with the Mark leadership since then.

Should the cut off point for “status quo ante bellum”, in this instance, not be Mark’s take off point and Gombe’s contention?

Onanuga knows the truth.

Why is “status quo ante bellum” an issue in a matter that is still in court? Could INEC not have returned to court for interpretation or sued for a court order to stop the ADC national convention to which it had been invited?

Tinubu, for whom Onanuga spoke, knows more than any Nigerian that the strategies for his cherished return in 2027 are blighted. He is quaking in fears over the ruinous consequences of his poor governance which he plasters with blusters.

His expertise in strategies includes the sham of a trip so hastily arranged to divert national attention to Jos that nobody told the President he required a 40-minute drive to get to the crime scene. Or did he even intend to visit the people? The traumatised people of Anguwan Rukuba ended up visiting the President at the airport and were blamed “your airport has no light”. Jos was unworthy of the President’s presence. The Jos Airport is named after General Yakubu Gowon, Nigerian Head of State 1966 to 1975. The unlit airport is property of the Federal Government.

A huge part of Tinubu’s ”mandate” is resting on his 2022 campaign that he would fix electricity or should be voted out if he failed. He forgot this failure when he complained that there was no electricity at the airport.

The unimportance of the visit to Jos was too obvious to be concealed. The President could not put together a decent message for his “guests” at the airport.

Onanuga told us how much the visit inconvenienced the President who had an earlier meeting with the President of Chad, cancelled a visit to Ogun State (Onanuga is from there) to make the Jos Airport trip.

The excuses rankled every decency.

For the records, Tinubu has always seen visits to victims of his administration’s lax approach to insecurity as inconveniencing. When he visited Makurdi were the victims not brought to him?

His speeches are mumbles rooted in the non-kinetic policy of his administration against terrorism and banditry. The policy muffles his speeches.

National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu prefaces speeches with dedicated promotion of “non-kinetic” approaches. More shockingly, Chief of Defence Staff Lt-Gen Olufemi Oluyede days ago joined the call to treat terrorists and bandits that are killing troops under his care as prodigal sons who should be offered room for repentance. It sounds like granting them permission to continue killing our soldiers and people. The justification, from Oluyede, is that most of them are Nigerians.

Are other Nigerians who kill given the window to repent? Does Oluyede know that this remark, not made at the Officers Mess but at a lecture to establish the Army’s Joint Doctrine and Welfare Centre to cater for its personnel and families of fallen troops, is saying the war against terrorists and bandits has been lost to repentance?

Tinubu had nothing to offer to the people of Jos who are asking government to stop the killings. More town hall meetings won’t stop the killings. Tinubu’s promised 5,000 drones won’t stop the killings unless there are consequences for the crimes.

Will Tinubu’s drones be deployed to other areas where there are killings or just Jos?

Nigerians have to stand up to Tinubu’s efforts to imitate the bad examples of one-party “democracies” in some African countries, clothed with the pretence of law through the judiciary and legislature.

The battle ahead is for our individual survival, and for our country. Tinubu’s democracy cannot accommodate our diversities.

A frightened, desperate Commander-in-Chief who is losing territory to terrorists and bandits, is more interested in rolling out armoured tankers against protesters of his policies than terrorists.

Tinubu sequestering in the comfort of the airport to mouth his tepid “this will not happen again” is too light a conduct for the war against terrorism. Have the attacks not continued after his visit?

Nigerians have been diminished in Tinubu’s first term. Every Nigerian should consider participation in Tinubu’s departure a national duty that has to be done with undiluted passion.

To those who Tinubu has served well, encourage him to permit a free, fair, and transparent election. He will not because he knows that he cannot win.

Finally…

Have a great Easter Nigerians. Please spare thoughts and offer more prayers for our country to be freed from the vicious grips of all anti-democratic forces.

•ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues.

PHOTO CAPTION: •Tinubu consoled residents and families of victims of the March 29, 2026 deadly attack in Jos on Thursday April 3, 2026.

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