By Ikeddy ISIGUZO

NOTHING has left President Bola Ahmed Tinubu floored like his meeting with the Conference of Catholic Church Bishops of Nigeria. Tinubu is still on the floor.

He expected endorsement. He was confronted with the truth of his three years of mismanagement of Nigeria.

The bishops spoke for Nigerians who Tinubu expects to be silent or have no big voices to speak for them.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has no business running for a second term after wasting the opportunities that he had in his first term, chiefly proving to Nigerians that he would not pull Nigeria back from the brink that Muhammadu Buhari pushed it to with unflinching enthusiasm.

Tinubu has done worse than Buhari on every item. His attempts to argue that he was rescuing the country from irredeemable collapse, flies in the face of logic as debts keep mounting, borrowing becomes a monthly affair and budgets, are wasted, and officially serve as looting podium.

An unmitigated failure, Tinubu’s health may not be flagging, or causing inexplicable trips to France, but he is becoming more unstable as evident in his utterances.

His cognitive abilities are wavering, resulting in struggles to make simple points when addressing people.

Tinubu puts too much effort into papering over this defect and in the process makes more telling mistakes about the working of his mind. All he is after is votes, winning a second term.

An example was Tuesday when the Conference of Catholic Church Bishops of Nigeria paid Tinubu a courtesy call. Tinubu was triumphant about how his education policies (whatever they are) had stopped ASUU strikes which used to disrupt university academic calendars and elongated graduation times.

Was he aware of his audience? Or did he intermittently remember who he was addressing? Judge the mind of the man who wants to rule Nigeria for another four years.

“None of your children in university today, and I would say they are all your children because you are reverend fathers, can say a four-year course is not four years,” he said.

“ASUU is not on strike. They are not bringing agony to your homes. Is that not an answer to our prayers? To me, that’s an answer.”

Tinubu should know that Catholic clergy do not marry. Whose children were those that would have brought agony to the homes of these senior-ranking clerics? Tinubu was seeking confirmation from the bishops that their homes were peaceful as their children were in school.

In a flash of momentary awareness, he knew they were reverend fathers, though bishops, but still pinned children on them to sustain his point on ASUU strikes.

He deserves a round of applause.

“I inherited the assets and liabilities of my predecessor, and I’ve been running with it (sic). But this government has stabilised and there is prosperity on the horizon. The quality of life is improving,” Tinubu said.

Life is really improving for Tinubu and his cohorts being that they are not on the same side with Nigerians. We know differently.

Complaints from the visiting bishops include targetted killing of Christians, inability of Christians in the North to get spaces to build places of worship. They expected assurance but got this.

“The security situation is what it is. We don’t have another country but here. This Nigeria. And we revert to our national anthem, in its complexity, diversity, we shall thrive, rejoice and be good to all of us,” said Tinubu, the Commander-in-Chief.

Most attention would go to the relevance of his answers and ignore the growing incoherence of the man expected to lead Nigeria out of a miasma to which he immensely contributes to its worsening phases.

An earlier statement from the presidential villa made the meeting seem peaceful without laying out the truths the bishops confronted Tinubu with, among them that Tinubu was desperate to win the election and that he was uncaring, and distant from the people.

Tinubu is affronted that John Cardinal Onaiyekan, 82, Catholic Archbishop Emeritus of Abuja, on behalf of the bishops, made their disagreements at the meeting public, including telling the President that he was not doing well. The bishops had told him that “Nigeria was bleeding”.

Barrage of statements followed. Cardinal Onaiyekan was castigated in the new statements, called names for going public with what Tinubu said was a private meeting. He allegedly broke “celestial privilege and access”. The statement called him partisan for supporting opposition candidates in 2023, unspiritual, and lacking maturity.

Understandably, Tinubu is hurting. More questions are also being raised about his academic records that has no mentions for primary and secondary school attendance which INEC has required as part of the election requirements.

They are not new, but are additional punches to one reeling from the pummeling from the meeting with the bishops, who spoke the minds of Nigerians across several sectors, directly to Tinubu.

The meeting left eggs on Tinubu’s face. He met real bishops and lost their endorsement. The spat will endure. There is no chance of an opportunity of a reconciliation before the 2027 election.

Nigeria is in a bad situation. How bad, nobody knows until we get Tinubu out of office. Those who think 2027 is about who becomes president miss the full point.

The 2027 election is about voting Tinubu out. His management of Nigeria is not sustainable. The mismanagement of the past three years is more than enough reason to ask him to go.

“Mr Peter Obi’s four-year promise is therefore not a sign of weakness or political naivety. It is a profound statement about the nature of public service. Power should be a trust, not a possession; a responsibility, not an inheritance; and a temporary instrument for permanent national progress. The true test of a leader is not whether he can remain in office forever, but whether he can make the country better enough to continue progressing after he has left. Four years is not naivety. It is statesmanship,” Tai Emeka Obasi, an Obi supporter wrote, after Obi made the four-year tenure promise on national television.

No conversations about the values the move could add to the ingredients we need to navigate Nigeria out of its deepening miasmia. What are other candidates offering?

Is it important to know? Should we know? Why is it important that we know?

There may be no time to interrogate them thoroughly. We can use the advantage of the time before the campaigns to ask these questions.

Our campaigns are more choreographed than most stage theatre productions. Music is loud. Politicians practise crude dance steps on the platform to the cheers of hire supporters and thugs. They can hardly be heard above the din.

It serves their purpose. Most of them are empty. They have nothing to offer Nigerians than a sustained stare at the scary future they have created.

When you vote in 2027, you should vote to improve you future and not for anyone who has not cared for your past, present, and definitely does not wish you a great future.

Tinubu’s posture represents renewed hunger. He arrogantly banters excuses for his poor performance which he promises to continue.

Finally…

• THE lies about payment of the $100,000 President Tinubu promised each player of the Super Falcons for winning a 10th title should stop. We were told the money was in their individual bank accounts. When they reported empty accounts, we heard that paper works at the Ministry of Finance was causing delays. Such delays do not affect the loquacious liars when their entitlements are involved. Are we punishing the players for winning?

• BRUTALITY and cruelty leading to deaths or life-long injuries are on the rise and the police seem to handle them lightly. People are mangling or killing domestic helps, death by strangling babies, suspects beaten to death over suspicion of theft that if found guilty may not earn a death sentence. It is a jungle out there. The police are overwhelmed. Our orientation agencies need to step in to recover the minds of our people. Very low premium is currently placed on human life.

• OUR football without a complete overhaul that will result in new rules and regulations, for the good of the game, for the good of Nigerians, will be in its coma for a longer time. The rush to have an election will compound the coma. We need a complete break from the dreary present. We can tell FIFA what we want and why an election cannot hold now. The Federal Government is invited to intervene and stop the waste of national resources and fundings from FIFA, CAF, WAFU which are of more interest to those who have hijacked Nigeria’s football than Nigeria’s interests. More next week.

•ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues.

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