News
Can Tinubu’s copycatting Obi erase the dirty spot of dented mandate?
By Edward Musa
Should Peter Obi and the Labour Party worry at the apparent copycatting of his policies and programmes by the tremulous and doddering government of the All Progressives Congress, APC, and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu?
No, they should not, people who rely on others’ work as their sole source of inspiration won’t last in the long run, and worrying about them takes away from focusing on you. The worry really should be on the muddling up of these programmes because of the shallow understanding of what it entails, especially when such a person has issues with legitimacy, goodwill, and trust from the people.
During the last electioneering period in Nigeria from September 2022 to February 2023, the ruling party’s Presidential candidate, Bola Ahmad Tinubu blatantly shunned all media appearances, refusing to grant a single interview even to explain his manifesto.
Hardly did he take any message to Nigerians as a reason why he should be voted for. The only visible message he kept repeating to the irritation of Nigerians was that he will continue the good work of the immediate past President, Muhammedu Buhari.
Even when he appeared at the Chatham House in London, United Kingdom during the campaign, he had no response to questions and his sides had to come to his rescue answering questions on his behalf.
While Tinubu snubbed and spurned Nigerians disdainfully during the campaigns, Peter Obi seized the stage with his disarming messages, throwing up issues and pragmatically explaining its workings. In every sector of governance, Obi provided a verifiable way to address pertinent issues.
In the turbulent power sector, Obi told Nigerians in practical terms how he intended to solve the perennial problem. He explained how he went to Egypt to study the German firm Seamen that handled their power challenge making Egypt an exporter of power to other countries. During the Channels TV Presidential debate which Tinubu snubbed, Obi was there to declare that if South Africa with a population of less than 60 million is generating 58, 095 and yet declared an emergency on power, Nigeria with over 200m people and generating below 5000, should be declaring war on power if he is voted into office.
On subsidy in petroleum products, Obi was unmistaken in his position which dates back to his time as a member of the Presidential Economic Management Team under the Goodluck Jonathan era that he will remove subsidy because it’s an organized crime but will do it in a way that the poor will not suffer. He said he was going to carry the people along showing statistically and empirically what is being generated and how it’s being deployed. Obi even challenged the figure of fuel consumption in the country as unrealistic.
Obi was also brutal on what he would do if elected with the persisting crude oil theft as he exposed it as another organized crime of the people in government. Indeed, it was Obi’s exposition that led to the Nigeria Navy and other critical stakeholders coming out to state their roles in the fraud.
The Labour Party’s standard bearer was also forthright on Education describing Education and Health as a critical measure of a nation’s growth and development.
It was all these sector-by-sector explanations of his agenda for Nigeria if elected that endeared Obi to Nigerians across the country. During the campaigns, Obi virtually occupied the stage as a sole candidate with a defined mission while the ruling party flag bearer remained conspicuously missing in action, but possibly as it turned out planning the abracadabra of February 25, 2023, election that has become the darkest day in our democratic journey.
But since his swearing-in on May 29 amidst grumbling and groaning from all corners of our land and beyond, Tinubu said nothing and promised nothing, in fact in a big rally in Kano he just danced at the stage and left without telling the people anything. The only verifiable thing on record he promised Nigerians was to continue the good work of Buhari.
But today he appears to be in a hurry in an unprecedented copycatting of all the things Obi promised Nigeria for which they came out massively to vote for him.
In subsidy removal and the Education sector, Tinubu copiously copied Obi but like in every imitation, if it’s not Panadol, it cannot be Panadol. in his rush to diminish Obi and win over the Obidient adherents, he is not stopping at stealing the mandate but also the programmes. He is currently running the country virtually as a sole Administrator. Tinubu’s first meeting with Service Chiefs was to address the oil theft issue that Obi had unraveled.
Political watchers are looking at the rush by Tinubu to implement Obi’s programmes from various angles, one to try and impress on the people to gain the people’s confidence; preparing for an election in case the election tribunal nullifies the election and he is still lucky to be on the ballot if not disqualified; hurrying to distance himself from Buhari to win the people hence the suspension and arrest of the Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele who was Buhari’s man Friday.
The way and manner Tinubu is doing the copycatting clearly exposes him as lacking a sense of self, his actions picture him vividly as one green with envy of Obi as he strives desperately to want what Obi has to win his people.
But what is perhaps not privy to APC and Tinubu is that copycats are rarely successful in the long run. It may seem as if Tinubu is successfully stealing Obi’s gains and deploying them, but hardly will it last.
Should Obi and the Labour Party lose sleep at this calculated attempt to hijack their thoughts and even use it to undermine them? Yes, they should worry at the shameless imitation going on but must remain confident that the heart of his work cannot be duplicated and that is what Nigerians are yearning for. Obi’s unique hardworking self they saw and admired during the electioneering is what the people are waiting for not an imitation of him.
The truth is that no amount of mimicking or impersonating will erase the dirty spot in Tinubu and APC’s dented mandate. That a thief used his loot for charity does not remove the criminality of his action which is paramount. Let’s wait for God’s time which is the people’s time because a New Nigeria is POssible and Obi is coming. God help us.
Musa, public affairs analyst, wrote in from Abuja
Justice Muhammad Nuraddeen Bello of High Court sitting in Sokoto State has sentenced three men, including a foreign national, to death by hanging, after convicting them on charges bordering on terrorism and arms proliferation.
The convicts, Yusuf Muhammad (alias Sallau), a Nigerien; Jabbi Alhaji Yalle; and Kabiru Muhammad, were apprehended on 13th June, 2025, by the Department of State Services (DSS) Counter Terrorism Unit in connection with cross-border criminal activities bordering on arms trafficking and terrorism.
Bello, who found all three defendants guilty as charged and sentenced them to death by hanging, while also ordering the forfeiture of all monetary exhibits recovered from the convicts to the Federal Government, said: “The conviction is the latest in a series of successful prosecutions by the DSS in its sustained operations against terrorism and organised cross-border criminal networks across Nigeria.”
The sentencing is coming about two weeks after the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja sentenced each of the five suspects arrested on May 31, 2026, by the DSS for their involvement in the November 21, 2025, attack on St Mary’s Catholic School, Papiri, Niger State, to 25 years’ imprisonment.
Justice Binta Nyako, had handed down the judgment after the men, including two Nigeriens, pleaded guilty to all four terrorism-related charges, bordering on support for the commission of an act of terrorism, breaching both Section 16 of the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022, and the Firearms Act, were pressed against them.
According to Count One, the men were accused of jointly conspiring to assist a terrorist by agreeing and intentionally playing various roles towards conveying 15 AK 103 rifles as well as about 1,434 rounds of 7.62mm live ammunition from the Diffa region, Republic of Niger, to one Malam Ahmad, a member of the Boko Haram terrorist group based in Borgu, Niger State, and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 26(1) of the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022.
Primate Elijah Ayodele, is on the verge of coughing out a whopping N10billion, if he fails to offer unrestrained apology to Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, former Governor of Kano State within the next 24 hours, and retract his claim that the former Minister of Defence is bidding his time to betray Peter Obi, to whom he is to contest the 2027 presidential election as a running mate.
Without doing so, the controversial cleric, should be ready for a major court battle with the vice-presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), the platform on which the pair is to contest the election.
In a letter indicating a legal action against Ayodele of the INRI Evangelical Spiritual Church over defamatory remarks, Kwankwaso, through Magaji Mato Ibrahim, SAN & Co., his lawyers demanded an immediate retraction and apology from the cleric over the allegations.
Details of the letter, dated June 11, and unveiled through the X platform of the legal team, was based on a viral video recorded during a live-streamed church service, where the preacher made allegations targeting Kwankwaso’s integrity as Peter Obi’s running mate under the NDC.
Quoting the cleric as stating: “KWANKWASO IS A FAKE TO OBI, KWANKWASO WILL BETRAY YOU. KWANKWASO HAS BEEN PAID TO BE VICE PRESIDENT TO OBI AMONG OTHER LIBELOUS COMMENTS WHILE PRETENDING TO BE A PREACHER,” the former governor said the comments were unprovoked, grossly unfounded, and carefully designed to create a rift within the ranks of the political party and its supporters.
Handing Ayodele a 24-hour ultimatum to publish a full and unequivocal retraction across all social media platforms and news outlets with the same prominence as the original video, they also demanded a written undertaking that he would cease and desist from making any further malicious statements against their client, warning that failure to comply, would lead to full legal actions.
The letter stated: “We shall claim substantial damages to the tune of Ten Billion Naira and cost of the action on a full indemnity basis amongst other reliefs.”
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Tuesday demanded the immediate end to the exportation of minerals from countries in Africa in their raw forms, which he said had led to massive exploitation of the continent.
The President, told member countries of the African Minerals Strategy Group (AMSG), a forum of Ministers in charge of Mining and Solid Minerals on the continent to speak with one voice to promote, collective interests, ensure value addition, and prevent the continent from becoming merely a source of raw materials for the rest of the world.
As the Grand Patron of the group, chaired by Dele Alake, Nigeria’s Minister of Solid Minerals Development, gave the charge while receiving a delegation of AMSG in the State House, Tinubu told the delegation that the group had a critical role to play in strengthening Africa’s bargaining power in the global mineral market and ensuring that the continent derives maximum value from its natural resources.
His words: “ What we should do is avoid bureaucracy and deceit; we must put an end to exploitation. The rest of the world won’t mind if your country is a cesspit of dams and rubbish and excavates your raw materials without giving value.
“It is our responsibility to collaborate and cooperate to ensure that these metals and minerals bring value to us, bring technology to us, and we can do it. It is how much each country will put into the research, development and refinery. I don’t see reasons we cannot demand centralisation of that conversation somewhere on the continent. So why not utilise that in our research and development and knowledge-based economy to enhance the quality of life and bring prosperity to our people.”
Emphasising that Africa possessed enormous mineral wealth that should be strategically harnessed to drive industrialisation, create jobs and accelerate economic transformation across the continent, the President, said the era of exporting raw minerals without local processing and beneficiation must give way to a new model that encourages investment in local industries, technology transfer and the development of value chains that retain wealth within Africa.
Alake, who had earlier expressed gratitude to the President for his exemplary leadership under the Renewed Hope Agenda, said the gesture had shown support for Nigeria’s mineral sector, especially in the local value-addition and economic diversification drive, where artisanal miners are empowered.
He told the President: “You encouraged us to look at the focal point of the establishment of this group, which is to ensure that the African natural resources, especially with regards to minerals, critical matters, are localised, the beneficiation coming directly to Africans generally.
“You charged us that we should set our sails very high and ensure that local value addition is a pivot around which all the objectives of this organisation should revolve.
“So, sir, we have gone implemented your charge and we are quitted that today local value addition is reverberating all over Africa.”
He added that some member countries have gone ahead to ban the export of raw minerals.
He explained members of the body were in Abuja for the Fifth edition of the African Natural Resources and Energy Investment Summit (AFNIS 2026), to push for a new continental approach to resource management and industrial development.
-
News3 weeks agoBREAKING: Terrorists strike Ibadan again! Abduct ex-Minister’s sister, twin children
-
News2 weeks agoBREAKING: Troops rescue wife of kidnapped General! *Terrorists flee scene
-
News3 weeks agoEmeka Ike: I’ll make example of Lere Olayinka for prying into my privacy
-
News2 weeks agoBREAKING: Count me out, Okonkwo tells Atiku *Amaechi VP’s choice an insult to Ndigbo
-
News4 weeks agoTinubu’s $9million lobby deal in jeopardy *Group goes after US firm
-
News2 weeks agoDickson: Obi, a big asset to NDC, we’re working together … but!
-
Columns4 weeks agoAtiku-Amaechi tag-team: An indication of ADC’s hideous plan for Obi
-
News2 weeks agoOvia, ex-Zenith Bank boss swings into luxury apartments *Flats hit $2.8million price tag