By Hon. Taiwo A. Habeeb
The recent adjustment in Delta State’s political space is not strictly an adjustment of local electoral dynamics in the state. Rather, it is a part of a broad and aggressive agenda by President Bola Tinubu’s election strategists to win the 2027 presidential election even before 2027. It is a strategy to build an impregnable election firewall, starting with the oil-rich Niger-Delta. Its success will deny Mr. President’s opponents the flow of oil money for funding their election. Like oxygen to life, without mega oil money, a presidential election in Nigeria is almost impossible.
If the strategy is well understood, one must come to the logical conclusion that it is just non-specific to Delta State. Far broader.
Clearly, the strategy has nothing to do with Mr. President hating or loving any particular politician. Rather, it is deft response to emerging threats to his reelection, especially from certain quarters in the North. Tinubu’s victory is the paramount matter. Any other ambition or issue is peripheral.
This is why, apart from Delta State, the Tinubu election firewall tsunami is on its way to Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Kano, Osun, Plateau, non-APC Eastern States and possibly more states. Taking these states, especially oil-rich states, will effectively starve Tinubu’s opponent(s) of the funding required for any meaningful electoral impact. It’s cold, hardwired politics.
As of today, the President’s foot soldiers are everywhere harvesting new converts to strengthen the firewall. Senators and other legislators and leading politicians are pouring into the APC because the strategy is working as designed.
It is therefore simplistic, uninformed, or deceptive for anyone to claim that the tsunami is designed against those Mr. President dislikes in any State. It is not true. Many original APC stalwarts will still prevail in a party they laboured to build.
Any political aspirant who believes that the Tinubu tsunami is designed to help them willy-nilly or exclude their possible opponents in 2027 is daydreaming. The road ahead is full of usual acrobatics of Nigerian politics. The road will be rough for many. Many will cry and regret.
In Delta, the electoral fields are widely open. No automatic tickets or preferred candidates. Neither Governor Sheriff Oberevwori nor Senator Ovie Omo-Agege has a ticket yet, but many strategists are betting more on the former Deputy President of the Senate. The gritty Omo-Agege is extremely popular at the grassroots. His calmness is a pregnancy that speaks to deeper things.
APC will shock many, especially those whose only claim to electoral strength is simply defecting to APC. People who belief that they will be gifted tickets by that act – tickets that they cannot convert to electoral victory at the general elections, especially if OBIdients or OBIdient-like forces were to show up again.
