By Zainab Suleiman Okino
Less than two years into President Bola Tinubu’s first tenure, everything about him and all decisions now revolve around politics and politicking toward his reelection in 2027. Not that he ever took his gaze off that all-important year—the year of final consolidation, of crowning glory for a man who has been in the trenches since the 1990s.
In recent months, three governors have defected from the PDP to the ruling APC: Umo Eno of Akwa Ibom, Sheriff Oborevwori of Delta State, and Peter Mbah of Enugu, with Douye Diri of Bayelsa State waiting in the wings. Abia State governor Alex Otti is expected to follow suit, while governors from Plateau and Taraba states are reportedly warming up to the idea. Most decampees cite the president’s magnanimity and the near collapse of their party, making scant effort to salvage the platform that brought them to power.
Things are looking exceedingly good for the ruling elite in their progressive family. But how good is it for the country and its citizens? As the president consolidates power through calculated patronage designed to neutralise the opposition, a troubling pattern emerges: the systematic erosion of civil liberties, the capricious exercise of authority marked by contradictory positions, and the controversial abuse of presidential clemency to pardon serious offenders, including armed robbers, bandits, drug traffickers, murderers, and kidnappers.
These developments raise concerns about the nation’s democratic journey. The country appears to be drifting toward a de facto one-party state where institutional checks have been rendered toothless, where impunity reigns, and where the rule of law has been subordinated to political expediency. The question that worries concerned citizens is stark: if these transgressions and infractions are tolerated now, what safeguards remain to prevent the complete collapse of democratic norms and the descent into a lawless society where anything goes?
To say the opposition’s future is bleak in the next election is to state the obvious. The opposition is down, but is it totally out? Meanwhile, we have traveled this road before. There was a time when the PDP dominated Nigeria’s political landscape, controlling 31 states as of 2007, making it such a formidable powerhouse that then-President Olusegun Obasanjo could dream of a third term before the dream was truncated.
Obasanjo wielded his power to settle political scores and coerce opponents. Tinubu is now using his power to diminish the opposition, consolidate control, and carry subnational leaders along. There is talk of the president’s generosity to governors, his leadership style of appeasement, and his politics of settlement. All this might seem benign if there were no conscious attempt to decimate plurality of affiliation.
However, the irony is glaring. Tinubu, who stood as the last man standing against Obasanjo’s attempted conquest of Nigeria using the PDP, is now replicating the very tactics he so vehemently opposed. Sadly, Tinubu faces no meaningful opposition to his own audacity. The governors are too complacent, corrupt, and irresponsible to counter the president’s advances.
What began as innocent appeals to the opposition—throwing jabs at their losses and the need to abandon their sinking ship, subtly disorganising them through tokenism and dole-outs—has escalated.This trajectory may snowball into benevolent dictatorship.
The political class needs to take heed. The PDP experiment led to internal implosion and subsequent balkanisation, which paved the way for the APC’s emergence. I acknowledge that what matters to politicians is “power now,” but the consequences are always unpalatable.
Weakening and manipulating democratic institutions, suppressing opposition through intimidation, and reducing them to minions incapable of challenging bad governance and abuse of power can only detract from the democratic gains of the last 26 years. It can also diminish our standing in the eyes of the world and potentially erode investments and economic growth.
Political actors should understand that weaponising state agencies to target the opposition and undermine multi-party democracy is not in their interest. They have more to gain by allowing diverse opinions to thrive within the framework of the rule of law.
For the president, it seems political considerations override everything. Under the presidential prerogative of mercy, he has just pardoned 175 prisoners, including hardened criminals. This is deeply worrisome and smacks of trading values for political support. The opposition governors who should call him to order are either gearing up to defect or have already done so. If this practice endures, it will perpetuate more crimes, serving as encouragement to would-be criminals that no offense is unforgivable in the context of politics.
In functional justice systems elsewhere, convicted murderers are not qualified for parole consideration until after 25 years in prison. We do not even have parole in our criminal justice system, yet the president pardoned murderers after just seven years. What a reversal of our once-cherished value system!
Predictably, criticisms are trailing the president’s action for sacrificing justice and the rule of law on the altar of benevolence and prerogative of mercy, effectively criminalising verdicts so justifiably arrived at. This pardon could boomerang—if not on the state, then on individuals who played roles in the investigation, prosecution, and conviction: complainants, judges, lawyers, police officers, and others. Why would the president permit this institutional impunity and jeopardise the lives of all those involved?
For the affected families and individuals, they can at best rejoice in the president’s generosity. For me, the acknowledgment of injustice and the clemency offered to the Ogoni 4, who were murdered in broad daylight in events that led to the eventual killing of the Ogoni 9, represents a step toward restoring dignity to the dead, resolving the entire Ogoni crisis, and enabling the resumption of exploration activities in the area.
Yet this singular act of restorative justice cannot obscure the larger pattern of democratic backsliding. When political expediency trumps institutional integrity, when opposition is systematically dismantled rather than engaged, and when clemency becomes a tool for political consolidation rather than genuine mercy, we risk sacrificing the very foundations of democratic governance. Today’s political victories achieved through institutional manipulation may well become tomorrow’s democratic catastrophes.
Zainab Suleiman Okino (FNGE) is a syndicated columnist. She can be reached via zainabokino@gmail.com
