Last week, the  Supreme Court voided the ADC status quo antebellum order.  This meant that the David Mark-led leadership would be restored while the matter at the Federal High Court continued.  I was mightily relieved to see our apex court doing the right thing at a time when most of us had totally lost faith in a judiciary that has frequently been accused of corruption and cynical favouritism.

But one tree does not make a forest while victory in one battle does not signify the end of an unjust war; and opposition parties are being subjected to so much undemocratic unfairness on so many fronts that I advised them, in a recent YouTube video, to delegitimize Tinubu’s fake presidential contest and shame him by downing tools and walking away.

I expressed the view that this kind of passive resistance would lead to a global backlash that would make Tinubu look bad and force him to stop abusing the widespread powers he has at his disposal. Several people wholeheartedly agreed with me. But some came up with valid objections that gave me food for thought.

Here, for example, is a passionate and eloquent counter-argument that I received from Ikenna Asomba, a US-based political scientist and journalist who used to write for Vanguard:

Hell No! Dear  @DONUKOGBARA, we have come a long way in our bid to save Nigeria from its current state of decay and looming decomposition to mull the idea of boycotting the January 16, 2027, presidential election. Doing this is tantamount to freely coronating Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the Ayatollah of Nigeria. Here is a list of about 10 countries around the world where the opposition boycotted elections, and the ruling party candidate was declared winner by the electoral umpires:

1. Tanzania (2019) – Opposition parties, including Chadema, boycotted local polls alleging manipulation and disqualification of candidates, leading the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party to win nearly all positions unopposed.

2. Bangladesh (2021 local elections and 2014 general election) – The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) boycotted, resulting in many Awami League candidates being elected uncontested.

3. Djibouti (2016 presidential and 2018 parliamentary elections) – The opposition boycotted, allowing President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh and his party to secure over 85 per cent of the vote and most seats unopposed.

4. Egypt (2018 presidential election) – Several opposition candidates withdrew or were barred, leaving President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi effectively unopposed.

5. Venezuela (2018 presidential election) – Opposition groups boycotted over unfair conditions, resulting in President Nicolás Maduro’s almost uncontested reelection.

6. Hong Kong (2021 legislative election) – Pro-democracy opposition parties boycotted after the political overhaul under the national security law, and pro-Beijing candidates swept all contested seats.

7. Djibouti (2021 presidential election) – Opposition parties again refused to participate, and Guelleh won his fifth term virtually unopposed.

8. Tunisia (2022 parliamentary elections) – Major parties boycotted to protest President Kais Saied’s suspension of parliament, leading to an extremely low turnout and uncontested seats.

9. Togo (1993 presidential election) – Most opposition parties boycotted, and Gnassingbé Eyadéma ran virtually unopposed and won.

10. Serbia (2020 parliamentary election) – Key opposition coalitions boycotted the vote, allowing the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) to dominate with minimal competition.

We hereby state emphatically and unequivocally that the main opposition ADC must never ever mull the idea of boycotting the 2027 general elections in Nigeria. They will be committing a highfalutin political harakiri and will be freely coronating Bola Tinubu and his goons back to power.

This is a sound argument, but I still maintain that refusing to back down to prevent Tinubu from “winning” is like a battered wife refusing to leave an abusive husband to prevent herself from looking like a loser! If you walk away when you are being treated like crap and literally choked to death, you maintain your dignity and severely undermine the credibility of a culprit who is using you to project respectability. If Tinubu wants to be president for life, he should have the guts to say so and stop playing stupid games that insult our intelligence. We should stop giving people like foreign ambassadors an excuse for leaving us at his mercy on the grounds that we appear to be coping with a process they insist on regarding as mildly flawed but essentially satisfactory. We should make it clear to the world that the competition barely exists.

Shouting endless complaints about injustice from the rooftops is not enough. We should simply refuse to participate.

WHAT DO VANGUARD READERS THINK?

DONU’S WORLD

I have a YouTube channel. It’s called DONU’S WORLD.

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Two days ago, in the Nigeria Unfiltered video, I talked about Dania Scott, a missing student who was kidnapped in Edo State, and recalled my own experiences when I was abducted in Port Harcourt in 2015.

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