The signs are now crystal clear: the APC is out on a full-blown witch-hunt of the PDP. The objective is not only to decimate the opposition, but to ensure it does not recover. All the road-maps point to one destination: the creation of a one-party state in Nigeria in everything but the name. Should this succeed, it would mean the end of effective democracy in Nigeria,

LAI Mohammed, APC National Publicity Secretary, is one of President Buhari’s ministerial nominees. When he appeared for screening before the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio made a wry observation. He said: “If I know (Lai Mohammed) very well, he may have one or two propaganda to drop before he leaves here.” His Senate colleagues burst into laughter because they understood what he meant.

MANY monuments have been built in honour of the man Bola Tinubu. He is acclaimed as the political genius of our times who not only engineered the taming of the PDP juggernaut, he caged it and confined it to the backwaters of Otuoke. Since the APC defeat of the PDP in the presidential election, Tinubu the tactician has been feted, celebrated and praised to high heavens. But all these encomiums have proved to be highly exaggerated.

THINGS have not been going according to plan for President Buhari. For the last four months since his famous victory, the president has been engaged with a battle royal with the very people who put him in power. In order to win the election, Buhari had to form an alliance with wily politicians of the old-school; men seasoned at getting their hands dirty and adept at manipulating the system to power-political advantage.

AFTER the 2015 election, I predicted on Twitter that when critical decisions are to be taken, Yemi Osinbajo, the token Southerner in Aso Rock, would be sent to go and buy “guguru and epa.” This has proved prescient. The Vice-president was reportedly barred from attending a national security briefing on grounds he did not have security clearance. But who can have more clearance than a man elected by the people? How did Buhari himself get his?

TWO days to another  October 1 independence anniversary, and all is bleak and depressing on the Nigerian front.  No self-congratulatory messages.  No stadium march-pass and celebrations.  All we are getting is a steady diet of prison-rations: “Nigeria is corrupt.”  “The treasury is empty.”  “Recession is knocking at the door.” With all the attendant political hullaballoo; you get the impression that even the very country called Nigeria is going to be probed and sent to jail.

IT is all going to happen within four days. Four days to the great national revival and renewal. Four days to the rejuvenation and restoration of the Nigerian economy. Four days to the great “changi” we have all been waiting for. Four days to the arrival of the Nigerian messiah, Muhammadu Buhari. I am sure we all can hardly wait.

I WRITE this as someone who does not know President Jonathan personally. I have never met the man. Neither have I ever spoken to him electronically. All I know about him is what I read in the papers, or what I have seen of him on television. Nevertheless, he has been my president for the last five years.

DURING the presidential election campaign, General Buhari observed in his “Manifesto and Vision for Nigeria” that: “The general trust level of politics, politicians and political leaders is at an all-time low. One may ask why? And we can as well understand why after years of broken promises.”

NO doubt about it, the North betrayed Goodluck Jonathan in the last election. The greatest ally of the North in Nigerian politics has been the South-South. Therefore, it was not asking too much for Jonathan to expect the North to return the favour under his administration; when he is clearly carrying the mantle of the South-South.

WHERE two or three Nigerians are gathered, you can be sure we are busy running down our country. Nigerians like to bad-mouth Nigeria. This has played well into the narrative of the APC, which has used the social media to promote a false and prejudicial perspective of Nigeria under the Goodluck Jonathan administration.

ONE month ago, the APC had whipped its supporters into frenzy in believing it is bound to win an election it really has no chance of winning. In truth, if the election had been conducted then for chairman of the EFCC, Muhammadu Buhari would have been declared winner by a landslide. However, with postponement of the election, a lot of water has passed under the bridge. Even Buhari’s self-styled credential as Mr. Integrity has unraveled.

IN all my years of studying elections, I have never seen a campaign as bogus as that of Muhammadu Buhari. It is amazing that, for a man who is running for election as president for a marathon fourth time, Buhari is so bereft of ideas as to how he would do anything if he were to become president. Campaigning in 35 states, Buhari has spoken for a total of less than 60 minutes in all. Surely, he wants to be president; but he clearly has no presidential agenda.

WHEN Muhammadu Buhari overthrew a democratically-elected government in a coup d”etat in 1983, Sani Abacha declared in his infamous radio broadcast: “(Our) health services are in shambles as our hospitals are reduced to mere consulting clinics without drugs, water and equipment.”

I HAVE news for APC stalwarts. You don’t win an election in Nigeria by being the champion of social media. You don’t win by renting crowds to fill up your rallies. You don’t win by putting up your billboards everywhere while tearing down those of your opponents. You don’t win by master-minding in the media a false sense of the inevitability of your victory. When you do all this successfully, you simply end up deceiving yourself.