‘He’ll perform’ | ‘No, he won’t’ — Nigerians speak ahead of Tinubu’s inauguration

Optimism, trepidation, indifference; the forthcoming inauguration of Bola Tinubu, Nigeria’s president-elect, on May 29 has continued to whip up varying emotions among Nigerians, particularly the youths.

CrispNG had earlier reported how Tinubu won the February 25 presidential election with a total of 8,794,726 votes.

He defeated Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) who polled 6,984,520 and 6,101,533 votes respectively.

But the election, considered to be Nigeria’s most competitive presidential poll since 1999, has been heavily criticised over alleged irregularities.

The PDP and the LP, among other opposition parties, have challenged the outcome of the election in court, citing irregularities in the process.

Notwithstanding, plans for the inauguration are in top gear as President Muhammadu Buhari prepares to hand over power to his successor.

As the much-awaited inauguration closes in, CrispNG examines the opinions and expectations of some young Nigerians for the incoming administration.

Benjamin — Writer

From the outset, I have been in favour of the president-elect (Tinubu) and God willing, he will be inaugurated few days from now. From history we’ve gotten a cue to who he is and how vast he is in social administration and communal government. Tinubu is a man with the radical skill to lead the country, and he demonstrated this with his  eight years leadership as governor of Lagos.

Even before becoming Lagos governor, he has been in top positions in the government and whether or not the election was rigged as people have said, the fact remains he will be inaugurated and he has gotten there.

Firstly, let’s expect him to perform according to his manifestos, let’s hope and we are expecting the change in the country’s terrain as he has promised — quality education, increase in allowances for civil servants, job opportunities, growth of the nation’s economy, and improving Nigeria’s image in rhe international community.

I believe he will strengthen the military, I believe he will see to the betterment of the security terrain, education, economy growth and the unifying of this country against tribal prejudice.

Tinubu is a man with the radical skill to lead the country, and he demonstrated this with his  8 years leadership as governor of Lagos.

E. J. Asuquo – Education Consultant, Schoolpeople Nigeria

The February 25th presidential election was one that was really intense with lots of high expectations, heated political discourse from diverse quarters and massive participation of young people. All they had was hope in a system that ordinarily one shouldn’t express any form of hope but they had to shun the strong reality of long-standing, deeply-rooted dysfunctional system.

They voted with much doubts that their votes will count. They voted in the face of open voters’ intimidation, vote buying, suppression, wide spread violence and disenfranchisement.

Alas! In the face of widespread reported irregularities that marred the election, INEC declared Tinubu the winner and asked the aggrieved people to go to court – a judicial system that hasn’t given enough reasons for well meaning Nigerians to trust its ability to dispense justice.

Here we are with May 29 staring at us with a sitting president who can’t hide the fact that he’s now TOO tired of Aso Rock and can’t wait to evaporate from the villa. He doesn’t miss any opportunity to tell Nigerians where he will be heading to after May 29; a visibly inept octogenarian who should have been enjoying his retirement miles away from Aso Rock was handpicked, washed and given some recitations to make and like a magic wand he was pushed into Aso Rock.

He can’t bite the finger than fed him so he must now use power of incumbency to favour his one time benefactor. He did it! It worked! The ceremony will now hold on May 29. The court can resume the election proceedings 10 years after.

We can only wish the new administration well. Although I doubt the president-elect will stay in charge of the government for obvious reasons. This is now a case of the whale and the deep blue sea, where do we run to? God save Nigeria.

Chukwuma Somadina — Agriculturist

I don’t expect anything from Tinubu’s administration. It’s more like saying if someone steals my car, because he is going to keep the car in good shape then I shouldn’t be offended. He is clearly not the majority’s choice, it’s obvious. This is over two months after the election and the dust has not gone down, it’s rising everyday. It means there is clearly something fundamentally wrong with the process by which he came into power, the electioneering process by which the president-elect came into power.

The two major opposition candidate have dragged him and his party to court, so, there are a whole lot of things, we cannot conclude yet that he going to be our president. I for one will not vote, did not vote and will never vote such a man to be the president, everything about him is questionable, his age, his childhood, the business he does, the way by which he gets into political office, his past, his education, his family, everything about him is questionable how can such a man be the president of over 200 million Nigerians and we will not expect that he is going to sell us off, I mean, finish the bad job that the current administration did.

He (Tinubu) is clearly not the majority’s choice, it’s obvious.

I feel that it is so with most people as well. There was a beam of hope only for it to be quashed by INEC and the APC and Nigerians that have been hypnotized by politicians and the gifts they promise them.

Chukwu Loretta – Writer

In all honesty, I have no expectations from this incoming government. I am only keen on building myself. Since Peter Obi lost the election, I don’t think the political powers care about the people. We all know that projectorily, the Tinubu led administration will be a bad photocopy of the last administration; looking at the statistics before us: the massive riggings just to get the power, the money politics played, the incompetencies in speeches and presentations made by the president-elect and the age/health toil that visibly shows that the man doesn’t need a tasking job but rest.

Caleb Ndukwe — Student/Cloud Engineer

First off, we are still expecting dramas to unfold before 29th, but either ways, whatsoever be the outcome, the basic thing is that whatever we are fighting for is for a better Nigeria and we are expecting a better Nigeria from president elect; Bola Asiwaju Tinubu. We are not looking for people whose goal is to feast on the resources of Nigeria, we are looking for leaders who we can hold accountable, that is the kind of administrative government we are looking for.

We don’t want an administrative government filled with people who have workable theories without actual practice, we are looking for an administrative system that is working. What we have these days are politicians with sweet talks and good manifestos but none of them are workable, we need an administration that can be different in a positive way in comparison to the former administration. Security, good governance, education, that is what we are looking for.

…we are expecting a better Nigeria from president elect; Bola Asiwaju Tinubu

Caleb Nnodim – Electrical Technician/Activist

I feel bad about Tinubu’s coming to power, I feel betrayed because the process by which he was declared winner is actually faulty, it is faulty and obviously so, seeing that this is the first time in my life that I decided to vote in an election. I was so motivated that I had to motivate others in getting their PVC because INEC and Buhari had assured us that it’s going to be a free and fair election, even though we know that most times they don’t fulfill their promises.

The ideology of BVAS, IREV and electronic transmission since it came into light , gave me and many others hope as we believed that once you vote and it is counted it will be sent automatically and you’ll see the result in real time. Many people tried to dissuade me by saying that it’s all a scam and I refused to believe it due to the availability of IREV, electronic transmission and BVAS, I felt it was going to be a different ball game altogether. After the elections seeing all of the things that were being done, intimidation, thuggery – in my polling unit, a fight broke out and I had to intervene, there was also snatching of ballot boxes before counting, distorting of result sheets, not uploading the presidential result, they uploaded house of representatives and Senate but they won’t upload the presidential result and so on and it was very disheartening.

I’m still one of the people that says Tinubu is not the president-elect, he is INEC’s- elect, I don’t believe he is president elect, that is how I feel about it. If this thing just goes on like this they should forget having the young ones interfering in elections, like myself, I don’t know how I will be able to convince people that will get it right next time because it’s a show of shame, not just to us, but also to the world community.

The May 29th date pains me the more because with all of the sad happenings during the election, I think the court should be able to sit before May 29th to address the issue before the swearing in. How will you swear-in someone with a questionable character and the process of his coming to power is being questioned and you go ahead to inaugurate him. May 29th Inauguration should not hold, there should not be any inauguration until a court has ruled that. It’s simple, 25 percent in Abuja is it compulsory? Yes, it is, as stated in the constitution.

Now, you want to go ahead with May 29th when the constitution says you must get 2 third state in the federation and FCT, that is 25 states, you didn’t get FCT and automatically you are not qualified to be announce as the winner. We also have issues of fake scores and results, in some places where election didn’t hold they declared that they won those places. Nigeria should not just go ahead to inaugurate Tinubu.

I’m not really expecting anything from his administration because with the process with which he earned power you will know that his administration will fail woefully, I am not expecting anything good. What I’m actually expecting is that thuggery will expand to federal level, the rule of law will be crippled completely as anybody can do whatever they want, you just have to either serve Tinubu or you will be on the bad side of the government. It obvious that in the elections they rode on ethnicity and religion, imagine a Muslim Muslim ticket despite the killings of christians, imagine that the current vice president is a Christian and the killings are this much, how much more Muslim Muslim ticket, who will speak for the christians?

If Tinubu finally succeeds it is going to be the end of Nigeria but I hope these don’t come to pass, democracy has died automatically once Tinubu is being inaugurated on may 29th because it is unconstitutional. What is the difference between now and the military regime where by any body can just use power weapons to fight and war to get what they want? Now they use money to buy the institutions in Nigeria. So, I am expecting nothing good from Tinubu’s administration if he succeeds.

Tinubu is not the president-elect, he is INEC’s- elect…

Idris Arowopatira

I feel nothing. In Buhari’s administration we expected more and we saw less. In my view, you people should expect less and see more.

Ikechukwu Victor

For me, the whole process was not transparent, so I don’t feel like Sen. Bola Asiwaju Tinubu should be pronounced a president-elect considering the fact that following the constitution he did not meet up with most of the criteria and on the election day there were a lot of cases of thuggery, ballot snatching, changing of figures that were coming up from every part of the country.

So, the INEC chairman and the electoral commission shouldn’t have been in a hurry to announce the presidential elect. So, it wasn’t a very good one and it doesn’t project the mind of the people because 2023 election was a do or die affair for most Nigerians, most Nigerians were bent on getting it right, because we know that if we don’t get it right it’s going to take a whole lot of years, probably 8 years and we aren’t certain of what would happen even after 8 years.

So, Nigeria’s youth really came out for this year’s election but it’s so sad how everything turned out. Someone was imposed on us.

As regards the May 29th election. For now, I don’t see the possibility of the inauguration holding and it can also hold. From the perspective of the Inauguration holding we know that there is a case in the tribunal where the Labour party and PDP are clamouring for the cancellation of result and rescheduling of the election or even disqualifying the People’s democratic party and changing the INEC chairman.

All these allegations coming up should be something that the court or even the electoral body should look into and try to check if the court can come up with a good verdict before we can now inaugurate him, going ahead to inaugurate him knowing that the cases in court are delicate and they have been proven with fact and figures, especially those relating to his drug affairs would be an act of injustice.

So, for now, I feel the inauguration might not hold, that’s if our electoral body decides to be very sensible and allow the rule of law to prevail, but in a case where they don’t even mind then the Inauguration can just go ahead, what you’ll just expect that day is that there is going to be a lot of security and probably it won’t hold and nothing will happen, you know this is Nigeria.

From records, Tinubu was a former governor of Lagos and we have seen how Lagos state has been booming, you know godfatherism has played a role in Lagos election and administration from Fashola to Ambode down to Sanwo-Olu, you know that these men are more like his men and they have been doing well in their own capacity. So, judging from his past leadership, I feel he is going to do a very nice job, that’s when he is allowed to do his job, not in the case, just like what we have in Nigeria today where the presidency is such that a group of people are just the ones controlling the government, and the president is not necessarily doing anything.

So, if Tinubu happens to be the one occupying the office, then I believe he is going to do a very nice job especially when it has to do with infrastructure, not necessarily education, because we can not say we experienced a massive growth in education when he was in office. I can say if it has to do with infrastructure, the manufacturing sector, entrepreneurship he is really going to do well in those aspect and I feel he’s not going to be one who will promote tribalism because during his time as the governor of Lagos I don’t think I’ve seen any record where tribalism was at it’s peak like what we are experiencing today. Though, we know that what we are experiencing now is for electoral purpose, but when he was there, there was no record, even if they were, I think it was the barest minimum.

So, I think he is going to do a very nice job, but that’s if he is allowed to do his job as a president and not being a ghost whereby some men whom paradventure believe they are the ones that put him in power or the ones that aided the process.

Still concerning the administration of Tinubu, he is over 70 years now and we cannot really speak on his life expectancy. Nigeria’s life expectancy for men is 47-49 years if I’m not mistaken. Considering this, I don’t feel like he is definitely going to survive this 8 years and you know what happens if that occurs; obviously, his vice president is going to occupy the position and you know who the vice president is and the position he occupies in the country, if anything should remove the man out of that seat, it’s going to be a roller coaster experience for Nigerians, considering his vice-president’s administration in Borno state, where he was silent most times when it had to do with terrorism and other issues, so it’s going to be a bad experience.

I feel religion is definitely going to play a very big role in his administration because Nigerians are obviously going to be divided in that aspect, unless they can look for a possible means to curtail it, if not it is going to play a drastic role in the administration because there is every possibility that the Senate president and even the Speaker of the House of Representatives is still going to be a Muslim, it will give an upper hand to a set of people who might at the end exploit the opportunity making others feel less of themselves, you know how religion played a very big role in the election, that’s how it is going to be in his administration unless he has strategies to curtail it, religion has really divided Nigeria now, but this divide is going to be more and more bigger in his administration.

Bassey Daniels — Screenwriter and Social Media Manager

If it’s another APC government which it is, I’ll just go back to being indifferent. I think it saves you the emotional trauma and stress which is the only thing an APC government has the ability to offer. I mean, look at the last 7+ years and then we are having a Tinubu to continue where Buhari stopped?

I have no hope whatsoever for this government. If I have any hope, it’s in God that he’ll come through for me and mine. It doesn’t sound patriotic but APC hasn’t given us anything to be patriotic about.