The PDP governors are queuing up to jump into the APC. They say their ship is sinking. They are singing and dancing and justifying their capitulation as nation-building. The PDP once thought it was the greatest party in Africa. These are trying times on all fronts. The conspiracy of the ruling class could be the final straw. 

Indeed the PDP had been infected by a debilitating human virus. I need not name the motormouthed  Nebuchadnezzar. The man who planted the moles who have been used to debilitate that party. But some of the governors weren’t motivated by imminent political homelessness, they were threatened to submission. Some others only had to see the juicy carrot of a no-contest reelection to reconsider their relationship with the dying PDP. Bakare said the destruction of the opposition was the deliberate handiwork of political bandits led by the president. Tinubu, many now say, is driving Nigeria down a one-party slope. Tinubu’s priority is political conquest.   For the discerning, the future is concerning. 

A one-party state is a literal civilian dictatorship. Nigeria’s eastern neighbour, Cameroon, has a certain geriatric called Paul Biya as president. He has been the leader of that poor country since time immemorial. After eliminating his opponents, he devised a strain of multiparty democracy with the ruling party as an indomitable lion and he, the owner of the lion.  He stages regular elections to justify his perpetual presidency.  Many of his critics are in jail. Most of the time, he is in a hotel in Geneva. Sometimes, for three-month stretches, he lives in Switzerland, ostensibly on work visits. That is where he says he finds the peace to work. Paul Biya lives in opulence, indolence and paranoia. And Cameroon, now cracking, has endured severe growth retardation. 

Nigeria needs to look at Tinubu and look critically across the border to the east and recoil.  These cavorting politicians waving flags of surrender with pomp and pageantry could be the first victims. The former presidents, governors, and ministers might think that the grass will bear the brunt. But Cameroon is a vivid cautionary tale. Paul Biya chased Ahidjo into exile. Then he eliminated most of the big men. That’s what authoritarianism breeds. Summoning the populace into Tinubu the Tinubu bandwagon might seem a smart move today. But inevitability, paranoia, and gossip will collaborate to pick out and liquidate the early victims from the uppermost echelon. History might be kinder to Paul Biya. He ascended the throne when autocracy was rife in Africa. What shall we say of Tinubu, the prodemocracy activist who came when democracy was the norm 

Bakare has described a total emasculation of the parliament by the deft imposition of enterprising and often comical lackeys. They raise songs of adulation to worship the president when he comes to the parliament. The parliament was once described as a rubber stamp. But It is now more servile and less passive. It has the same quality of obsequious servility, but it no longer waits to be used, to be called upon to render abject service. It marches around searching for new ways, including bending the rules and sabotaging the Constitution to prove its subservience to the president. 

Bakare didn’t dwell on the courts. Perhaps with the parliament in the president’s back pocket, the president is technically above the law. After all, he can very easily disregard the courts. The only body that can sanction him has sworn to serve him. The courts are a little fortunate. This president pretends to be a Democrat. So he perhaps spares the courts public humiliation. Rather than allow himself to disobey the law of the judges, he can make sure the judges understand his philosophy. So they work harmoniously. He has a certain man nicknamed POS Africa and a few others who have certified expertise for that liaison. This president may never have to disobey a court. The courts can be retrofitted and synchronized to fly at the same altitude as the executive. By the time the  judges realize the damage, by the time a one-party state arrives, the judges would have gone from  being judicial merchants to no more than errand boys at the temple of the chosen one 

Like Bakare reminded the lawmakers and governors, no man is good enough or wise enough to be entrusted with absolute power. One-party rule has brought prosperity to a few countries. But it hasn’t worked anywhere in Africa. It might require a sense of shared nationhood, which doesn’t exist in most countries created by white imperialists. The impetus to work hard to be validated by the electorate won’t exist. The electorate will become detached and accustomed to the grossness. In a fragile multi-ethnic Nigeria, sick with tribalism, a one-party state will ultimately lead to marginalization, disenchantment and disintegration. Tinubu should know that. But will  Babasopecracy, which is his preferred democratic model, allow him some room for sober reflection?  Tinubu is preoccupied with political conquests. Bakare says Tinubu has ordained opportunism as the political philosophy of the conniving ruling class. 

Bakare says Tinubu is playing God. Tinubu’s brazen nepotism, cronyism and tribalism could all be elements of the God complex. Being answerable to no one. We could actually have misunderstood omniscience and omnipotence and questioned his disregard for equity and fairness. The sinister plot to wreck the opposition, demolish dissent, and corral the masses into a single party in some form of political monotheism could all be mortal designs of a motor park chairman. But Tinubu ‘s tendency to order reforms he won’t be bound by, travel to France to work from there for weeks and suspend a governor on a whim all fit into the God psychology. 

Pastor Bakare was courageous. Other pastors have gone mute. They are praying and fasting for good governance. They do not want to use their anointed heads to collect a wasp. Many erstwhile crusaders of social justice, democracy and good governance have lost their voices. Pastor Bakare was incisive. He didn’t powder the boil. And he didn’t just lacerate Tinubu and his friends; he pointed them to the path of redemption. Bakare asked Tinubu to think like the biblical Joseph, who planned an economy for good and bad days for the benefit of the people, transforming Egypt into a booming and resilient nation. 

Bakare wants  Tinubu to have a compelling vision which he can sell to all Nigerians to restore hope. He wants Tinubu to lead by personal examples. He wants Tinubu to discard hubris, embrace humility, and pursue reconciliation and national unity. He wants Tinubu to overhaul his team and find Joseph-type leaders to replace the hyenas in his cabinet. Bakare, like a good pastor, left many prescriptions. But he was emphatic that without a change of attitude to promote social justice, moral politics and good governance, Tinubu may become a god but his kingdom shall not endure.