By Ikeddy ISIGUZO

THE buzz about a coalition that would breathe life into Nigeria, no matter how small, has collapsed into the African Democratic Party, ADC, a testimony to how mired we are in the past.

We are in a present worse than our past, even if we decide to count from as recently as 2015 when the All Progressives Congress, APC, lied its way to power with credentials and non-credentials that have thrown Nigeria into circumstances that appear irredeemable.

APC denuded Nigeria, deluded Nigerians, and left the country in a state where law and order no longer have meaning, rather where justice is brazenly ignored, yet it is still delivered with sardonic elegance, to mock us in line with their shouts of ?go to court? after their illegalities.

See how complicated APC has made Nigeria. We have a President who everything about him is cloudy ? name, education, age, parentage, what he did or didn?t do in Chicago. His supporters are digging in, promoting these infamies, and reminding Nigerians that there is no opposition to Tinubu in 2027.

Mere mortals speak like the Almighty. They speak as if they control the next moment. They are cocksure about their chances. This time they may not bother with the voters.

It did not start with Tinubu though Tinubu and company laid the foundations that brought Muhammadu Buhari to power telling all types of stories including the one about an ordinary secondary school certificate that Katsina State Ministry of Education, issued a modern result with Buhari?s modern picture. Please note that Katsina State which was created 26 years after Buhari left secondary school issued that result. West African Examinations Council, WAEC, after hesitations over Buhari?s candidacy its examinations, brought a certificate to him. The celebration at the presidential villa that day was as if all Nigeria?s problems had been solved.

Even when Buhari removed Justice Walter Samuel Nkanu Onnoghen as Chief Justice of Nigeria without following constitutional routes, his supporters applauded him. The Supreme Court belatedly confirmed that Onnoghen?s removal was illegal.

Buhari was the law. Tinubu stepped in with similar attitude of conquering the country, treating the law as he pleases.

Nigerians abused, lied to, held spell-bound by promises that if a fraction was fulfilled, would have changed the country, have sought help, in the past 15 years to retrieve the country but the wrong champions often stepped up whether as politicians, judges, journalists to change Nigeria.

Where there are changes, they have been in intentional re-directing of the flow of the nation?s resources to private pockets and purposes.

The media falls from one incredible mis-step to the other. It is now most notorious for missing moments or messing them up entirely. In keeping with the new role of making the horrendous times more miserable, the leadership Nigeria Union Journalism, NUJ, rolled its 70th into an ignoble affair with the Lifetime Achievement Award on Media Empowerment to former Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello whose regime was known for maltreating journalists. What did Bello do for NUJ? It has emerged that he impacted journalism, according to NUJ, by prioritising the welfare of journalists in Kogi State and organising training for them. These were the most profound things anyone did for NUJ in 70 years.

Bello, a suspect in alleged corruption cases, has a running legal battle with EFCC. He is just a suspect, another explanation for Tinubu congratulating Bello on his 50th birthday.

Terrorism continues. The attacks and killings in different parts of the country have abated or the reported cases have decreased.

Prices of food, medical services, education, keep soaring. Those who benefit from the mess parade rosy statistics that stand taller than the poverty in the land. The people?s patience is running out, and the people are availably exploitable.

ADC lands in the midst of the confused directions. The promoters wear garbs of the new saviours.

They are well-known to us. Their propaganda, outright lies, and threats to make Nigeria ungovernable in 2015 are still loud and clear, years after running campaigns to grab power. They had no qualms.

What did they do for Nigerians in the last 10 years except to worsen situations? What are they still talking about except power, never the people.

Their eyes are on who becomes President in 2027. Nothing more. It is the same parochial programme that purposes power over people. They, like APC, place grabbing power over everything.

Has it occurred to ADC that the most urgent assignment today is to retrieve whatever is left of our country? What are these principalities doing in their various parts of the country to?ensure that there would be a country left in 2027?

Are they inter?sted in measures that will stopping the attacks and killings in different parts of Nigeria? Are they still looking at challenges of Nigeria in terms of the North and South?

One look at the promoters as they line up for photos, with their smiles, show prominent individuals who led Nigerians through the torments of the last 10 years. They are no apologetic. There are no hints that they understand how badly their self ambitions hurt Nigerians.

They are on the march again to be President, Vice-President and the like while other Nigerians keep suffering. If they were steadfast, if they had conviction that power was for the benefit of Nigerians, we would not have ended up with a devious past that remains our present.

The damage of 2015 was too deep. There has been no successful rescue mission. The people we need in 2027 are believers in a new Nigeria where ?no man is oppressed?, a Nigeria founded on ?justice?? which implicates ?the security and welfare of the people?? as ?the primary purpose of government?.

Neither APC nor ADC fits that frame today. Let the searches continue.

Finally?

NYESOM Wike, Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), will easily fill the dance step gaps that the departure of Rotimi Amaechi and Nasir el-Nasir from the All Progressives Congress (APC) will cause. A dancing trio that included Adam Oshiomhole was the biggest promise an APC rally held. The more sight part of that programme is when el-Rufai and Oshiomhole, tall as they are, bending so low that only their brooms are visible. Wike has been adding new steps to his repository. An advisory for APC ? Wike only dances to beats from his personal band once Port Harcourt-based but now resident in Abuja to match the demanding schedules of Wike?s office.

ABUJA needs Tinubu?s attention when he returns from his very successful cultural trip to St. Lucia. You will hear more about St. Lucia whose students Tinubu has promised scholarships in Nigeria, though Abuja?s primary school students have been sitting at home since February 2025 when their teachers started a strike over unpaid wage. Gilbert Chagoury, the one you know, has a huge influence on St. Lucia. He is the island?s Ambassador to the Holy See (Vatican) and UNESCO where Chagoury led the campaign that won St. Lucia the presidency of the UNESCO Executive Board from 2023-2025.

?Isiguzo is a major commentator on minor issues.

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