By Ikeddy ISIGUZO

Nigerian politics thrives on a moral deficit. Do you agree? So, why do you still agree that there are lines that must never be crossed? Why are you pained by the lies politicians heap on you on their way to power? They are at it again.

With nearly two years to the next elections, they have started unleashing their lies about their love for Nigeria. They are latest patriots to rescue Nigerians from the hardship that the same fellows imposed on the country with uncaring policies that saw all sides of Nigerian life decline to unimaged depths.

Is there any name they did not call Goodluck Jonathan? What story did they not tell about Nigeria collapsing unless they were allowed to assume control?

They are back to seek rehabilitation as they have lost their hold on power. They cannot live outside power.

Truth is not permitted here, is a line that fits with most politicians. In rare cases of momentary forgetfulness, semblance of truth seeps out to the annoyance of those who believe they have all tracks covered.

Ask today?s messiahs who have found shed in the African Democratic Congress, ADC, what suddenly made the All Progressives Congress, APC, unfit for their membership. Almost all those in ADC are haunted by the lies they told Nigerians in 2014. They need bigger lies to cover them. They told lies, they knew they were lies. They deceived gullible Nigerians into handing our country to power mongers.

Which of them is willing to admit his role in getting Nigeria to where we do not know? They join us in complaining about insecurity, hunger, hardship, poverty, that are roaming all over the land. Could that be their apology? Like in 2014 when they spewed lies everywhere for the 2015 elections, they have started much earlier this time.

Alhaji Abubakar Atiku propelled APC to prominence in 2015. He was leading to the podium for the party?s ticket when Muhammadu Buhari beat him to it. Atiku relocated to Dubai to count his losses, unavailable to provide critical leadership until he returned to contest in 2019 as presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, the same party he abandoned because Jonathan, a sitting president would not be cast aside for Atiku.

Has Atiku apologised to Nigerians for his part in Nigeria?s precipitous descent to harm? His obsession with being president leaves no room for Atiku to consider how his ambition has affected Nigeria since his on-and-off affiliations with PDP since 2007.

If ADC is to retrieve whatever is left of Nigeria, should Atiku be waiting to be asked to step down in 2027? He is already campaigning that delegates should decide ADC?s presidential candidate.

One of the arguments in 2015 was that the North needed to complete its eight years that Umaru Musa Yar?Adua?s death abbreviated. Does Atiku remember that? Is he the one to complete the 2027-31 four-year stretch for the South?

There is Nasir el-Rufai who cannot stand discussions that do not recognise the primacy of cattle over human beings or any security plans that include getting Fulani herders out of the forests and farmers. He supported and campaigned for Tinubu?s victory, our current plight. If Tinubu had appointed him a Minister, would he be in ADC?

Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi shredded the Governors Forum, he once led, to mark the exodus of PDP Governors to APC, some of those who remained in PDP were dangerous insiders. His expecta?Ion was that Buhari would have rewarded his loyalty in 2023 with the APC presidential ticket. He wants to save Nigerians from Tinubu?

And have you ever wondered what Peter Obi is doing in that crowd? Is he not seeing the signs that ADC is not the coalition to rescue Nigerian? Obi ran with Atiku in 2019 but Obi?s politics should be more elevated than this type of coalition.

There are others, but these are the most prominent figures in ADC. If you watch, they are consumed with who will be President. They have no document to bring our country back to relevance, save our people from rampaging terrorists in our forests, farms. Tinubu, in rare moments, gives every excuse for not tackling the criminals frontally.

When we think of voting Tinubu out in 2027, it is not to replace him with those whose selfishness sees them flinging the interest of Nigerians around for them to access power as they have done since 2015.

In 2019, like now, Tinubu?s government is insensitive, inattentive, uncaring, unprepared to attends to the daily challenges before Nigerians. Nigerians still voted APC because of the weight of the lies they were told by many of the APC messiahs.

Tinubu, his government, his officials are lethargic. They are short of blaming Nigerians for the state of the country. They could be right.

After eight years of Buhari blighted Nigeria in ways that left the country beyond recognition, Nigerians gleefully voted for a worse version of Buhari.

Tinubu is jittery, desperate and will do all he can to cling to power. His admirers say he is a strategist. His strategies leave Nigerians poorer, hungrier, more insecure, driving thousands abroad ? abroad now means any country but Nigeria ? at the slightest imagined opportunity.

A coalition of Nigerians who are passionate about the health of our country is required to lead Nigerians out of the current miasma. The present pretenders to that role would have to explain to Nigerians why the lies, hatred, bigotry, and propaganda that they procured in 2015 to sink a government that was by far better than anything that they have supported in the past 10 years.

Not apologising to Nigerians before assuming they are the new ideal is the sort of arrogance that should have no place in post-Tinubu Nigeria.

Finally?

WE heard what Vice President Kashim Shettima said about the fact, constitutional too, that the President cannot remove an elected Councillor not to talk of a Governor. We also understood what he meant. Those who understood that to mean that Bola Ahmed Tinubu was wrong to remove Governor Sim Fubara are also right. I have seen a rejoinder from State House which laboured to get people to re-learn, and un-learn how President Goodluck Jonathan did not remove Shettima, as Governor of Borno State in 2014 through state of emergency. Why is State House ever scared of history? Shettima?s remarks were at the presenation of ?OPL 245: The Inside Story of the $1.3 Billion Oil Block? by Mohammed Bello Adoke, SAN, which held at the Yar?Adua Centre, Abuja, on Thursday, 10 July 2025.

DONALD Trump, US President, is unaware of very basic things, among them, that Liberia, which was established as a colony for ex-slaves from the US, is an English-speaking country, hence his remark that the President of Liberia speaks ?good English?. Obviously, Trump reached his decision too quickly. He should have waited to hear Tinubu?s Chicagoan accent.

JAMB has spent years praising the efficiency of its systems. The fidelity of the systems is coming under another scrutiny in a matter of months. The highest scorer in JAMB?s just chaotically concluded exam is reportedly a Nigerian university undergraduate. How did he sit for JAMB which claims ?nobody can matriculate twice?? The best answer from JAMB is a speculation that he could be a mercenary who wrote the exam for another candidate.

?Isiguzo is a major commentator on minor issues.

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