By Musa Bakare
There is an old lesson in politics: when a man cannot defeat his opponent at the ballot box, he attempts to destroy his character; when character attacks fail, he begins to search for procedural escape routes.
Politics is a contest of ideas, records, programmes and, ultimately, the will of the people. It should never become a desperate search for a procedural shortcut when the ballot box appears increasingly difficult to conquer.
As Nigeria moves towards the 2027 presidential election, the people are beginning to see the renewed attempt by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and his political allies to excavate decades old American records concerning President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as self defeating. Allegation must never be transformed into conviction, investigation into guilt, or civil forfeiture into criminal imprisonment.
There is no established criminal conviction against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, in the United States or Nigeria arising from the matters presently being circulated as evidence of criminality.
A civil forfeiture proceeding is not a criminal conviction.
An investigation is not a conviction.
An allegation is not a conviction.
A political campaign cannot manufacture a conviction simply by repeating the word often enough.
Indeed, recent legal analysis of the records describes the 1993 proceeding as an in rem civil forfeiture action, an action directed at property rather than a criminal prosecution resulting in a personal criminal sentence.
This is where Nigerians are seeing through the desperation of Atiku and are resisting political sensationalism.
The current U.S. proceeding being loudly advertised by Atiku Abubakar, Omoyele Sowore and others is a Freedom of Information Act dispute concerning access to government records.
Nobody, including Atiku Abubakar, Omoyele Sowore or anyone else, has the constitutional or moral authority to pronounce a citizen guilty merely because his name appears in an investigation or a government file.
Atiku Abubakar must tell Nigerians: why has so much political energy and so many financial resources been invested in an American paper trail from more than three decades ago instead of presenting Nigerians with a compelling alternative vision for solving Nigeria’s monumental problems?
Why should the 2027 presidential contest become a competition in archival excavation rather than a contest over the economy, security, infrastructure, jobs, education, healthcare and the future of the Nigerian state?
If Atiku believes he can defeat President Tinubu, let him defeat him at the ballot box. That is democracy.
But when political actors begin looking for every possible route to disqualify an opponent outside the direct contest of ideas and votes, Nigerians are entitled to ask whether the real problem is the opponent or the fear of facing him before the electorate.
President Tinubu did not become President through a social media poll.
He did not become President through an American newspaper.
He did not become President through the approval of Atiku Abubakar or Sowore.
He became President through the will of the people, through Nigeria’s constitutional electoral process, after an election whose outcome was challenged in court and ultimately upheld through the judicial process.
The same democratic system that gave Atiku the right to challenge the election also gives President Tinubu the right to defend himself.
And the same system gives Nigerians the final political authority through their votes.
The 2027 election must therefore not be turned into a courtroom manufactured by political propaganda.
Let Atiku calm himself. Nigeria is not America. Abuja is not Chicago. The Nigerian presidency is not won in Washington. It is won through the Nigerian democratic process.
The responsible position is neither to whitewash inconvenient facts nor to invent criminal convictions that the record does not establish.
Atiku Abubakar should know that political legitimacy ultimately comes from the people. The challenge before him is not to find a magical American document capable of doing at the ballot box what his political capacity cannot accomplish.
The challenge is to convince Nigerians.
Convince the North.
Convince the South.
Convince the youth.
Convince the workers.
Convince the people.
Convince the farmers.
Convince the students.
Convince the professionals.
Convince the millions of Nigerians who will stand behind the ballot box in 2027.
That is the battlefield.
Not Washington. Not Chicago. Not a lobbyist’s press conference. Not social media speculation. Certainly not an endlessly recycled 1993 narrative.
The 2027 election should therefore be a referendum on competing visions for Nigeria, not a desperate attempt to turn an old civil forfeiture proceeding into a criminal conviction by repetition.
Every Nigerian voter should be free to make a decision based on facts rather than manufactured panic.
No amount of political litigation, lobbying, archival excavation or sensational allegation can permanently substitute for the sovereign will of the Nigerian people.
No political actor should be permitted to manufacture a criminal conviction where the established judicial record does not contain one.
When the final votes are counted in 2027, every political shortcut will be measured against the only verdict that ultimately matters in a democracy: the verdict of the Nigerian people for the ultimate renewal of the mandate of their President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR.
– Musa Asiru Bakare, a member of TSG, writes from Lokoja, Kogi State.
