By Musa Bakare
As Nigeria approaches the 2027 general election, the central issue will not be propaganda, lies or rhetoric but performance.
Nigerians contend that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration has chosen the difficult path of structural reform over the easy path of political convenience. They point to reforms in public finance, the foreign exchange system, infrastructure, agriculture, education, taxation, digital innovation, healthcare, and security as evidence of an administration seeking long term national renewal rather than short term applause.
Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu did not preserve the broken system upon assuming office as President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 2023; he is vigorously reforming it.
Statesmanship begins where political convenience ends. The tree that gives shade tomorrow must first survive today’s storm.
Across the country, some politicians depend more on incumbency, patronage, intimidation, bootlickers, and political thuggery than on measurable achievements.
When performance is weak, coercion often becomes a substitute for persuasion. But where governance inspires confidence, the people become the greatest campaign organization, not the attacks of critics and the opposition.
Roads become campaign posters, not propaganda. Schools become campaign offices, not lies. Hospitals become billboards, not eye service. Development becomes the loudest political advertisement, not rhetoric.
The Asiwaju Tinubu government’s confidence in its record leaves no need for touts, bootlickers, sycophants, or violence. It seeks votes, not victims; persuasion, not coercion.
The APC is fully aware that the ballot was created to measure public confidence, not public fear, and is working assiduously toward earning the confidence of Nigerians and their votes in 2027.
As 2027 draws nearer, Nigerians will compare promises with performance, rhetoric with results, and propaganda with reality.
Every governor, every Assembly member, and every elected official will ultimately stand before the impartial court of public opinion in the next general election where history not propaganda or intimidation delivers the final judgment.
All 36 state governors in particular must render to the last kobo what they did with the very huge funds President Tinubu has made available to them in the last three years, not just a whitewashed statement of account or be ignominiously booted out through the ballot boxes.
Nigerians believe President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration deserves a renewed mandate on the strength of its record come 2027 and are poised to vote massively for its reelection.
They argue that no political machinery or empty noise can permanently replace genuine public trust. Touts may occupy polling units for a day, but they cannot occupy the conscience of a nation.
Democracy rewards courage, vision and performance, not fear, not touts, and not bootlickers.
No doubt, performance remains President Tinubu’s strongest campaign in the run up to the 2027 presidential election.
– Musa Asiru Bakare, a Founding Member of APC and Political Analyst, writes from Lokoja, Kogi State.
