As some members of the coalition that sacked the Peoples Democratic Party-led administration in 2015 begin to mobilise against the ruling All Progressives Congress-led administration of President Bola Tinubu, claiming that the party they foisted on Nigerians has inflicted hunger on the people, calls on Nigerians to ponder over the wise counsel of the former governor of Bayelsa State, Senator Seriake Dickson

Former Bayelsa State governor, Senator Seriake Dickson, recently reminded members of the coalition now mobilising against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s re-election in 2027 that they are the same political actors who spearheaded the movement against former President Goodluck Jonathan, brought an end to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) era, yet failed to deliver on the promises they made to Nigerians.

Indeed, former President Muhammadu Buhari; President Tinubu; former Vice President Atiku Abubakar; former Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi; immediate-past governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai; former Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami; ex-Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola; and other opposition had formed an alliance that birthed the All Progressives Congress (APC), which sacked the PDP in 2015.

When the coalition visited former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s hilltop residence in Abeokuta, Ogun State, on December 21, 2013, it was Tinubu who told the former president that Nigeria, under Jonathan, was a sinking ship and urged Obasanjo to steer the ship to the right direction.

But under the APC-led administration of former President Buhari, which took over from Jonathan, hunger, human rights abuses, impunity, hardship, poverty, insecurity, particularly banditry, kidnapping and invasion of Nigerian communities and farmlands by foreign herdsmen, as well as other ills witnessed under Jonathan’s administration, worsened.

It is therefore surprising to many Nigerians, especially Tinubu’s supporters, that as the barely two-year-old Tinubu’s administration is grappling with the challenges created by Buhari’s eight years of misrule, Atiku, El-Rufai, Amaechi, Aregbesola, Malami, and others who were part of the pre-2015 faction and key actors in Buhari’s administration, are ferociously mobilising Nigerians against Tinubu in 2027.

Speaking at his recent 60th birthday event in Abuja, Amaechi, who left power only two years ago after nearly 24 uninterrupted years in power, complained of hunger.

“We’re all hungry – all of us are. If you’re not hungry, I am. For us, the opposition, if you want us to remove the man in power, we can remove him from this power,” he said.

However, Amaechi’s critics wonder why he did not complain of hunger between May 1999 and 2023, when he was the Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly for eight years, the governor of Rivers State for eight years and minister under Buhari’s administration for almost eight years until he resigned to contest for the APC presidential ticket in June 2022.

Atiku, speaking earlier at the event, had described himself, Amaechi, and El-Rufai as “conspirators.”

“You may call me a conspirator; you may call me anything, and that is why we are in this alliance to make sure we don’t allow them to continue weaponising poverty. Of course, one of our star conspirators is Rotimi Amaechi.

“We will continue to conspire with you to make sure we minimise poverty and we don’t use state machinery to weaponise poverty,” he said.

El-Rufai, whose state became a killing field under his watch as governor from 2015 to 2023, and who was a key ally of Buhari’s administration, which reduced Nigeria to the poverty capital of the world, also claimed that Nigeria is in its biggest trouble since 2014 under Tinubu’s two-year-old administration.

“Nigeria is in its biggest trouble since 1914. We are together working, conspiring to build a coalition to take Nigeria back on track because it is off track,” he reportedly said.

But in his wise counsel, Dickson, who also spoke at Amaechi’s birthday event, recalled that the past conspiracy by the same actors, which ended Jonathan’s administration in 2015 did not become the silver bullet as was promised.

Dickson expressed disappointment that after 11 years, the coalition spearheaded in 2015 by El-Rufai and others had failed to tackle the country’s challenges.

“When I came in here and climbed up here, I saw a lot of you. And as my brother (El-Rufai) said, there are a number of you who are expert conspirators, who know how to assemble coalitions and then take out governments, as you did to my party in 2015.

“And when you did so, particularly to a clueless government, so-called, now 11 years down the line, we thought that there would have been no weaponisation of poverty and that all the challenges of Nigeria would have been gone.

“And the only advice I can give, not being a professional coalition builder and conspirator as some of you are, is at this time, ‘shine your eyes.”

Dickson has good reasons to be worried as some of the principal actors in the present alliance also played significant roles under Buhari’s administration that reduced Nigeria to the poverty capital of the world, ruined the economy, promoted ethnic and religious bigotry, watched as Benue and Kaduna states became killing fields, inflicted insecurity on the rest of the country and left Nigerians divided along ethnic and religious lines more than ever before.

Under Buhari’s administration, a key faction member was in charge of a ministry that supervised the worst jailbreaks in Nigeria’s history.

The criminals that escaped from the various prisons nationwide under his watch contributed to the nationwide insecurity being blamed on Tinubu’s government.

Reacting to Amaechi’s “I’m hungry” comments, the Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike said the former Minister of Transportation was hungry for power and not for food.

Wike said: “We’ve time to listen to junks in Nigeria. I don’t know why a man (Amaechi) would choose his 60th birthday to tell lies to Nigerians that you’re hungry. 

“He was speaker in 1999-2007. He was a governor too from 2007 to 2015. He also became a minister from 2015-2023. He never spoke about hunger….,” Wike said.

The ruling APC has also accused Atiku, El-Rufai and Amaechi of “self-serving desperation” for power.

In a statement issued by APC’s National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, the party described the trio, who spoke at Amaechi’s 60th birthday lecture as “displaced rent-seekers” clinging to a bygone era of political and economic privilege.

“These three individuals have occupied Nigeria’s highest political offices between 1999 and 2023… In all 24 years, the trio, individually or collectively, could not and did not eradicate poverty in their states or the country,” the statement said.

“When Amaechi declared, ‘I am hungry,’ he must mean… he is hungry and desperate to return to his felt entitled dependency on state resources and patronage,” the party said.

With all the mudslinging, Nigerians should indeed shine their eyes about the choices they make in 2027, as Dickson has wisely advised.