HOW TINUBU FAILED GOVERNANCE GOT REPACKAGED AS IDENTITY WAR

By Great Imo Jonathan

In Nigeria’s democracy, debate should be about policy, performance, and the future. But in recent years, a pattern has emerged among APC voices and Tinubu supporters online and offline, they get complex national issues quickly reframed as “us versus them” ethnic battles.

It is not accidental, it is a Tinubu deliberate plan to distract people from things that matter. When governance fails to deliver visible results, jobs, stable power, affordable food, secure roads, APC political propagandists look for another script. Ethnic framing is the easiest one. It’s emotional, it’s familiar and it distracts. Immediately debate goes from policy to Identity. Instead of answering questions like “Why is inflation rising?” or “What’s the plan for power?” the conversation shifts to “they don’t like us” or “It’s our turn.” Criticism of policy gets labeled as hatred for a group, defense of policy gets sold as loyalty to a group.

That move diverts attention, as citizens stop asking for data, budgets and timelines. They start defending their “side”. It helps Tinubu failed and incompetent government of APC recruit for war. Once everything is ethnic, neutrality dies. You are either with “us” or against “us”. That’s how passive voters become foot soldiers in political fights they didn’t start.

APC rascals do this often because performance is hard to spin. Numbers don’t clap but identity does. If the economy is tough, the power grid is unstable and poverty is rising, it’s easier to rally people by saying “they want to take power from us” than to explain the policy failures.

This has become unique to APC or Tinubu supporters. After Feb 25, 2023 election, APC DEMONS quickly turned questions about INEC’s IReV portal and result collation into #LagosIsNoMansLand and #IgboMustGo campaign. They got policy questions about electoral law drowned with ethnic threats on X/Twitter and Facebook. And this was led by Tinubu spokesman Bayo Ononuga, a man who has consistently disgraced the media profession and undermined the unity of Nigeria. The Independent National Electoral Commission’s technical failures became a tribal war instead of an electoral reform debate. They followed it up in Lagos with demolitions, indigene versus settler discourse and began demolishing structures in Mende, Alaba and other areas populated by Igbos citing building codes and urban planning. So social media conversations shifted fast, APC and Tinubu-aligned accounts framed criticism of their actions as Igbo attacks on Lagos

But it did not end there. After May 29 subsidy removal, debates about palliatives, CNG buses and wage adjustments turned ethnic online. Criticism of the timing and implementation was met with replies like “You just hate Tinubu because he is Yoruba”. His supporters further reply to critics was “they never complained when Jonathan removed subsidy”. The policy question, economic impact and relief plan were never allowed to be discussed, because those shameless APC goons turned it into social media ethnic and identity war.

This is a dangerous pattern Tinubu led APC has introduced that will be costly for them in the future and unhealthy for Nigeria if we don’t stop them now. When everything becomes ethnic, accountability dies because you can’t audit a tribe and you can’t impeach an ethnicity. So they hide behind identity and escape questions about results.

This is also a danger to young Nigerians who should be collaborating on tech, farming, health and business but Tinubu got them sorted into camps before they even meet. Forgetting that problems like unemployment, insecurity, and inflation don’t have ethnic solutions. They have economic, technical and administrative ones. But ethnic wars don’t build bridges or cut inflation, they eventually destroy even those who use them as tools.

This is why we must insist on the the alternative if we hope to move forward as a nation. We must deny these shameless APC goons the opportunity to continue to drag us into their RENEWED HELL where lies and propaganda is the rule and not the exception. We must drag them always back to the issues and shame their ethnic bigotry without let. Nigerians already know the things that matter most, food prices, jobs, schools, hospitals, security, power and infrastructure. Those issues don’t ask for your surname before they bite.

So the antidote is simple but hard; we must always insist on issue-based politics. Ask for plans, not slogans, demand data and judge Tinubu by his promises and performance.

Peter Obi’s line about “purpose over acquisition” applies here too. Purpose is national, ethnic war is personal. And Nigeria is too big to be reduced to anyone’s private war. Bottom line for young Nigerians is not to let Tinubu failed government recruit you into an ethnic fight you didn’t start. If a politician can’t explain policy and resort to tribe reject him. When you hear they versus us, ask where are the numbers? Because the moment we all return to issues, the politics of distraction collapses.

Great Imo Jonathan