Your Excellency,

I sincerely do believe that I should start with introducing myself. If you Google or ask Artificial Intelligence, Sir, either will unearth at least 100 personal articles with the above byline written about you from 2018 till date. Of course, all positive!

In 2015, you were not on the ballot and I did not trust Muhammadu Buhari. So, though I personally believed it should have been a Northern president, I reluctantly pitched tent with incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan. Simply because of that singular act of signing the death sentences and subsequent public executions of Batholomew Azubike Owoh, 26 years, Lawal Akanni Ojuolape, 30 and Bernard Ogedengbe, 29 under the extreme punitive measures of Decree 20, I was convinced Buhari had no human face to be a democratic president of Nigeria.

Decree 20, enacted in 1984, imposed death penalty for drug trafficking offenses. But the enactment of the Decree, to me, was not the issue. The issue, rather, was applying it retroactively in the cases of those three innocent souls. Yes, ‘innocent’ because drug trafficking offenses in Nigeria, prior to Buhari’s coming as head of state, legally attracted sentences of just a couple of years in jail, but in practice, most of such offenders got discharged after few weeks in police detention.

As much as I detested and still detest any criminal act, one wondered if Buhari would have executed those three if any bore a Fulani or Muslim name. It was a clear red flag that this former general, as highly as he was rated in the North, did not deserve to be a democratically elected president of a secular and multi-ethnic entity like Nigeria. Besides, I consider whoever wore the khaki uniform as a trained soldier not appropriate to be considered for civilian rule. I wondered why the North should settle for the same man, and I followed my conscience by rejecting him. Ultimately, I was proved right.

Subsequently, the education from my boss, Engr. Ernest Ndukwe, who clearly outlined your personality and strides as the vice president under President Olusegun Obasanjo, I started wondering why the North did not present you to the nation in 2015. Your role in appointing Ndukwe to lead the Nigeria Communications Commission, NCC as Executive Vice Chairman ushered in the most progressive achievement of the Obasanjo era – GSM. While serving as the Director of Media under Chris McCool Nwosu, the Director General of Ernest Ndukwe Anambra South (2015) Senatorial Campaign Organisation, ENCO, I learned from the former NCC boss how professional, dedicated to the cause and detribalised you were and I completely trusted you to lead a nation in dire need of nationalists.

It was, therefore, not out of character for someone like me to start writing articles, calling for your presidency by early 2018, even before you declared interest to run. I strongly believe that one of the curses this nation encountered in her chequered history was getting Buhari as an elected president when a personality like you comes from the same tribe and region.

It was based on my consistent articles that attracted the Anambra State chapter of Turaki Vanguard to approach me to lead its media team as director. Working pro bono, I assembled a crack team of 15 very reliable hands to swarm the social media spaces with calls for HE Atiku Abubakar to replace his tribesman, Buhari, who was fragmenting Nigeria into rubbles of insecurity, poverty, infrastructural decay, educational backwardness and all negative slopes, including ethnic and religious bigotry to extreme levels.

I still hold, in very high esteem, those 15 Trojans, who virtually owned the eastern hemisphere-controlled blue App, working 24/7 without any iota of remuneration, to have you as Nigeria’s president in 2019, even if it meant your stretching Northern presidential tenure beyond the mandatory eight years.

To our utmost joy, we felt sense of accomplishment when you won the most transparent Convention of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP held in Port Harcourt. Our joy quadrupled when you picked Mr. Peter Obi as your running mate. Never mind sentiments, picking the man we fondly refer to as PO remains your smartest political move till date.

The former governor of Anambra State had and still has his enemies, who are more in the elite cadre, but the voting masses far overpower those enemies of real progress.

By that time, those of us, who benefitted from his eight glorious years as governor of Anambra State, christened Obi’s unprecedented leadership style as “Obimetrics”. At this juncture, we went overdrive. We regrouped, upgraded the name to Atiku/Obi Vanguard and went to work. I went further to name the media team, G-34. Still pro bono, we captured the internet that despite All Progressives Congress, APC well-oiled propaganda machinery, the prospects of Atiku/Obi presidency presented a clear project of hope. Come to voting proper and the Nigerian masses delivered. But the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC under Professor Attahiru Jega had other ideas.

Briefly, the G-34 was designed to accommodate only 34 media personnel, carefully inducted within the Southeast hemisphere, but volunteers continued bombarding my inbox that I was forced to expand to nearly 50 great minds, all happy to sacrifice for a new Nigeria. It was my most challenging moment, trying to control such multiple group of writers with each person willing to drop an article every twenty-four hours. Managing that proved to me how Nigerians could spring to life if they got the desired leadership. Once more, I continue to doff my hat for those wonderful individuals who sacrificed a lot and worked with me, and more, without pay.

Jega’s INEC claimed they had not used a server, abandoned the real result and declared Buhari winner. I was taken aback because if there was one election I anticipated would not be rigged in Nigeria, it was the 2019 presidential election. I hoped that in an election between two Northern Fulani candidates, that a Fulani-led INEC would have honestly declared the actual results. But not Jega!

You promptly and rightly went to court. It turned out sort of a new beginning for me. From my base in Awka, Anambra State to the Appeal Court venue of the 2019 Presidential Election Petition Tribunal in Abuja was quite a distance. But I made up my mind to attend every session. It was hugely financially challenging, especially having come out from a long election process where one worked pro bono.

Coincidentally, the pre-hearing session began on June 10, my birthday. From that day, I attended every session, reporting as professionally as I could. With the assistance of my great friend and ally in the struggle, Mazi Dickson Iroegbu, who knew Abuja like the back of his hand, I seamlessly integrated. Like me, he was equally at every session.

I bore all my transport, feeding and accommodation fees for good of the nation. Till date, many thought you were bankrolling me or that PO was doing the bankrolling. You know you never did and I can ask you to go and verify that PO neither did. It was all a sacrifice to behold a real Nigeria that never has been.

Significantly, and more importantly, PO was equally at every session. And I must add that I was disappointed that you never made, even a single appearance, in court. I was told it did not matter. Buhari too, never appeared. The day it was expected of him to appear to answer to the certificate saga, he sent the late Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari.

Despite my huge financial involvement, I learnt lessons of many lifetimes. From Dr. Livy Uzoukwu, who led your legal team to Wole Olanipekun, who led Buhari’s, through Yunus Ustaz Usman, who led INEC’s and Lateef Fagbemi, who led APC’s – all Senior Advocates of Nigeria, SAN, it was a series of drama sessions dwelling on the radically absurd, through intricately hilarious to viciously taut exchanges. It all bothered basically on Nigeria’s power play at the very top echelon.

I tried to unravel what made Olanipekun tick at close quarters. In the end, I literally fell in love with Uzoukwu, your lead counsel, who I ended up nicknaming ‘the cobra’, based on the way he handled cross-examination of witnesses. The way he nailed the opposition witnesses, including embarrassing Kyari, who went all the way to Cambridge to dig up Buhari’s certificate only to return with what Uzoukwu effectively proved a forgery in court, left me with no choice of naming him the most dangerous of species of snakes within our horizon. And it was by no means an overstatement, as both the APC and INEC legal teams swiftly stopped presenting further witnesses to save themselves from being stripped naked by Uzoukwu’s venomous strikes.

Talk of humour, we had plenty. But more was to come!

In a country where a certain former senate president with surname Enwerem, lost his seat simply because of the mix up of the first name, Evans and Evan…the PEPT ignored the clear sign of Kyari’s obvious forgery where Muhammadu was replaced with Mohamed as Buhari’s first name.

With other bizarre decisions, the Justice Mohammed Garba-led five-man panel threw out your petition on September 11, 2019.

Garba led Justice Abdul Aboki (Court of Appeal, Abuja), Justice Joseph Ikyegh (Court of Appeal, Benin), Justice Samuel Oseji (Court of Appeal, Lagos) and Justice Peter Olabisi-Ige (Court of Appeal, Abuja) to unanimously declare that Buhari won the election. The long read of mostly legal jargons, which lasted for about 90 minutes, was laced mostly with technicalities.

While I reported daily for the near 180-day duration of the court processes, the G-34 shared widely. In fact, my reports then was being shared over 2000 times on Facebook within hours of coming every day. Another pointer that Nigerians eagerly await a new beginning.

Forty-nine days later, on October 30, 2019, Chief Justice Ibrahim Tanko Muhammad led other six Supreme Court justices to dismiss your appeal and the whole labourious process got archived in history.

Talk of sacrifices, I will not forget to add how a close friend, an agent of the DSS, assisted in instructing me on how to stay safe all through the court processes, especially in constantly changing hotels and rooms to avoid unexpected harm, which was not beyond the long arm of the cabal one was up against.

I have gone this far to underscore to you, Sir, that the man writing this clearly understands the meaning of the subject, SACRIFICE.

Now, to your running mate in that exercise, Mr. Peter Obi… His own level of sacrifices, if listed, could stretch as long as the River Niger. In loyalty, dedication, campaign strategy, campaign speeches, unprecedented energy and drive to convince all Nigerians, irrespective of ethnicity, religion and gender, he overwhelmed.

Facing a very high intellectual being in former Vice President Professor Yemi Osinbajo, PO succeeded in making the man stutter. PO’s bedmate with facts, figures and practical approach to marshaling out solutions to our myriad of problems seamlessly won him the Vice Presidential Candidates’ debate. It ended up the turning point of the whole campaign since your brother, the incumbent president, chickened out to face you in the Presidential Candidates’ debate for obvious reasons.

The former governor of Anambra State still took his energy and resilience to court and never skipped a second all through, never was late to any session. On the day of the ruling, I looked steadily at him after the unanimous verdict. What I saw beyond the transparent pair of glasses was not defeat. I saw determination!

The rest, they say, is history. But that history will not be complete if I do not state quite categorically that PO paid his dues in full and even beyond in sacrifices to ensure your emergence as the president of our dear country.

Four years later…

Time never stands still. Pushed by the seconds, minutes, and hours, the days in turn push weeks and months into years. Sometimes, they come so swiftly, like in this case. The year 2019 quickly transformed into 2022, and soon, another presidential election process stared our great nation in the face.

If only our politicians knew that four, or even eight years, is a short time in a political cycle, perhaps they would have better respected zoning arrangements. But many, including yourself, Sir—on the one major count I personally hold against you—appear to act as if they may not live long enough to wait their turn.

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, which pioneered zoning since 1999, was expected to zone its 2023 presidential ticket to the Southeast, but failed to do so. As a formidable leader within the party, you instead supported the decision to raise a committee to “determine” the path forward. That committee ultimately jettisoned zoning and threw the primaries open to all zones—a move that, in my view, cost your party a historic opportunity to reclaim the presidency it had lost eight years earlier to arrogance and miscalculations.

By not withdrawing from the 2023 presidential race, you missed a rare opportunity to become a national hero. Perhaps the word sacrifice did not fully resonate with you. In a decision that shocked me to my core, you found it morally justifiable for Nigeria, a richly diverse nation in ethnicity and religion, to move directly from one Fulani president, who served for eight years, to another Fulani for the same tenure.

This, despite the fact that back in 2015, you led five Northern PDP governors into the All Progressives Congress (APC), citing the PDP’s disregard for zoning as your key grievance. That pivotal move led to the loss of the presidency by then-incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan.

In 2023, when you had a chance to mirror your 2015 decision, you chose not to. That refusal, I believe, gave rise to a character like Nyesom Wike—who, long sharpening his claws, tore the party apart from within.

Meanwhile, Mr. Peter Obi, your running mate in 2019, decided to go solo. You already know Obi is not only an exciting political character, but also one born of deep principles. He is the kind of man who will do the right thing even in the deepest darkness where no one is watching. Aware that it was the Southeast’s turn, by the PDP’s zoning tradition, he declared his interest to run under your party.

You saw what he represented. That alone should have alerted you not to take him lightly. Yet, Nigerian political shenanigans prevailed. You intensified your campaign, and he did the same.

Still, Obi, whom I have long described as coming far ahead of his generation, shocked even his own inner campaign team when, despite chartering flights to every Nigerian state capital, he refused to campaign in your home state of Adamawa, out of respect and loyalty, even as a rival. I will not delve into how you campaigned in his own state, Anambra, even capitalising on the pettiness of his governor to smear a man who calls you boss.

From nowhere, the OBIdient Movement sprang to life. In its first major statement of intent, it organized a peaceful demonstration urging the PDP to give them Peter Obi and effortlessly reclaim power. Many, including myself, prayed that you might see reason and rally behind your former “apprentice” for the good of the nation. But it was all in vain! The same old politics forced Obi out of the PDP and into a ‘then-obscure’ Labour Party.

Still, Obi maintained respect for you. Throughout the campaign season, he parried all provocations thrown his way, even from your closest allies. When you could not resist remarking that Northerners were not on social media to vote for Obi, he restrained his inner team from replying.

By then, I had trimmed the size of the G-34 to a 12-man media team christened the Peter Obi Express Media, POEM. But even without POEM, Obi had attracted an unprecedented organic movement, with new media and campaign structures springing up in staggering numbers.

Then history intervened again!

We came, we saw, we conquered. But the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), under Professor Mahmoud Yakubu, fared no better than its predecessor. It once more thwarted the will of the people by declaring Bola Ahmed Tinubu as president. The judiciary compounded the damage by affirming that declaration, even though the constitutional requirement of securing 25% of the votes in the Federal Capital Territory was unmet.

Fast-forward to 2025…

The clouds are gathering once more. As James Hadley Chase once said: “Come easy, go easy.” Tinubu, having snatched power, redefined ethnic bigotry and governance incompetence to alarming levels. Many now believe he only knew how to runaway with power, but definitely not what to do with it. Nigeria has never been this low across every facet of national life—insecurity, poverty, inflation, and hopelessness—in a nation so rich in both natural and human resources.

Yet, like the cries of monkeys in a jungle, the suffering of Nigerians seems to fall on deaf ears of the ruling cabal. Tinubu now intensifies his plot to secure a second term. Party defections among elected officials have become a daily spectacle. The state of emergency in Rivers State was followed by a gale of defections nationwide – like locusts swarming a grazing field.

Then came a moment of relief: you emerged as a loud voice, championing a coalition of political leaders to challenge the Tinubu-led APC. We remembered the decisive role you played in 2015. We hoped. But now, that hope teeters on the edge of despair.

Despair? Yes. Because whispers abound that your interest in the coalition is to emerge as its 2027 presidential candidate.

Let me repeat: I still believe you possess the qualifications—education, experience, pedigree, and national outlook—to lead Nigeria effectively. But as Shakespeare wrote: “There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.” In my carefully considered view, that tide is now—but the crest is not for you to run as presidential candidate in 2027.

Even Tinubu understood this basic law of political conquest in 2015 — SACRIFICE. He dropped his own ambition and stood behind the most electable candidate from the zone where power was due to rotate. Buhari became the beneficiary. The PDP lost power. Today, that same APC has turned Nigeria into a ghost town ravaged by poverty and insecurity.

Your Excellency, the iron is hot again. You must strike, but you must strike wisely!

There is more honour—far greater honour—in being a statesman at the right moment than becoming president at the wrong time. Opportunities never come just once. For the resilient, they come often. For truly great men, destiny revisits. Here then is another golden opportunity to become a national hero in the country you have always dreamed of leading.

You can lead Nigeria from Adamawa, with dignity.

All you need to do is step aside from presidential ambition. Embrace zoning like you did in 2015. Stand behind the Southern candidate in your coalition whom you believe is most electable. That alone would carve your name in gold across Nigerian history.

Personally, I believe any Southerner who succeeds Tinubu in 2027 must agree to serve only one term, as a further demonstration of zoning in practice.

And believe me, Sir, if it remains your ultimate ambition to become President, your act of statesmanship now will position you even more strongly for 2031. Nigerians will not forget!

Do I need to tell you who the one politician is that can defeat Tinubu in any free and fair election in 2027?

Do I need to remind you that he hails from the Southeast?

You know this man very well. You know his word is very bankable if he promises on a single term. If your brothers in the North are in doubt, you are the most qualified Nigerian to assure them of his competence, honesty, integrity and trust to deliver for a new Nigeria the Nigerian youths are yearning for. Or don’t you believe that exceedingly humble man has paid his dues in loyalty and uprightness?

You once promised ndi Igbo at a 2019 reception in Enugu, that you would do everything in your lifetime to see a president of Southeast extraction evolve. Ndi Igbo believed you. They voted overwhelmingly for you in 2019. But your tribesman denied you the presidency.

History is ever kind to honourable men. This is your moment to fulfill that promise.

Be a man of your word.

Yours faithfully,

Tai Emeka Obasi
Writing from New York.

I write you this public letter today, June 10, 2025 being exactly six years after I stepped feet, for the first time, into the Abuja Appeal Court for the pre-hearing session of your Presidential Election Petition Tribunal case versus Buhari.
How time flies!