The word is STRATEGY. War and politics share a common territory. Strategy is to war as it is to politics. Strategy is the fountain from which both human endeavours thrive. Political struggle takes after the maneuverings of warfare. The art and craft are similar. In politics, you may not hear the thunders of tanks and rockets or the cracking power of gunfire; neither the seismic waves of bombs. But, you certainly must see and feel the disguised antics of strategy.
So when the gang-up of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Abia State try to play the presidency against Governor Alex Otti, they are obviously romancing with strategy. They are testing and deploying strategy. The aim is to breed bad blood, to create hatred, to damage relationships, to incite President Bola Tinubu against Otti. They are acting out the old aphorism: all is fair in war. In this case, all is fair in politics.
But, all strategies cannot work. All strategies do not succeed. This is the truth well-known to students of strategy. Any strategy not well thought out, not well defined, not well articulated and not well deployed is dead on arrival. Thus, this PDP/APC gang’s strategy of setting up President Tinubu against Otti is, ineffectually and, to say the least, dead on arrival. Take it to the bank and mark my lips: the Abia State opposition coalition cannot fan the embers of discord, cannot sow its dangerous and malicious seed between Aso Rock and Umuahia, the state capital. Otti is, ineffably, a good student of the history of power and well accustomed to its wily ways and its dynamics. The events of 2023 could have been an eye-opener on his reach and his widespread relationships.
Let me remind this mischievous planners that the governor enjoys a cordial working relationship with the President and has never any way, either by words, conduct or actions, acted in a way that denigrades the presidency. Otti has governed within his boundaries and with due respect to the powers of the President and the government at the centre. Even a neophyte in politics understands that the aim of those inflammatory statements and posts being circulated by these elements and purporting same to have proceeded from Otti are nothing but mischief; the aim being to pitch the President against the governor. President Tinubu, being a seasoned politician, also understands blackmail as a weapon of political warfare and cannot fall to such deceits.
Indeed, as Otti stands as the only sentinel of freedom and independence in the Southeast today (almost all the rest of the states having succumbed to the manipulating antics of the APC), he is obviously backed by the moral force of the people. His works are speaking for him. Abians are quite discerning and are witnesses to the difference between the former players and Otti. At the appointed time, it is the people that will speak. President Tinubu as a democrat will disappoint the gang of mischief makers and pitch his tent with the masses of Abia.
Then, the Army of coalition will wake up to the truth that some strategies are dead on arrival.
Adindu writes from Umuahia, the Abia State capital
