By Uthman Shodipe-Dosunmu
In almost fervid and compelling campaign stomps, Bola Ahmed Tinubu has swept through the mangroves of Delta, the vast ringing plains of Kano, the desert of Adamawa, the limitless savanna of Yobe, the hills of Ondo, the town halls and the city centers of Abuja and Lagos.
And most importantly, Tinubu has marshaled his campaign in the comprehensive enlightened pen of an army of adherents in a devoted, hardened determination to get his presidential message across the huge Nigerian landscape in a battle enforced in totality.
In his strong and steadfast campaign, Tinubu, unlike his competitors, is clearly demonstrating the first principle of electoral victory: visibility.
Yes. Visibility. No one wins election from the conversational huddle of foreign isle or the quiet repose of the residential closet, where friends shout feigned hurrah in glib celebratorial orgies.
No. Elections are won in the direct intimacy of the crowd, in the passion of the candidate, amid the wild animation of the converted who henceforth throng out with great conviction to recruit more adherents into the fold.
For the candidate latched to the vision of ultimate triumph, he will commit himself in total physical and mental dedication. He will sacrifice his personal freedom, remove himself from all transient pleasures, deny himself the company of family and friends for the greater good of the nation he wishes to serve.
It is in this commitment that he gains respect and believability. It is in this crucial resolve that the candidate soars higher than all his competitors, eviscerating their presence, dwindling their relevance, relegating them into peripheral shadows.
This, in our view, is exactly the mirror image of the present presidential contest. While Tinubu is abused and traduced for many conjured physical trappings, while he is unjustly mocked, vilified in scathing vituperations, like former President Ronald Reagan, who was once dubbed with the Teflon coating, nothing sticks to the Jagaban Borgu.
He brushes off all vitriol with enigmatic indifference. He absorbs all sadistic in-temperament with unbelievable valor, dismissing the stings of scurrility with the heroic latitude of one whose mission is clear, whose vision is certain, whose goal is resolute, unperturbed.
The nay-sayers keep forgetting that calumny is no virtue. And that the recourse to grim desperation does not bear any fruit. They should emulate Tinubu in his passionate commitment to the presidential goal, in his sworn decisive armory to renew the Nigerian hope, to enhance our values and heal our broken places. All these he does in a genuine vigorous campaign mantra from state to state, like one preaching the gospel of the greater possibilities of the Nigerian Union.
To win is to be visible. To win is to reach out, to build structures and widen your support base to the furthest reaches of the electorate. No one else is doing this save Tinubu.
Pray, how do you beat such a man in this presidential contest, when you are locked up in peripheral outpost of relevance, junketing to foreign isle, mistaken the transient hurrah of the conjured mob for political strength?
How do you beat a man, who continues to widen the national network of allies with easy familiarity, embracing former foes without lurking prejudice, defining his salvaging message amid grueling campaign schedule, while forfeited men crawl in circles of hate and malice, conjuring innuendos as if it were a pathway to victory ?
It will never happen!
Victory resides in visibility, in hardwork, in passionate commitment to the greater good.
•Prince Shodipe-Dosunmu is the Director-General of The Patriots Roundtable, TPR.
