Odita Sunday 
To the APC officials and advisers surrounding President Bola Ahmed Tinubu: do you understand the weight of the suffering that your principal must address whenever he stands before Nigerians?
A presidential campaign speech is an obligation to explain, to account and to persuade. Behind every camera are people searching for a reason to believe that their lives can become better.
Yet, after listening to that speech, one question remained painfully unanswered: Mr President, why should Nigerians give you another four years?
What would those years deliver? What would you do differently? What mistakes have you recognised? What measurable improvement should a struggling family expect?
These are questions a president seeking another mandate should be prepared to answer.
Instead, in my assessment, Nigerians heard a disjointed presentation that offered little reassurance to people already carrying an unbearable burden. There was no compelling account of achievement, no convincing acknowledgement of failure and no clear promise around which a wounded nation could gather.
Where were the speechwriters? Where were the policy advisers? Where were those whose responsibility is to ensure that the President speaks with clarity, preparation and purpose?
Or was sound advice offered and rejected?
Nigerians deserve to know, because the failure was larger than an underwhelming speech. It suggested a troubling distance between those seeking power and the people whose consent gives that power legitimacy.
Does the campaign believe Nigerians are so easily dismissed that anything said from a decorated podium will be sufficient? Does it mistake exhaustion for stupidity, silence for approval and the struggle to survive for an inability to think?
Or is there some other calculation behind this apparent indifference to persuasion—a belief that the President must return, regardless of whether citizens are convinced?
I make no allegation of a hidden scheme. But when a campaign fails to make a serious case for another mandate, it leaves a dangerous question unanswered: how much does it believe the voter’s judgment matters?
Mr President, travel by road from Benin City to Asaba. Experience that journey with attention to what ordinary travellers endure. Look beyond the ceremonial reception and listen to the people along the way: the driver calculating whether the day’s earnings will cover his costs, the trader watching transport expenses consume her profit, the parent postponing another essential purchase.
Then sit with parents whose children have been kidnapped.
Ask a mother how she sleeps when she does not know where her child is. Ask a father what it means to answer an unfamiliar telephone number with trembling hands, praying for news and fearing a ransom demand.
Let them speak without interruption. Let their grief occupy the room.
What does another campaign promise mean to a parent who wants only to hear a missing child call, “Mummy, I am coming home”?
These Nigerians need to know that their President understands what is happening to them and has a credible plan to respond.
Declaring that subsidy is gone forever does not explain how a hungry household will eat tonight. Blaming opponents does not discharge the responsibility of the government in office. If reforms were necessary, account for their proceeds. If sacrifices were demanded, show the public what those sacrifices have achieved.
The APC must present a clear manifesto, with commitments Nigerians can examine and results against which they can judge performance.
Another four years belongs to the electorate to grant. It must be earned through an honest account of the past and a convincing proposal for the future.
Mr President, before asking Nigerians to renew your mandate, give them reason to believe that you understand the lives they are living.
Tell the hungry what will change. Tell the frightened how they will be protected. Tell the grieving why they should still have hope.
Then explain why another four years under your leadership deserves their vote.
Chris Okobah PhD
Award winning author.
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