Thread by @Chxta

This election is increasingly shaping up to be between an Atiku, pro-business and small government, on one hand, and Buhari, hostile to business, pro-big-government on the other hand.

It is also a referendum on the incumbent, Buhari. No matter how his acolytes try to spin it.

For a brief moment, let's talk about Buhari's acolytes and how most are coming out as statist and hostile to business, of course taking their cue from their leader, and herein lies one of the things that bothers me.

In the past, many of these same people were pro-business.

When you look at the APC's manifesto from 2015, while there were a lot of socialist platitudes inside, the core of it, at least the segment done by the ACN wing of the APC, had a pro-business bent to it.

So how did people who were pro-business suddenly make a 180 degree turn?

This is because almost all the power in #Nigeria is actually vested in the person of the leader, a relic from our years under military dictatorship. Many of our functionaries spend their time looking at the leader for cues before acting.

It makes us vulnerable to state capture.

State capture, such as in Buhari's case, happens when the leader is clueless, but has a group, cabal if you like, around him, who freely act in his name without any fear of consequence.

Their worldview is taken as his, and everyone else aligns to it. It is a huge risk.

The risk is this - if/when Atiku topples Buhari in three months time, then there will be a realignment. Many of the people who are currently hostile to business and pro-big-government, will suddenly become pro-business and pro-small-government.

Can we grow like that?

One of the big dangers we will face in the event of a PDP victory is that many of the current APC members will sooner rather than later find themselves back in the PDP.

Unlike the PDP which had a soul, the APC has none, and should Buhari lose, it will collapse.

So we will again have a country with a ruling party full of people who do not really believe in the same first principles as the leader or the party itself, but will simply be mouthing what they think the leader wants to hear.

How can we stop that from happening?