“You no fit” is a colloquial construction that can be any of; a dare, doubt or don’t (warning), when deconstructed in proper English language as “don’t do it”, “you can’t do it” and “try if you can”. I will find accommodation for the igniting but evidence-free wild report of sacked President Goodluck Jonathan prepping a comeback, in the trio of interpretation.

In phrasing my conviction, I hold he is too much of a safe-play guy to dare. In plain, personal view, I will say Jonathan won’t confront today’s incumbent in what would have been an exciting grudge match, considering Tinubu was literally the skipper of Team Buhari that dethroned Jonathan 10 years ago.

So I say, President Jonathan, you no fit.

Despite the huff and buzz of his second coming, I, like many, hold it a puff.

But what if Jonathan has now developed the presidential balls missing during his five-year reign, to now dare. His presidential record doesn’t really speak to courage and decisiveness, especially on issues of fight against corruption and insecurity as well as keeping then-raging opposition at bay. Almost all the ineptitude tags hewn for him by then-opposition found suitability in his persona. He appeared to govern in and with trepidation, throwing his authority away the moment Barack Obama as US president of his time as Nigerian leader, galvanised Europe and domestic opposition especially in Northern Nigeria, to push for a regime change in 2015.

He is also deemed to be without a political base, coming in opportunistically as president and leaving behind none in his Peoples Democratic Party which is reportedly planning to host and hoist his presidential return. Even in what would have been an “open” field in 2023 when then-President Muhammadu Buhari was allegedly open to helping him back to office, Jonathan reportedly balked when confronted with the reality he would be primaried by others, especially the eventual winner of the ticket who rules from Aso Rock today.

So, where is the new courage coming from after a decade hiatus?

But somehow, the Tinubu administration believes Jonathan isn’t clowning and his rumoured entry is melting down the president’s circle, with his men deploying a combo of persuasion, subtle threat and outright plea, for the former leader to stay off the 2027 contest. The president debriefs and regularly briefed by the intelligence community. He also surely has his eyes and ears in the opposition parties and information at his disposal must have reasonably convinced him that the recent Jonathan’s kurukere (political meetings) was not for show. His analysts must have also broken the current voting realities and numbers down with some bad news for his re-election if Jonathan presses ahead as it seems his hitherto presidential fright had now been replaced with a suicidal spirit.

To try and snatch power and run with it from the master snatcher himself is nothing short of attempted harakiri. Someone spent almost a lifetime chasing something, then snatched it, badly bruised in the process, but still ran with it, to keep, only for a lily-livered former possessor who couldn’t keep what he got almost free, to now be angling for it. When an Ijesa man isn’t letting go, you hear “oku a sun libe leni” (souls will be lost to the cause being fought).

In Mark 3:27, Jesus says “No man can enter into a strong man’s house and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man and then he will spoil his house”. Do Jonathan and his aligning troops have the capability to bind the Villa strongman, snatch power from him as a spoil of the coming 2027 war and run with it back to Otuoke? I personally doubt but didn’t Jesus also say with God nothing shall be impossible.

But what is undeniable is that the rumoured entry of Jonathan into the 2027 fray is rocking the foundation of the Abuja strongman’s political haven and unlike some of his lieutenants who routinely dismiss the presumed coming Hurricane Ebele, the strongman seems to have accepted the fact that Jonathan’s entry will portend what Yoruba will describe as the peril in Longe’s farm though Longe himself is perilous. The President appears to be borrowing the sense in the title of the famous writing of his “uncle” Wole Soyinka by setting forth at dawn in Jonathan’s backyard with the seduction of the sitting PDP governor. If newspaper reports are to be believed, Jonathan, expected to fly the PDP flag in the 2027 poll, will be losing his state governor to Tinubu/APC in another 48 hours (Tuesday 14th to be precise when Enugu governor is also expected to dump PDP for APC). That is how to snatch and run with it. Yoruba will say it’s more honourable to be adorned before leaving home. Imagine Jonathan declaring presidential run on the platform of a party just losing his state governor to his competitor. That is how tenacious the strongman the former president is trying to bind, to despoil. Stripping the former president ahead of any presidential declaration is also how the incumbent rolls. This strongman has a political history of not letting go unless he is completely humbled and doesn’t allow the opportunity to humble his opponent, slip. If Jonathan is in doubt, he should ask another hitherto strongman from Kwara who the Lagos and now Nigeria strongman, fed sand. Bukola Saraki snatched the senate presidency in 2015 and ran with it but his adversary, then an ordinary godfather without the direct control of state’s coercive power, first gave him the popular football sliding tackle to pin him, then rain blows, earning the Kwara politician the dark record of the second criminal prosecution of a sitting senate president for alleged fraud, following in the infamous bribe-for-budget scandal that tucked Adolphous Wabara as senate president in the dock on April 11, 2005.

Many have queried the president’s fright of Jonathan. One, he isn’t Jonathan who threw away a re-election he could have won, by simply being decisive. Two, he (the president) “won” in 2023 the election he should have lost, considering the forces arrayed against him. Three, the opposition against him is fragmented by ambition, which should help him coast. Four, despite his insignificant economic achievements and rising insecurity under him, he’s beginning to shape things up and could come up with better voter confidence index before the poll which is still about 15 months away. Then there is power of incumbency, which other presidents leveraged except the Jonathan.

With Atiku almost assured of the Northern opposition ticket whether on ADC or another party’s platform, the real fear of Team Asiwaju is that Jonathan, unlike Peter Obi, has bigger capacity to crash the One South project the president has painstakingly built for his re-election, to mitigate the expected underwhelming poll performance in the North. Despite warehousing almost all the Southern governors one way or the other, there are no delusions in his inner caucus that defecting governors automatically translates to their states becoming traditional APC states, considering the Chief Executives are coming in with the mandate they got presenting themselves to their electorate as PDP candidates. Jonathan’s damage is expected to be more than what Obi can inflict with just the South East, as the former President who gave South East limitless accommodation while in power, is projected to be embraced by both his own South-South and his adopted South-East, leaving the President almost bare with only South West in the Southern solidarity.

That is the first fetter for the strongman.

President’s men are also worried Jonathan will be competitive in the Middle Belt, where he did well both in his victorious 2011 and disastrous 2015 runs. The region which is now proving to be a bellwether, saved the president’s aspiration in 2023 amid poor ballotting in the core North where he nicked just three states of Borno, Jigawa and Zamfara out of 13. Four of the six North Central States put him across the finishing line. Now Jonathan, bigger than the meddling but still-competitive Obi of 2023, is showing his face in what should be a Tinubu zone in 2027.

Many have asked why the North is reluctant to back Tinubu since he has one more constitutional term like Jonathan if the courts clear the latter. My snooping revealed North’s skepticism Tinubu won’t force a Northern successor on the zone in 2031, with names of his alleged favoured already in circulation without any official denial. Though a bitter pill North has forced on South since this republic, it doesn’t want it from anyone. The thinking is Jonathan is more of a gentleman than Tinubu and won’t meddle when he is done in 2031 considering he has no political structure he could use to foist a Northern successor on the zone. He is to finish his term and walk away. Maybe the president too should try an agreement and arrangement that would thaw the succession tension. But Tinubu is wired to be a kingmaker. It’s in the DNA of his politics.

Keeping Jonathan out of the race is shaping up. The judicial leg has commenced, though the suit may amount to an abuse of court process considering a subsisting judgement of a court of coordinate jurisdiction, cloaking his eligibility with legality and constitutionality. Funny enough, any appeal of same is now statute-barred. Obviously, no one foresaw this interesting time. It’s now almost too late to judicially cancel him. I heard from some president’s loyalists that the former first family might be re-bludgeoned with anti-corruption probes especially the first wife and famous ex-first lady who is currently enjoying prosecution reprieve. Funny though, the former president has started showcasing the second wife that was kept completely away during his presidency. Some husbands sha! It is also becoming clear to the Tinubu world that whoever has been set to derail the Jonathan hype-train in PDP, might be incapable afterall as Northern leaders wanting him, have the delegate advantage to power him to the top of the ticket.

If Jonathan actually dares and runs to win the first ever non-consecutive presidential second term in the history of Nigeria’s democracy, it should be enough sign for atheists that God truly rules in the affairs of men. Donald Trump of America, Luiz Lula da Silva of Brazil, John Dramani Mahama of Ghana and most recently 85-year-old Peter Muthatika of Malawi, all dared and voyaged back to the same presidential palaces they were once booted out like Jonathan. Can the Ogbia fellow from the Ijaw family of canoe makers also sail to join the exclusive club? I doubt. And for the title, it’s Yoruba’s proverb that finds fellowship in Jeremiah 17:5.