Notice what is happening in that reply. The person is not arguing that Tinubu is more competent. He is not arguing that Tinubu has a better record, a better plan, or a better character. He is hiding behind the idea of democracy itself. The right to choose has replaced the reason to choose.
Plato would say, this is his fear coming true.
For Plato, the statement, it is democracy, people can choose whoever they want, is technically true but philosophically empty. Yes, you can choose whoever you want. But the question Plato wants us to ask is, should you? Do you know what you are choosing? Do you understand the consequences? Are you choosing based on knowledge, or based on loyalty, tribe, benefit, or stubbornness?
If we accept that Peter Obi is the more competent person, the voter still says, I know, but I have the right. Plato would point to that moment and say, that is the tragedy of democracy. The voter knows the better option exists, but freedom has become an excuse not to use judgment.
Plato believed that unless the people who rule, and the people who choose the rulers, are educated in what is good and just, democracy will always slide from freedom into confusion, and from confusion into tyranny.
So the problem, for Plato, is not that u are voting for Tinubu. The problem is that u are using democracy as a shield against thinking. And once a whole society starts doing that, the competent person loses not because he was bad, but because competence no longer matters.
I’ll vote Tinubu, it’s democracy…People have the right to choose whoever they want…