Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu are desperate to rule Nigeria. This is understandable seeing that, at over 70 years, both are playing in injury time. They very much wish to score a goal and win the presidential game. They know that, if they fail to get it this time, they may never get it again. Atiku, a former Vice-President of Nigeria, has clinched the coveted ticket to fly the flag of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 presidential election. Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos State, has a date with history as his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), holds its presidential primary election today. But now that President Muhammadu Buhari and northern governors have expressed their preference for a southern candidate, will Tinubu emerge or will he be schemed out?
It will be interesting to see him and Atiku slug it out at the general election. But history has shown that, sometimes, those who are desperate to win such a tension-soaked game end up losing it. In 1999, former President Olusegun Obasanjo never bargained to be President. The powers that be brought him out of prison and put him on the ballot papers. People like the late Chief Alex Ekwueme, who had wanted to be President, stepped aside. Obasanjo won the election and became President for eight years. Also, the late Umaru Yar’Adua who succeeded him never bargained to be President. Obasanjo picked him despite his not being too healthy and foisted him on the nation. When Yar’Adua died after a few years in office, his deputy, Goodluck Jonathan, succeeded him. Jonathan never dreamt that he would ever be President in his lifetime as well. But it came to him on a silver platter.
But there is an exception – President Muhammadu Buhari. He had tried to become President for three consecutive times but failed. He became dejected and vowed never to go for it again. As Tinubu has made us to understand, he went to Buhari’s home in Katsina and persuaded him to contest again. He promised he would support him but that he shouldn’t joke with matters concerning the Yoruba. Buhari contested again in 2015 and won.
Tinubu has been celebrating this feat and the fact that he made it possible. Hence, he has anchored his main quest to be President on this pedestal. He feels it is the turn of the Yoruba to become President and, in Yorubaland, it is his turn. As he reportedly put it, “It is my time. I’m educated. I’m experienced. I have been serving people for a long time. Bring me the presidency, it is my turn.”
Tinubu shot himself in the foot here. He appeared to be angry and apprehensive over something. Following negative reactions to his outburst, he recanted, saying he had high regard and respect for President Buhari. “My respect and regard for President Buhari as Commander-in-Chief of this nation and as a person are high and unfailing. I shall never denigrate him. I certainly did not do so in Abeokuta,” he said.
According to him, he only desired a level-playing ground for all aspirants and an adherence to stipulated rules and due process. Was he afraid there would be no level-playing ground? Could it be that he felt he was not in the President’s radar anymore, that Buhari wanted to abandon him for another candidate?
Recall that the President had met with the Progressives Governors’ Forum in Abuja last week. At the meeting, he solicited the reciprocity and support of the governors and other stakeholders in picking his successor who would fly the flag of the APC in the 2023 presidential election. He reminded the governors that the ruling party had internal policies that promoted continuity and smooth succession plans, even at the state and local government levels. He urged the governors to allow his interest and theirs to converge.
There have been different permutations as to where Buhari’s heart is. Some have touted Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo. Some say it’s Transportation Minister Rotimi Amaechi.
The speculation was worsened by the screening committee’s announcement last Friday that it had disqualified 10 of the 23 presidential aspirants. The chairman of the screening panel, John Odigie-Oyegun, was quoted to have said that those cleared were ‘youthful aspirants.’ Though no name was mentioned, the statement revealed a lot. We know those who are young and those who are old among the aspirants.
To further narrow the search for a presidential candidate, both the northern governors and President Buhari have supported the emergence of a southern candidate. But there is no indication, as at press time, who the candidate is. I have a strong feeling that it may be Osinbajo. The VP couldn’t have come out at all if he didn’t get a strong assurance from the President to contest. He has been drumming it to whoever cares to listen that he will continue with the ‘good policies’ of the present administration, if elected. That is probably the continuity Buhari talked about! Well, the speculations will end shortly, as a candidate will emerge in no distant time.
My advice to the delegates is to look deeper before casting their votes. There is a zoning principle in place in the party. From that arrangement, it is the turn of the South to produce the President. When it comes to the South, it is the turn of the South-East, not South-West or Tinubu’s turn as he erroneously claimed. And if it is not South-East, it cannot be the same as South-East. If they fail to give it to a Southeasterner this time, they would have joined the PDP in singing a dirge for the two dominant parties. Then, this is where the third force comes to play. That third force is the Labour Party. With a candidate like Peter Obi, the party stands a better chance of upstaging the other two fingers of a leprous hand. The fear in some quarters is that the North may be plotting to divide the votes of the South by projecting a southerner in APC and then voting for Atiku in PDP. Well, all I can say for now is, let’s see how it goes!
Re: Obi and Nigeria’s cash-and-carry democracy
Dear Casy, truth and good name remain the greatest legacy anyone can leave behind but many Nigerians hate TRUTH. Those who cried foul when PDP lost in 2015 have seen that it was self-inflicted and, out of their legendary ignorance, have decided to follow same road again. It’s unfortunate that many Nigerians who do same thing over and over again seem hell-bent on going down with PDP and their Siamese twins APC again while expecting different result. Many Nigerians don’t want to learn from William Blake that it’s better to construct their own system than to be enslaved by other people’s systems. PDP 16 years + APC 7years = ?
– Mazi Ekene W. Ugwu, +2348035166661
Casmir, it’s nice that obi saw the handwriting on the wall and decided via wisdom to ‘vamoose’ from PDP with the speed of light. I knew the outcome of the PDP convention would not be palatable to the candidates from the South because ‘the candidates from the North’ have a ‘deficit’ to recover from. Ultimately, blood was thicker than water. Add this to a ‘desperate Atiku’ who is operating like a ‘moving train’ and in a ‘commando, supremo mafioso stylee’. Prescient Obi, but, the odds or the mountain that he has to climb is now double. He has to beat two formidable, politically more experienced giants in APC & PDP. The candidacy of Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, with Zulum/el-Rufai as VP, is the antidote to an overrated, religious bigot and virulent Atiku. He had been disarticulated by Wike but was helped by northern elders’ who mounted pressure on Tambuwal and Hayatu-deen to step down for him! I still wonder why supposedly ‘clean man Obi’, in the 2019 general elections, teamed up with a personality with ‘itchy fingers’ thereby tarnishing his image! Atiku will finally be disarticulated and retired in 2023. Neither Tinubu nor Atiku should be given the opportunity to ‘sell Nigeria’ to recoup ‘their re-investments’.
– Mike, Mushin, Lagos, +2348161114572
Even at the background of the horse trading and belief that Obi was about to be sacrificed on the altar of illicit flow of cash, Obi’s withdrawal was hasty. He should have taken the primary fight to the finishing line. By going halfway, Obi has thrown us into this unfortunate state of speculation which is only founded on preponderance of probabilities. It would have been interesting to see Obi’s score sheet, even at the background of the very highly dollarized contest. And if the delegates who are supposedly enlightened and not among the very poor Nigerians have proved such a shameless and brazen disaster, what hope lies in the largely hungry, weak and undisciplined Nigerians who are also willing and ready to take the short cut of a few wads of naira for a day’s meal during the general election? The very dangerous signal from our presidential primary clearly bars the interest of Nigerians in my mode ‘who are eminently qualified’ to fix the problems of this country but are challenged by the humongous Naira scare. The Obi one-million-march is one thing: but actualising it in a naira-drunk Nigeria is as hopeless as a hole in a bucket. My dear Casy, going by our enduring political trajectory, it is highly unthinkable that Nigeria’s next President can emerge outside the already structured platform of the APC or PDP.
– Edet Essien, Esq, Cal South, 08037952470
Dear Casy, of all the ills that you chronicled as part of the misrule of this dispensation, you failed to mention Education, the critical sector of the economy that has been beheaded, with ASUU-FG imbroglio as a case-study. In other climes, DEMOCRACY assumes its real meaning of, ‘Government of the people, by the people, for the people. Hence, the healthy Economy that finds expression in positive landmark developments in those climes which attract our ‘Dealers’, sorry, so-called leaders, like bees, to those developed climes for comfort. But in Nigeria, DEMOCRACY assumes a distorted definition as; ‘the Government of the privileged few, by the privileged few, for the privileged few, to the detriment of the unprivileged majority, the hoi polloi who are meant to pick crumbs of Democracy dividends, if any. Hence, all the actions or inactions of our government that have continued to take the country down the slide into the abyss. Yet, our so-called leaders have the effrontery to dole out whopping N100million for ordinary paper called nomination forms and unabashedly ask for our votes! May God save us, the downtrodden, from the hands of our ‘Dealers’, sorry, leaders!
– Steve Okoye, Awka, 08036630731
Nigeria’s very highly monetised presidential electioneering does not admit those aspirants that are without the ‘’requisite’’ financial war chest. The mad rush for Dollar rain at the expense of capable and cerebral aspirants is further fueled by a greedy and money-minded Nigerian electorate whose pre-occupation is the immediate financial gain that could be garnered after the electoral debacle. To be assured of an Obi presidency, Casy, Nigeria must first go through a sustained period of ethical revolution and moral re-armament.
– Ediye James, +2348108095633
Dear Casmir, I advise Peter Obi not to use the womanish approach by saying Fulani had previously ruled or that this is Igbo time. Heaven and Earth know these facts; above all, Nigeria is one. He should create value by detailing his plans to fix Nigeria. He will be surprised he could win more in the North. May he save us from cash and carry democracy!
– Cletus Frenchman, Enugu, +234 909 538 5215