By Victor C. Ariole
As long as we cannot address the issue of leadership emerging as a result of giving bribe to delegates we can’t get it right …. Senator Shehu Sani on Channels. Go and meet the man who is our commander, delegates tell Ohuabunwa. The presidential primaries of PDP has come and gone but candidates like Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa and Senator Shehu Sani will live long to tell the tales, as more tales are expected from “Stomach Infrastructure” Fayose and Moneybag Wike for a better understanding of what happened. However, the main issues are the “commanders” and the bribes, as alleged by the participants, to have coated a façade on a rotten skeletal. That rotten skeletal is what Seun Akimbaloye revealed on his programme as the mathematical calculation that ought to usher in tactical operation, creating a done-deal in favour of Wike before the field operation of Tambuwal, the son of Njewal – the witch – landed the last blow on, that broke the carmel’s back.
No matter how good a façade looks like, a weak skeletal will make it corrosive in no far distance, like a leaking roof created by a weak rafter. Like Wike’s impetuous and bold mathematical equation, like Tambuwal’s factorial disruption, the strings and main frames that hold the roof of the PDP umbrella is still suffering from skeletal weakness. I like the way French people express what English put as skeletal – Les Gros Oeuvres (the main structures or the main frameworks). And, in deed, the main frameworks for a winning formula as expressed by Seun gave it out in favour of Wike a week before the election and as buttressed, further, by a lady delegate interviewed by Tope on Arise TV, it was also seen as Wike’s day on the convention arena before Tambuwal’s disruptive factor. Such disruptive factor is what Nigerians should look out for as the quest for 2023 president continues its march. Here, a good strategy failed to make room for operational and tactical disruptions. Tambuwal announcement was against campaigning rules that expect campaigning, canvassing for votes, to end, openly, 24 hours to election date. The main issue here, again is the strength or weakness of the PDP’s choice, as disruptive factors play out. Let legal issues not join it also.
On the Nigerian turf, Atiku is a great strategist who knows the in and out of Nigeria’s political terrain as well as the economic landscape or ecology. Among the contestants, it must be given to him as the most meritorious while awaiting any integrity test of his person for either debunking it or for acclamation. However, it was surprising to me that he could not garner half of the total accreditable 774 votes if 774 LGAs are the total sum, or even the announced 764 votes. Let us assume that Fayose traded off all the Ekiti votes as the commander to win a greater stomach infrastructure going by Ohuabunwa’s speculation of a $20k – base bargain that could reach $35k, to Atiku, and that all the northwest or its fragment as seen in Kano’s delegates’ voting or absconding patterns, went to Atiku, it is still a great concern for PDP’s survival if made to face the whole Nigeria.
Nigeria voting pattern expects you to win outright majority of the votes cast even if it is mere first- past-the-post basis and as well garner 1/3 of votes cast in 24 states; so how would someone who could not get past the post at primary level ensure victory at secondary level, national. The implication is that leading Nigeria is either expressed or unexpressed consensus arrangement leading to the appeasement or the disregard of any opposing voice. The strong opposing voice in this PDP case is Wike, and it could have been Atiku if Wike strategy worked. In whichever way, that value matrix that determines the expected make-up of a Nigerian leader is not exclusively money like insinuated by Ohuabunwa as being the culture, for now, of determining who rules Nigeria. Even Senator Shehu Sani agrees that at the time he emerged as the Senator of the most populous place in Kaduna under APC, there was no money factor disrupting his winning plan, it was mostly trust factor that gave it to him. However, under PDP, for the gubernatorial quest, which he contested, the main factor was hinged on $3K for each delegate which was not factorable in his own winning game plan. It takes indeed Chamberlain of Channels to stir-up such muckraking. The take-away items in the PDP presidential primary are that leadership value determinants in Nigeria are: money, trust and followership.
Money was available for both Atiku and Wike; the source is what needed to be probed by Nigeria’s fiscal authorities. Trust was what Tambuwal brought in, in favour of Atiku and it says a lot about politics of immediate interest as against permanent interest, and may-be money was also a factor, no one can say. Four years ago, Wike was on the side of Tambuwal to attempt at disrupting Atiku’s winning streak, it did not work.
This year, Tambuwal threw his weight behind Atiku to defeat Wike, and at great expense to PDP trust factor for an immediate gain/gratification of his base as a commander. The followership factor was neither here nor there for both contenders. Internally, Wike has been the bulwark that kept PDP going after it receded to an opposition party. Hence he became a rallying points for other weaklings in PDP as both legal and financial burden were heaped on PDP and an arrowhead was needed to show capacity to overcome the turbulent moments. Consistency and faithfulness had been his greatest strength.
In contrast, Tambuwal and Atiku had been in and out of PDP looking for greener pastures. Hence, quite unfaithful to PDP but faithful to the Nigerian political culture that does not frown at cross-carpeting or changing parties at will. Saraki flocks with them, hence birds of the same feathers. Other fringe candidates like Anyim, Udom and Mohammed – great PDP faithfuls – seem to buttress the fact that cross-carpeting culture in Nigeria’s politics is not a big deal. I expected PDP followers, among the delegates, to accord them great respect and it did not happen hence the questionability of the delegates’ integrity. Yes, the integrity of delegates matters also.
Nigeria voting pattern expects you to win outright majority of the votes cast even if it is mere first- past-the-post basis and as well garner 1/3 of votes cast in 24 states; so how would someone who could not get past the post at primary level ensure victory at secondary level, national.
Indeed, the delegates were merely obeying their commanders’ voice and if it is how leadership must be selected in Nigeria, then it is neither for patriotic Nigerians nor for servant – leader minded Nigerians. So which way Nigeria – servant leader President or mercantile-minded President?
Ariole, Professor of French and Francophone Studies, University of Lagos.