Even though he has functioned more as voice of the All Progressives Congress (APC) than the director-general of the Voice of Nigeria (VON), Osita Okechukwu remains one of the most cerebral politicians of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic. A deep thinker and philosopher-like political pundit, Okechukwu, who was a protégé of the iconic Chuba Okadigbo, has been one of the most faithful and loyal supporters of President Muhammadu Buhari from Nigeria’s South-East region throughout his 12 years in the wilderness of opposition politics. The brilliant and intellectually grounded Okechukwu brought a lot of credibility to the Buhari presidential campaign in 2015, when he deployed his natural gifts of wit and eloquence to convince millions of Nigerians to align their democratic choices with the APC.
Tired of the Peoples Democratic Party’s Right-leaning neo-liberal economic policies, which, according him, “created the richest man and poorest people in Africa,” Okechukwu managed to convince Nigerians that the APC was a centre of the Left party that would ensure a more equitable distribution of wealth among the people. The presence of the Enugu State-born politician in the Buhari campaign team also helped to put a stamp of legitimacy on the pan-Nigerian nationalist bonafides of Buhari, who was going into the 2015 election with a baggage of ethno-religious provincialism. To say that Okechukwu was one of the architects of the “Change” democratic revolution, which brought Buhari and the APC from opposition to power in 2015, would be stating the obvious.
But like most of his other APC comrades turned “chieftains,” Okechukwu has gone from advocating for good governance in opposition to defending misrule in power, a turnaround that has in many ways diminished his reputation as a frontline intellectual politician. However, Okechukwu’s recent intervention on the raging controversy over the contentious issue of zoning of the presidency of Nigeria in 2023 is one that the message should be taken while leaving out the messenger. Following a statement by Abdullahi Adamu, the national chairman of APC, to the effect that his party has not taken a position on zoning, Okechukwu had this to say: “Although one is not holding the brief of our distinguished national chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, one’s little understanding is that the leadership of our great party is watching closely the desperation and antics of our elder sister political party, the PDP.”
While accusing the PDP of desperation to win back power at all cost, the DG of VON said, “However, if at the end of the day the zoning fails, we should blame PDP’s desperation, because we have been advocating a repeat of Chiefs Obasanjo/Falae; Yar’Adua/Buhari and Buhari/Atiku models of 1999, 2007 and 2019.”
Speaking further, Okechukwu faulted the PDP’s refusal to zone their presidency to the South as desperate political opportunism.
“PDP is aware that President Buhari will not be on the ballot in 2023. Therefore, for them, there is a void to fill. They must have reasoned that Buhari’s vote bank would be up for grabs, if they go north.
“PDP’s calculation is a desperate one, and selfish to the extent that they breached their own constitution and their age-long die-hard supporters in the South, especially the South-East.” Consequently, Okechukwu posited that “as a corollary, APC seems to have adopted the cat-and-mouse game, because, if the PDP adopts realpolitik, which places electoral victory above their constitution, the moral high ground and ethics of their members and supporters in the South, APC wants to do the pragmatic thing, that is, going back to the drawing board.”
Okechukwu’s statement is coming amid speculations that the APC, which hitherto had zoned its presidential candidacy to the South in principle, may now witness an influx of northern presidential aspirants any moment from now. And contained in Okechukwu’s latest intervention is a cryptic message that ‘two can play the game,’ just as he exposed the PDP’s simplistic, illogical and motorpark political strategy, which clearly shows the main opposition party as one that is lacking in critical thinking. And he could not be more right. In its attempt to draw water from a mirage so distant, the PDP is willing to throw away the bucket of water in its hand.
While some characters in the PDP were touting “winnability” over the morality of zoning and getting excited over the prospect of a northern Muslim candidate that would simply inherit Buhari’s 12 million votes in the event that the APC zoned its presidency to the South, little did they realise that the same APC could decide change gear and head North also and render their ‘winnability’ trump card ‘unwinnable.’
Unfortunately, the northern wing of PDP, led by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former Senate President Abubakar Bukola Saraki and former Speaker and current governor Sokoto State, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, by their dishonourable insistence on running against the tide of zoning, citing “winnability,” are set to derail the PDP.
Ironically, these same set of northern politicians were strong advocates and defenders of zoning when former President Goodluck Jonathan, a southerner, ran for the presidency in 2011 and 2015 against the zoning of the presidency to the North. The revolt of the northern wing of PDP in 2015 against the second attempt by Jonathan led to the loss of the former ruling party to then opposition APC, which had Buhari, a northerner, as its candidate. And when the PDP realised its mistake of violating the zoning and rotation of the presidency between the North and South every two terms of eight years, which led to its loss of power, the party zoned its 2019 presidential candidacy to the North.
In what turned out to be a northern aspirants’ PDP presidential primary in 2019, the southern wing of the PDP lined their political support behind their preferred northern aspirants. While the likes of former Governors Okwesilieze Nwodo, Peter Obi and Achike Udenwa threw their weight behind Atiku, Governors Nyesom Wike and Emeka Ihedioha of Rivers and Imo, respectively, gave their total support to Tambuwal. Similarly, former presidential spokesman, Doyin Okupe, pitched his tent with Saraki. And when Atiku emerged ahead of other aspirants as the presidential candidate of PDP, the combined support of leading southern Nigeriam socio-cultural groups such as Afenifere, Ohanaeze and PANDEF gave him an overwhelming majority of his over 11 million votes in the presidential election proper.
Sadly, at a time when prominent APC chieftains from northern Nigeria are lining up behind their preferred aspirants from the South as payback for their support in 2015, their PDP brethren are doing the very opposite. While Bola Ahmed Tinubu is being supported by the likes of Governor Umar Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano, former Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno and Ado Doguwa, the majority leader of the House of Representatives and some others like Governor Simon Lalung of Plateau State, Senators Ali Ndume and Nurudeen Abatemi are supporting Minister of Transport Rotimi Amaechi, the likes of Atiku, Tambuwal and Saraki are struggling for the PDP ticket with Peter Obi, Wike, Pius Anyim and others. For the northern wing of PDP, one good turn does not deserve another because, as princes of power, they are born to rule.