The coming together of political forces of the oppositional hue in
the build-up to the 2015 general election portended a grave danger for the
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In any case, the behemoth, which the PDP
typified at the time, had imprudently and lightly treated the ill-omened
development and paid dearly for it.
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| *President Buhari |
The PDP was brought down in prostrate
surrender to the supremacy of the rainbow coalition of opposition parties that
formed the All Progressives Congress (APC) on which platform Muhammadu Buhari
clinched his historic victory over Goodluck Jonathan. That defeat of an incumbent president was novel in the annals of the nation’s
presidential elections.
Indisputably, the defection of five governors
of Rivers (Rotimi Amaechi),
Jonathan’s incumbency factor, his seeming
sure-footed candidature, his custody and superintendence of the 16-year old
power heritage of the PDP, the platform on which he contested, suffered
collateral damage.
The tsunami, which the 2015 general election
exemplified, swept off many PDP candidates for other elective offices. Even
though he won his election, David Mark lost his Senate presidency on account of
PDP becoming the minority party in the Senate.
The strategic natures of the public offices
occupied by the five governors and the speaker had added gravitas to their
decision to exit the PDP.
Jonathan was said to have committed, in the
main, the original sins of scorning zoning arrangement and reneging on his
purported unwritten promise not to seek re-election in 2015.
There were ancillary foibles of the
administration that foisted it on a petard, to wit: insecurity that was accentuated
by the Boko Haram insurgency; and, corruption that was said to be writ large in
the management of the nation’s public finance. As a matter of fact, the overwhelming Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast
zone rendered the Jonathan presidency helpless.
In his entire term of office, his
administration was portrayed as incapable of protecting the lives and property
of the citizenry.
For the citizenry who had been benumbed by the
incessantly mindless and horrendous maiming and killings by the insurgents,
nothing was more expedient than a change of leadership.
In a clear two-horse race between a northern
Muslim and a southern Christian that the 2015 presidential election
approximated, the choice of Buhari by a vast majority of the electorate was
conversely the rejection of Jonathan.
The outcome of the election was the product of
the intercourse between essential popular support for Buhari and the factor of
integrity that popularised his brand.
Basically, the Buhari factor is, without a
doubt, sui generis.
The factor had, in the few weeks of his
inauguration as president, produced a domino effect in apt summation of its
wider chain reactions.
But then, it should be pointed out that the
Buhari factor also enjoyed critical support for it to sustain its historic
precociousness that has created and defined a certain idyllic northern electoral base from where he usually gets about ten
million secured or guaranteed votes. The fact that the votes could not clinch for him the presidency in 2003, 2007
and 2011 underscores certain limitations.
His outlook was provincial until 2015 when
utilitarian political strategies were deployed to transform him into a
national, nay cosmopolitan brand via the public relational strategy funded by
some southern APC leaders.
A further limitation in 2019 may be the
presentation of a northern Muslim presidential candidate by the opposition.
Reflectively, some other influential
politicians who defected from the PDP to the APC also, largely, added their
essential bootstraps to the momentum that sustained the Buhari phenomenon in
its vast flourish.
Consider former vice president Atiku Abubakar,
former governor of Kwara, Senator Bukola Saraki, who would later emerge as the
Senate president in 2015, former governor of Nasarawa State
Today, ahead of the crucial 2019 general
election, the 2014 historical defections that somewhat culminated in the defeat
of Jonathan are being witnessed.
Atiku, Kwankwaso, Gemade, et al, are back in
the PDP. More defections are expected to take place in the next few weeks.
Saraki and Speaker Yakubu Dogara, are primed
to return to the PDP. So far, 15 senators and 37 members of the House of
Representatives had last Tuesday defected from the APC at their respective
plenary sessions.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo-inspired
African Democratic Congress (ADC) received two senators and four
representatives who defected from the APC to raise the stakes and ignite
high-wired politics that would define the shape, content and texture of the
political alliances and the 2019 presidential race. Last Wednesday, the governor of Benue
State
He now has 22 members of the 30-member house
behind him.
Governors Tambuwal of Sokoto State and
Abdulahmed Fatah of Kwara
State
The circumstances that informed their
respective decisions to egress the APC could not be mitigated by the party
through reconciliatory gestures.
The defectors have their different issues,
which the APC under the leadership of Adams Oshiomhole exerted itself to engage
and deal with.
While it succeeded in pacifying some; those
that could not be pacified decided to jump ship.
The gale of defections is what has energised
the 2019 presidential race.
It is more than a common occurrence on the eve
of a general election as rationalised by President Buhari.
Similar coalition that produced his presidency
in 2015 was uncommon.
That the APC is not hurt by the defections as
being claimed by pro-Buhari elements cannot be true. The oppositions are building around the strategic hub of the PDP to couple a
countrywide coalition force to dislodge APC and Buhari in 2019.
There is a religious commitment to the 2019
anti-Buhari campaign.
The political mission is benefiting from the
near apostolic zeal by Obasanjo who has successfully mobilised and has
continued to follow-up on his consultations with the Yoruba leaders of the
southwest zone on the need to effect a change of what he described as
incompetent and nepotistic leadership.
Former military president, General Ibrahim
Babangida, had also forcefully weighed in with a proposal for young generation
of leaders to step in the saddle of governance in Nigeria
Former Chief of Army Staff and one-time
minister of Defence, Lt. General T.Y. Danjuma had accused the military of
colluding with armed herdsmen (bandits) to carry out ethnic cleansing in the
Middle Belt and other states in the country; and, had called on Nigerians to
defend themselves against the aggressors.
There are individual points of divergence and
disagreement that are either in the selfish or national interests.
The political elite and the hoi-polloi have
their grouses against Buhari just as they had against Jonathan in 2015.
For the elite, it is the struggle for power
and accommodation of interests, but for the hoi-polloi, it is welfare issue,
hunger and weak purchasing power occasioned by bazaar-canteen economic model
(price indeterminacy).
Jonathan did not survive in 2015 because his
candidature was largely damaged.
Will Buhari’s candidature, supported by the
forces of APC leaders and members nationwide, escape indictment by the
coalition of forces massing against him? While the oppositions appear upbeat,
the APC leaders believe that the Buhari factor is still solid to win re-election
in 2019.
*Ojeifo,
an Abuja-based journalist.
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