There has been some clarity about Nigeria ’s 2019 Presidential
election, with the end of the October 7 deadline set by the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the conduct of party primaries at all
levels. On Saturday, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) at its
convention held in Abuja, ratified the choice of incumbent President Muhammadu
Buhari as its flagbearer, with a curious vote tally of 14. 8 million. President
Buhari and his supporters have continuously left no one in doubt that they
intend to have a second shot at power and office.
The number of party members
across Nigeria
who endorsed the Buhari candidacy has however raised eyebrows. 14. 8 million!
In the 2015 elections, that was a little less than the same number of total votes
that the incumbent got in a nationwide general vote. What is the actual number
of persons on the party’s membership register – 15.6 million? Concerned
observers have argued that this is an indication of the determination of the
ruling party to rig the 2019 Presidential elections, in favour of a 75-year old
candidate to whom they insist, there is no alternative. The No-Alternative talk
is of course the height of sycophancy and the extent of its idiocy has now been
exposed.
*Atiku and Buhari |
Just as the APC held its convention over the
weekend, other political parties participating in the 2019 general elections
were also busy choosing their own candidates, and now we have on the field, the
following Presidential candidates: Atiku Abubakar (People’s Democratic Party),
Donald Duke (Social Democratic Party), Olusegun Mimiko (Zenith Labour Party),
Omoyele Sowore (African Action Congress), Kingsley Moghalu (Young Progressives
Party), Fela Durotoye (Alliance for New Nigeria), Tope Fasua (Abundance Nigeria
Renewal Party), Eunice Atuejide (National Interest Party), Adesina
Fagbenro-Byron (Kowa Party), Eniola Olajuni (Alliance for Democracy), Gbenga
Olawepo-Hashim (Alliance for People’s Trust), Obadaiah Mailafia (African
Democratic Congress), Alistair Soyode (Yes Electorates Solidarity), Hamza
A-Mustapha (People’s Party of Nigeria), Chike Ukaegbu (Advanced Allied Party),
Ahmed Buhari (Sustainable National Party), Usman Ibrahim Alhaji (National
Rescue Movement), John Ogbor (All Progressives Grand Alliance), Yabagi Sani
(Action Democratic Party), Moses Shipi (All Blending Party), Peter Nwangwu (We
the People of Nigeria), Edozie Madu (Independent Democrats) and Obiageli
Ezekwesili (Allied Congress Party of Nigeria). Twenty-six Presidential
candidates so far, except any one has been overlooked in our list.
What we know is that this is probably the
most demographically diverse Presidential contest line-up in Nigerian history –
an indication of the people’s determination to participate in the country’s
political process at the highest level. From a 35-year old Ukaegbu to Buhari
who is officially 75, the refrains in Nigeria’s emerging democratic process,
deducible from the names of the political parties are “action”, “progressive”,
“new”, “renewal”, “alliance”, “sustainable”, “rescue”, “people”, “democracy”,
“democratic”, “blending”. This is in keeping with the mood of the opposition in
the country. The people, as reflected in the political parties’ nomenclature,
want a new Nigeria ,
change and progress. It is an obvious comment on the performance of the
incumbent administration.
The point has been made, and it is a useful
one, that whereas there has been increased interest in the Presidential race,
particularly given the number of young candidates inspired by the Not-Too-Young-To-Run
law that was passed in May 2018,
in reality, the 2019 Presidential race in Nigeria is
bound to end up as a two-horse race. Only two of the many political parties-
the APC and the PDP- have the following, the structures, resources, and the
necessary brand recognition to be able to put up a good showing. The PDP was in
power from 1999 to 2015. It was displaced in 2015 by an alliance of political
parties that took the name: All Progressives Congress. Today, the APC is the
party in power and its candidate is President of Nigeria. Both the APC and the
PDP are in charge at the state level and they both control the majority of
seats in legislative assemblies across the country. Many of the other political
parties in the race are products of alliances and mergers but as at this
moment, there is not yet a compelling alliance or merger, such as in the case
of the APC in 2015, that can threaten the dominance of two political parties –
the APC and the PDP. Some of the emergent Presidential candidates are political
tyros, but who nevertheless bring a freshness of ideas and style to the
unfolding contest.
What we see with plain-sight certainty is
that the 2019 Presidential election in Nigeria is bound to be a strong
fight between the APC and the PDP and between former Vice President Atiku
Abubakar and President Muhammad Buhari, indeed more of a beauty contest between
the latter. There is not much difference between the two political parties, Nigeria ’s
politics is hardly driven by any ideology only by symbols. The APC uses the
broom as a symbol, the PDP the umbrella, that is the only known difference, the
truth is that members of the two were all either a member of one or the other
at a point in their political careers. Former Vice President Atiku has been in
both parties crossing from one to the other in the last four years. President
Buhari has been previously a member of the ANPP, later the CPC, before joining
the APC. While the people may not see a difference between six and half a
dozen, they will make a choice on the basis of the personalities and perception
of the two leading candidates. Except the unexpected occurs, the next President
of Nigeria will either be incumbent President Buhari, who will be running for
President for the fifth time, or Alhaji Atiku Abubakar who previously sought
the same office, without success.
Both candidates are of Northern and Fulani
extraction which fits into the country’s unwritten geo-politics. Atiku is from
the North East state of Adamawa. Buhari is from the North Western state of
Katsina. To the average, majority-group, Northern voter, a major calculation in
Nigeria’s ethnic and religious politics, the emergence of Atiku and Buhari
means that power will remain in the North for another four years if Buhari
wins, and possibly eight years more if Atiku wins. Both men are also Muslims.
Both men are also septuagenarians. Atiku is 71. Buhari is 75. The younger
Presidential candidates will seek to make heavy weather out of this, but it may
not count for much in the contest. Both men have had significant experience at
the highest level: Buhari as military Head of State (1983-85) and Atiku as Vice
President to President Olusegun Obasanjo (1999 -2007). One of the major issues
to look forward to is the health status of the two main candidates. The
incumbent has been in and out of hospital in the course of the last three
years, spending close to 100 days out of the country in one notable instance.
Atiku in comparison, appears much healthier, except any damaging medical report
shows up before the crucial vote.
Buhari’s handlers have lost the
“No-Alternative” argument. On paper and going by the facts, Atiku presents a
very formidable alternative. His emergence as the standard-bearer of the PDP is
strategic. PDP members have chosen wisely. The PDP has been struggling for
survival since it lost power at the centre in 2015. The return of some of the
key politicians who defected from the party: including Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso,
and Senator Bukola Saraki helped to place the party on the path of revival.
Atiku’s emergence as Presidential candidate has strengthened that process.
Atiku has all that it takes to build bridges across the divides within the
party and lead a robust campaign against President Buhari. The President’s men
will seek to campaign on the platform of integrity. They will argue that Buhari
deserves a second term because he has been able to wage war against corruption.
They will paint Atiku as greedy and corrupt, and insinuate that a vote for both
the PDP and Atiku will be a vote for corruption. This is at best a time-bound
cliché. The Atiku team should be able to mobilise compelling and damaging
counter-narratives.
The Buhari campaign is vulnerable on another
score: performance. President Buhari came to power in 2015 with the promise
that he would run a government of CHANGE, offer Nigerians a better life and
greater hope. He was seen as a messiah. For the first time in his bid for the
Presidency, he was embraced by every major constituency in the country. Better
known as a provincial political leader, he received impactful support from the
South West, the East and the North, and was projected as a truly national
politician and a remodeled democrat. But as it happened, Buhari and the APC
over-promised and under-delivered. They promised to fight corruption. Public
opinion is grossly divided on that. They said they will fix the economy. They
have presided over one of the worst economic seasons in Nigerian history. They
were sure that security would no longer be a problem given Buhari’s background
as a military leader. Instead, Nigeria ’s
security problems became worse. In 2014/2015, Buhari had the support of Nigeria ’s
former leaders – military and civilian – who thought he would make a better
President than President Goodluck Jonathan. He has lost that support. He has
since received letters asking him to shape up or ship out, or better still, to
forget seeking a second term in office. He has not heeded that advice. Civil
society has also changed its mind about the promise that he held out. The
international community is not impressed either.
On all counts, Atiku Abubakar stands a good
chance. In Nigerian politics, the maxim that “the taste of the pudding is in
the eating” also rings ever so true. But his golden moment lies ahead of him.
Fears that his emergence as PDP Presidential candidate could cause friction
within the PDP did not materialize. The other interested candidates not only
embraced him, they promised to work with him to ensure the victory of the PDP
in 2019. Atiku has the support of Nigeria ’s leadership elite,
including the extremely influential class of retired Generals. His boss,
President Olusegun Obasanjo who once wrote him off has not objected to his
emergence. Obasanjo is an astute political pragmatist. He has not minced words
in saying that Buhari does not deserve a second term. He clearly also
understands that personal differences apart, an Atiku Presidency will in many
ways, be an extension of the Obasanjo legacy. If there is any other political
legacy that Atiku knows, it invariably hacks back to Obasanjo. Atiku came to
limelight through the Shehu Yar’Adua political machinery: the People’s Front of
Nigeria (PFN) which later became the People’s Democratic Movement (PDM).
Yar’Adua who was murdered in prison, by the Abacha government, used that
platform to build bridges across Nigeria . Obasanjo was Yar’Adua’s
friend, they were both Abacha’s prisoners, and he would later prove his loyalty
to the man who previously served him as Chief of Staff, by anointing his junior
brother, Umaru Yar’Adua as Nigeria ’s
President in 2007.
It was Atiku Abubakar not Umaru Yar’Adua who
inherited the Shehu Yar’Adua political machinery. In fairness to Atiku, he has
kept that machinery alive, oiling it, over the years, such that there is no
part of Nigeria
where you do not have a PFN-PDM cell. Atiku’s emergence has automatically
re-activated those cells. In comparison, Buhari has no political machinery of
his own other than his folk hero status among Northern youths. The educated
ones among those Northern youths are now rebelling against him. There is a
class of young Northern intellectuals, educated in some of the best
universities around the world who have the capacity, I mean the intellectual
heft, to assess every argument or proposition on its own merits. They have
turned against Buhari. They resent the triumph of the stereotypical Northerner
under his watch. They feel insulted. They are unimpressed by the small games
that Nigerian politicians play. They, not even the Lagos-Ibadan press will be Buhari’s
main undoing in the months ahead. I cannot confirm that they are over-awed by
Atiku either. They will probably classify him as a better representative of the
North.
Atiku is cosmopolitan. He has since leaving
office in 2007, opened himself up to ideas, and the modernist world.
Significantly, he has not branded himself as a cattle-rearer. He has
investments in education, agriculture, maritime and other sectors of the
economy. There has been no complaint about his emergence as PDP Presidential
candidate from Corporate Nigeria – that wing of Nigerian politics populated by
deluded egoists who think money is everything- and that is understandable.
Corporate Nigeria
knows that its leaders can have a comfortable conversation with Atiku because
he has a working and practical knowledge of how the Nigerian economy works. He
once headed the country’s Economic Management Team and he superintended over Nigeria ’s
privatization process. Nobody will have to speak to him in Hausa language to
explain the meaning of simple economic terms.
Politically, even members of the ruling All
Progressives Congress see Atiku Abubakar as one of their own. There is no major
player in this country who has not had the opportunity of interacting with
Atiku at one level or the other. To every other constituency, Atiku is saying
that Nigeria
must be restructured. He poses a real threat to President Buhari’s second term
ambition. Senator Kwankwaso, now the main PDP politician in Kano State ,
will divide the votes in Kano
in Atiku’s favour. The South East and the South South may not vote for Buhari.
In the South West, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the Godfather of Lagos State politics,
has every reason to give Buhari “an Ambode treatment.” The Atiku Challenge is
real and bankable. The only option available to the incumbent is rigging! While
nobody in the Buhari camp can afford the luxury of laughter, me, I just dey
here dey laugh. I will tell the story in print and on television.
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