OSEPH USHIGIALE – joseph.ushigiale@thisdaylive.com 08023422660 (sms only)
The All Progressives Congress (APC) deserves a pat on the back for successfully holding its primary elections earlier in the week. Before then, intrigues, horse-trading, finger-pointing, and outright subterfuge were the order of the day. At some point, it felt as if there was never going to be a primary election or convention with some fearing an implosion. In the end, the party managed to pull its act together with the election of Senator Abdullahi Adamu-led exco.
Adamu was charged to organise the party’s primary elections to elect flagbearers into different offices, especially the presidency. In the build-up to the primary election, the party announced and pegged the cost of its expression of interest and nomination forms at N100m the most expensive so far in the country.
Those who responded to this announcement and bought the forms were Sen. Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Prof. Yemi Osibanjo, Rotimi Amaechi, Sen. Godswill Akpabio, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, Sen. Chris Ngige, Sen. Rochas Okorocha, Sen. Ibikunle Amosun, Pastor. Tunde Bakare, Comrade. Adams Oshiomole, Prof. Ben Ayade, Engr. Dave Umahi and Dr Kayode Fayemi.
Others were Emeka Nwajiuba, Sen. Ken Nnamani, Yahaya Bello, Sen. Orji Uzor Kalu, Gov. Badaru, Godwin Emefiele, Ahmed Sani Yerima, Ajayi Borriface, Mrs Uji Ohnenye, Pastor Nicholas Felix Nwagbo, Dimeji Bankole and Yunusa Nuhu Ometo totalling 25 aspirants in all.
Just like former President Olusegun Obasanjo enthroned the late Umaru Yar’Adua as his successor in 2007, President Muhammadu Buhari sought to replicate the same pathway by choosing his own successor. Initially, he denied nursing any ambition to enthrone a successor. When asked by a TV reporter if he would follow that well-beaten track of choosing his successor? Buhari said he didn’t care who succeeded him.
Shortly afterward, in yet another media interview, he declared that he had a candidate in mind and that the anointed candidate was a well-guarded secret. He went on to assert that if he were to divulge the identity of his anointed candidate, he would be killed ahead of time.
Buhari’s declaration suddenly set tongues wagging: who was this anointed candidate? Was the candidate a southerner or northerner? If it is a northerner, is Buhari retaining power in the north after eight years on the saddle? How about the south? If he anoints a southerner, would it be Asiwaju Bola Tinubu or someone else? If he ditches Tinubu in the end, how would it play out?
So these were the undercurrents that underpinned the build-up to the special convention to elect the party’s presidential candidate. Buhari who initially claimed that he couldn’t be bothered who succeeded him suddenly made a volte-face turn around seeking to name a successor.
To actualise this project, he first sought to foist a party chairman on the party. He arm-twisted stakeholders of the party including the governors and succeeded in foisting Senator Abdulahi Adamu, a pro-core north and anti-south hardliner as party chairman unilaterally.
To douse tension, Buhari directed that all first-term governors should get automatic tickets for the second term, while outgoing second-term governors should have the liberty to install their respective successors. With this plan, Buhari expected them to back his mission to unilaterally impose his anointed candidate on the party.
Justifying his decision, Buhari told the governors that “the party has successfully established internal policies that promote continuity and smooth succession plans.”
He went on to hint that “first-term governors who have served credibly well have been encouraged to stand for re-election. Similarly, second-term governors have been accorded the privilege of promoting successors that are capable of driving their visions as well as the ideals of the party.”
To ensure that his boat was not torpedoed, he solicited the cooperation and support of the governors and other stakeholders urging them to embrace the law of reciprocity and support him in picking his successor, who would fly the presidential flag.
Where did Buhari get the confidence and courage to think that he could unilaterally impose or foist a candidate on the party? Is it that he has done so well that he would have the audacity to enthrone a successor or he just wanted to continue with his impunity of imposing yet another failure on Nigerians to continue with his failed policies?
Truth is that Buhari and his cheerleaders seem to overrate the capacity of the President. To refuse to admit that Buhari’s almost eight years of disastrous rule has demystified him and eroded that messianic toga which he hitherto paraded like a talisman, is a mission in delusion whose outcome is a definitive failure.
Would Buhari have pulled it through singularly? The answer is an emphatic NO. The reason is simple: he failed to realise that he is an outgoing President with waning powers. Under the circumstance, he is no longer in control as loyalty within the party has already shifted to who is presumed to emerge as the party’s flagbearer and possibly the next President. He was literally a lame duck, trying to exercise what has left him. Buhari, Adamu, and his cohorts forgot that the train had left the station very long ago.
Meanwhile, while Buhari, Adamu and their cohorts were puffing and huffing in Abuja, Tinubu was taciturn and preferring to adopt a siddon look and wait and see mien. And so it was until he decided to journey to Abeokuta to confer with the state’s delegates ahead of the special convention.
While there, he decided to seize the moment to break his long silence and challenged the status quo by arguing that without his personal efforts and contributions Buhari would never have been President. According to him, “If not for me that led the battlefront, Buhari wouldn’t have won. He contested first, second and third times, but lost. He even said on television that he won’t contest again. But I went to his home in Kaduna. I told him ‘you would contest and win, but you won’t joke with the matter of the Yoruba.”
Tinubu’s outburst immediately sent shock waves across the country; grabbing headlines and dominating discussions. In the north, there was palpable angst against Tinubu for daring Buhari. Adamu, who chose to cry more than the bereaved rose to the occasion threatening serious consequences for Tinubu. The former Secretary to Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, a staunch Tinubu supporter was infuriated and warned that Tinubu had reduced his chances of success at the primary by attacking Buhari. According to him, Tinubu was not the only person whose support made the difference arguing that others too threw in their support to make the difference.
He stressed that “Sometimes it is very difficult to support a Yoruba person in national politics if you are not one. They have a way of making you regret your support because they eventually make you seem like a traitor to your own people.”
Thus, it became apparent that Tinubu had dug his own grave and was only waiting to be buried by the almighty north. That was the mood in the days leading up to the convention. But unknown to them, Tinubu, who goes by the sobriquet – The Lion of Bourdillon, had a surprise for them. Ahead of the convention, the maverick politician and master strategist had already laid his incontrovertible pathway to a historic landslide that was to thoroughly confound and shame his traducers.
How did he achieve that? Tinubu knew that for him to succeed in this last gasp lifelong ambition, he needed to identify northern playmakers to make a persuasive and convincing case to them for a Southern presidency to win the 2023 polls. This is to counter the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which already picked former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar as its flagbearer.
Pronto he aligned with core northerners of like minds including Abubakar Bagudu of Kebbi, Simon Lalong of Plateau, Abubakar Badaru of Jigawa, Aminu Masari of Katsina, Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa, Bello Matawalle of Zamfara, Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano, Abubakar Bello of Niger, Yahaya Inuwa of Gombe, Babagana Zulum of Borno, Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna and AbdulRahman Abdulrazaq of Kwara who all teamed up under the aegis of the Progressives Governors’ Forum to declare their support for power shift to the south.
Before this audacious declaration, both the presidency and Adamu had argued that it was proper and within the President’s right to choose his successor. Adamu took a step further by pronouncing Senate President Ahmed Lawan as the chosen one. But the pronouncement didn’t go down well with the progressive governors forcing them to issue a communique and publicly announcing their support for power shift to the south as well as dissociating themselves from any support for Lawan.
They didn’t stop there, the pro-south powershift northern governors sought an audience with Buhari and informed him of their decision.
At this point, Buhari had no choice but to concur with their position. Buhari didn’t have a choice anyway because he relied on the governors for support. Buhari has no party structure, the governors control the party structure in their respective states and delegates. Whatever power Buhari would have flaunted had been scuttled by the amended Electoral Act that abrogated statutory delegates.
With the coast clear and armed with an inexhaustible war chest, the Jagaban of Borgu stepped forward to clinically execute his plan of becoming the presumptive APC flagbearer for the 2023 presidential polls. By the time the votes were tallied, the result was a landslide for Tinubu: Bola Ahmed Tinubu Scored 1271 Votes, Rotimi Amaechi. Scored 316 Votes, Yemi Osinbajo scored 235 Votes, Sen. Ahmed Lawan Scored. 152 Votes, Yahaya Bello. Scored. 47 Votes, David Umahi Scored 38 Votes, Sen. Ben Ayede. Scored 37 Votes, Sen. Ahmed Rufai Sani. Scored 4 Votes, Hon. Chukwuemeka. Scored 1 vote., Ogbonnaya Onu Scored 1 vote, Jack Rich. Scored. 0 Vote, Pastor Bakare. Scored 0 vote, Sen. Rochas Okorocha. Scored. 0 Vote, Chief Mukelu. Scored. 0 Vote.
Now let’s be clear, I am not a fan of Tinubu but I tend to admire his courage, his deliberateness, and strategic actions. Whether you love or hate Tinubu, although a great mixer who parades a network of influential friends, he is not a crowd person and does not flow with the crowd. He is calm, calculating, visionary and a great thinker, he prefers to go against the wind rather than follow the flow. He is a bridge-builder and knows when to make a compromise. You underrate the Jagaban at your own peril because he is always several steps ahead of you.
For people like Lawal ‘the grasscutter’ who argued that other people contributed to making Buhari President in 2015, where were these people when Buhari lost elections thrice in the past even with his miracle 12m votes? If there is anyone with pan-Nigerian structures in this country, that person is the Jagaban. He is very patient like a vulture but knows how to roar when the need arises like he stirred the hornet’s nest in Abeokuta not long ago.
His traducers hound him and argue that he has baggage. He is accused of being corrupt but why is he still walking the streets free, is it that he is above the law? Why has the long arm of the law not caught up with him? They also allege that he was a drug baron but why have the U.S authorities not indicted him? His traducers say he is old and suffering from Alzheimer’s disease yet the Jagaban displays a fecund mind, he is articulate and has no memory loss.
Now that he has the APC presidential ticket firmly tucked in his pocket, he has to contend with the rumoured northern conspiracy to back Atiku to retain power in the north. Whether he wins or loses in the end, it would be documented that Tinubu recorded a major upset in a presidential primary denying an incumbent to enthrone a successor. Given his huge investment in entrenching democracy and his triumph at the party primary, it is almost certain that it is truly ‘a lifelong ambition’ whose time has come. Who knows, it may perhaps usher in a fresh breath of air different from the pervading uncertainty that reigns in the polity today.
