Wednesday, October 10, 2018 07:10AM / OpEd By
Reuben Abati
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.
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 Al-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.
Most Recent Posts by Author – Dr. Reuben Abati
1.
Nigeria’s Certificate Scandals
3. Dauragate As A Metaphor For
Governance In Nigeria
4. Understanding The Crisis Of
Defections and APC’s Response
6. Dasuki’s Bail, The Attorney
General and Commitment To The Rule Of Law
7. Hadi Sirika And The Return Of
Nigeria Airways
8. Minister Kemi Adeosun’s NYSC
Certificate
9. The Adebayo Adedeji Example
10. In Defence Of The Fulani In
Our Midst
11. Ten Years After Lamidi Adedibu
12. Super Eagles And Marcus The
Pig At The World Cup
13. “Just Do Good”: A June 12 Story
14. Buhari And The June 12 Saga
16. The Impending Implosion Of APC
17. 2019 And The Politics Of
Campaign Finance
18. #Elections2019: Nigeria’s
Emerging Political Leaders
19. Mission: Impossible - Buhari’s
Impeachment
20. Where Is The Nigerian
Opposition?
21. Nigeria, ECOWAS and the
Morocco Question
22. The Kigali AU Summit:
Nigeria’s Diplomatic Blunder
23. Lagos State And The Politics
Of Taxation
24. Africa: A Continent Without
Democrats
25. Dapchi 110: The tragedy Of A
Nation
Related News
1. The Road To 2019: QUO VADIS,
NIGERIA?
2. ANRP Presidential Candidate
Tope Fasua Speaks On The State Of The Nation
3. #2019Elections: Atiku Abubakar
Emerges Presidential Candidate For PDP
4. #2019Elections:APC affirms
Buhari as Presidential Candidate
5. Aisha Buhari Wants APC To
Address Cases Of Impunity In Primaries
6. Datti Ahmed: Time for a
Paradigm Shift in the North
7. APC NWC Clears 24 Governorship
Candidates to Contest 2019 Elections
8. Governor Akinwunmi Ambode
Accepts Defeat, Congratulates Sanwo-Olu
9. APC NWC Declares Sanwoolu
winner of Lagos Guber Primaries
10. APC NWC Postpones Lagos Guber
Primaries Indefinitely
12. #NigeriaAt58:President Buhari
commits to free and fair electoral process
13. Lagos APC Guber Primaries:
Tinubu issues statement
14. EFCC Launches Offensive
Against Election Fraud, Tracks Campaign Financing by Parties
15. Nigeria’s Self-Styled Macron
Wants To Win Power By Ending Corruption
16. National Assembly to Resume
October 9th, 2018
17. #OsunDecides2018: INEC
Declares Guber Elections Inconclusive, Fixes September 27 for Rerun