15th June, 2022
By: Amir Abdulazeez
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hen President Obasanjo carelessly picked Goodluck Jonathan to serve as ‘Yaradua’s
potential Vice President in 2007, little did we know that the politics of
picking running mates will later become complex and problematic. The death of Ummaru,
ascension of Jonathan, surprise emergence of Namadi Sambo and Patrick Yakowa becoming
the first Christian Civilian Governor of Kaduna State would all combine to later
add more relevance to the politics of running mate selection. In 2014, APC had
more headache in picking a presidential running mate than the presidential candidate
himself. It took them so much time and effort that one thought they will organize
a fresh convention for that purpose.
Today, the Muslim-Muslim ticket debacle is the bane of Nigerian
political discourse. While clamouring for fairness and balance which are needed
for a fragile system like Nigeria’s, we should also remember that from 1999 to
date, no religion can claim any net gain from this Nigerian version of
democracy. Ordinary followers of all religions have been victims of bad
governance, even pagans. We have suffered so much so that if a pagan/pagan
ticket will eradicate insecurity, fix the economy and bring development while
being fair to all interests and affiliations, we should allow it. Therefore, the
choice is between searching for solutions and satisfying sentiments; we seem to
favour the latter.
A section of public commentators and spectators are already suggesting a
walkover for Atiku Abubakar in the 2023 polls. That is the biggest complacency
I have ever seen in contemporary Nigerian politics. How can you be facing a ruling
party with almost 65% of political stakeholdership in the country and be
expecting to have a walkover? Atiku is an institution but his successes in the last
two PDP primaries is more of financial supremacy than political dominance. That
aside, barring a Buhari-like scenario, Atiku will definitely make a good
president. He is perhaps the only fully independent candidate with a clear and
accessible blueprint since 2007. In 2011, he had a better manifesto and
approach than President Goodluck Jonathan; he only lost the PDP primaries to
the power of incumbency. By the way, what happened to the Jonathan 2023
candidacy?
From 1992, this is Atiku’s 7th attempt at the Presidency with
2019 being his closest to success. Many believe 2023 is his year and so many
obvious factors call for optimism in his camp. However, there are two
fundamental things that may haunt Waziri; (in)consistency and (un)popularity.
Buhari and Tinubu are successfully reaping the harvests of consistency and
perseverance; they sticked to opposition politics all their lives. Atiku should’ve
remained in opposition when he decamped to Action Congress in 2007 or should’ve
remained in the ruling PDP when he decamped back in 2011. Ambition had kept him
running from one place to another making him neither establishment nor
anti-establishment. The second question is whether there is a single state in
Nigeria which Atiku can secure one million votes or more in 2023? I hope we all
remember Dr. Rabi’u Kwankwaso’s 3-K States theory?
Tinubu’s boast in Ogun State over his role in the emergence of Buhari as
President needs some revisiting and clarification. For the avoidance of doubt,
Muhammadu Buhari did not lose the 2003 presidential elections, it was brutally
rigged to return Obasanjo for a second term. 2003 will easily enter the list of
the worst elections in modern world history. In 2007, the presidential
elections results were simply written, so we can’t even call that election not
to talk of who won or lost. I have never relied on 2003 and 2007 election figures
for any research or serious analysis, because they are largely fabricated. The 2011
elections were relatively fair but at least 40% of the vote was rigged, written
or simply inflated especially in the South-South and South-East.
In circumstances like these, we cannot comfortably declare Buhari a loser
of all the previous elections he contested and only became a winner when he met
Tinubu. It is true that 2015 was the weakest version of political Buhari, it
was true that he had lost hope and that the APC merger spearheaded by Tinubu was
what brought him back to life. But it is also true that so many other factors
other than Tinubu contributed crucially to Buhari’s victory, one major one was
the abysmal performance of Goodluck Jonathan. One thing that is however certain
is that, without Tinubu’s support, it would’ve been near impossible for Buhari
to emerge APC flagbearer against the financial powerhouses in Kwankwaso and
Atiku.
This
brings us to the argument of access to public funds as the reason why some
candidates (not aspirants) are stronger than others. Supporters of a particular
presidential candidate even claimed that if their man had equal access to
public funds, he would be better than certain candidates. This is laughable; a
debate like this will take us nowhere. Just campaign for your candidate and
persuade people to vote for him. If we are talking about the abuse of peoples
trust and the utilization of our commonwealth for personal political
development, none of the major politicians in Nigeria will come out clean. So,
let us not deceive ourselves and others.
Where
are our smaller political parties who had spent most of their last four years fighting
INEC over deregistration? This is a good amount of time they would’ve spent in
coming together to form a strong bloc. In case we don’t know, 74 of them were deregistered
for failing to meet the requirements to continue to exist as political parties.
Probably about 10 to 15 of the currently existing will be due for
deregistration by this time next year. Instead of them to consider merging to
form a decent alternative, they’ll rather hang on only to be fighting a legal survival
battle with INEC next year. As the strongest and largest
intellectual organization in West Africa, I don’t even know why ASUU is yet to
form a political party or adopt any of the smaller parties to set up a path
towards satisfying their own demands all by themselves instead for waiting and
hoping for a hopeless Federal Government.
Why is nobody talking about the enormous task ahead of the next
president whom credible international reports suggest will have to use 100% of
his revenue in servicing (not repaying) debts by 2024? To execute projects or even
pay salaries, the next government may have to borrow further. Nigeria is in
trouble, we are drowning in the ocean of foreign debts, meanwhile we are concerned
over the religion of a presidential candidate more than his ability to bring us
out of this mess. Buhari has failed because Jonathan had built a solid foundation
for that failure. Now he has built a worse foundation for his successor. Ladies
and gentlemen, the possibility and danger of the next president irrespective of
his affiliation and preparedness to economically be worse than Buhari is
imminent. May God help us.
All
of the political dynamics of today are closely related to that of 1999, some a
bit earlier. If you have not directly experienced Nigerian political
development from 1999 with a mix of some pre-1999 historical knowledge, you
will find it difficult if not impossible to connect certain dots that you see
today. Extensive and intensive reading may help, but politely interacting with
veterans will do better. Social media where most of the political debates occur
is dominated by youths who knew little or nothing pre-2011 and don’t invest
significant time in reading but trying to engage or even confront the same
veterans that would’ve been their best opportunity at understanding the genesis
of the current situation.
There are some visible changes in Nigeria’s socio-political spaces,
although not new but have taken a different twist from the previous. The renewed
order is the attempt to criminalize certain political choices against others. Between
2014 to 2018, discourses were dominated by hate, campaigns of calumny,
fabrications and outright abuse. Today, political promoters are trying hard to
make it appear that only their candidates are good enough and any other choice is
treason. This is extremism, let’s
be careful, everything is a matter of opinion and everyone is entitled to his.
Twitter:
@AmirAbdulazeez
