BY BRIGHT JACOB
On May 29, 2023, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Olukayode Ariwoola, will swear-in Nigeria’s President-elect, Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress as the 16th President of the world’s most populous black nation, following his victory at the February 25 presidential election held across the country.
However, as the countdown to the inauguration continues, concerned Nigerians have urged members of the ruling party to cast their minds back to the 2015 presidential election when they managed to defeat the then ruling party, the People’s Democratic Party, with their “change” mantra, and avoid the many mistakes and potholes that almost brought the newly elected APC government to its knees.
During the period in 2015, former military president, Muhammadu Buhari, was the talismanic presidential candidate of the APC who spear-headed the charge and laid siege to the once-unassailable PDP fortress Nigerians thought would stand for some threescore years, at least according to a former national chairman of the PDP, the late Vincent Ogbulafor, who had bragged that the party would be in power for 60 years.
After the PDP’s defeat in 2015, whether by acts of omission and commission, the shenanigans usually associated with new political parties coming to power began to creep into the APC.
Bickering over who was indispensable or not in the party, orchestrated mainly by fortuitous members, with other nagging intra-party issues, had begun to rear its ugly head and became a sort of opium to these party members who were hell-bent on causing trouble.
Despite this fallout, Nigerians were excited and pumped up for the new administration and the new era that was to be heralded. They also expected Buhari to perform eye-popping magic with the economy and other vital sectors and, in addition, bring prudence to governance. But things, at least during the inception of Buhari’s administration, didn’t go the way Nigerians expected of the APC.
At the beginning in 2015, the squabbles in the party over trivial matters had intensified and entitled members had begun to jostle for political appointments and wanted a slice of the new APC-controlled national cake. Buhari himself was not having it easy getting the best and most competent hands to pilot the affairs of the country with him.
There was, therefore, heated discussions in the political space, after Buhari’s inauguration, about those who played various roles that helped the Katsina State-born politician to emerge as President, and the impact those roles had on his campaign and election. Questions were also asked about political players that deserved and qualified to be vested with portfolios in the new administration.
“And with the way some people behaved within the party before the primary election that produced Asiwaju as the presidential candidate of the party, some people never thought of the repercussions with the way they campaigned. They used so many materials that were untrue against Tinubu, which the opposition latched onto when it became APC versus the other three prominent parties”
Interestingly, an individual who was not publicly vocal and literally vanished from public view while the new APC government was in its administrative laboratory conducting random experiments to determine which technocrat or politician fit into which role or not was the former two-term Governor of Lagos State, Bola Tinubu. And while the presidential villa became a beehive of activity, the Jagaban, for reasons best known to him, chose to stay away from the corridors of power.
Of course, some of Tinubu’s right-hand men were given juicy posts and parastatals to head, but the APC front-runner continued to keep his distance from the seat of power and Nigerians were in awe of him but convinced there was a rift between him and Buhari. Analysts, at the time, said Tinubu avoided the perimeter of Nigeria’s seat of power because he didn’t want to be viewed as interfering in Buhari’s presidency.
Ever the man of action and ambitious, Tinubu had long been nursing his own lifelong ambition – to be Nigeria’s president. Because months after Buhari won his second term re-election bid in 2019, the former Lagos State Governor decided it was time to reveal his presidency plan to Nigerians, and he unashamedly asked those he once helped put in office and those he mentored and brought into political limelight in Nigeria for favour.
However, while the race for the sole ticket of the APC presidential primary election was heating up, Tinubu alleged that his presidential ambition was in jeopardy and fizzling out dangerously because there were some unnamed elements in Buhari’s government working against his ambition. Tinubu, the political strategist par excellence, then went ahead to tell Nigerians, during a stakeholders’ engagement in Ogun State, that he was the one who helped instate Buhari as President.
While at it, Tinubu said Buhari cried to him after his last failed attempt at the presidency in 2011 and wanted to give up hope of ever contesting for it. Tinubu said his intervention made a world of difference to Buhari who later became President in 2015.
Continuing, Tinubu said after Buhari took up the reins of government, he (Tinubu) never for once begged or lobbied for any post or government contracts. According to him, the support of those who he once stood by was a good enough way to repay him for his own magnanimity.
Not a few people were miffed with Tinubu for having the “effrontery” to “debase” Buhari. One of those who vehemently resisted the political juggernaut after he made the revelation was the National Chairman of the APC, Abdullahi Adamu. Adamu, himself a former two-term Governor of Nasarawa State, was rooting for the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, to pick the then-vacant, sole presidential candidate ticket of the APC. And even though he threatened fire and brimstone against Tinubu, he stopped short of sanctioning him.
Today, Tinubu is the President-elect and it seems his party, the APC, has come full circle to the time in 2015 when it was rocked by the uncertainties that led to outgoing President, Buhari, forming his cabinet almost six months into his administration. And even though one of Tinubu’s spokespersons, Bayo Onanuga, said his principal would constitute his cabinet within 30 days after his inauguration, a network of potential crisis situations might be lurking around.
Raising this alarm is a member of Tinubu’s Presidential Campaign Committee for Media and Special Project, Moyo Jaji.
According to Jaji, the jostling for appointments by deserving and undeserving “big boys” in the ruling party, who played, wittingly and unwittingly, roles that could have affected the fortunes of the APC before the elections, had the potential to ignite unwanted crises in the party, and relegate those who stood with Tinubu, through thick and thin, to the background.
Jaji noted that because there are still different interests within the APC, there will be forces fighting against one another so as to have a competitive edge.
He said, “You know that from the word ‘go,’ the APC itself is a coat of many colours. Different political parties, having found out that…because of their respective sizes…if they didn’t come together, might not be able to dislodge the ‘leviathan’ called the PDP, who promised Nigerians that they would rule for 60 years.
“So, because of the different interests within the party, of course, there will be forces fighting against one another so as to have a competitive edge. That was what affected Buhari when he came to power and it took him about six months or thereabouts to form his government.
“We are envisaging that the same thing will erupt (again) because we are dealing with human beings with ambition, and ambition is a beast. It has nothing to do with being rational…you want to be something, you don’t want to know how you’ll get there….your own is to get there.
“And with the way some people behaved within the party before the primary election that produced Asiwaju as the presidential candidate of the party, some people never thought of the repercussions with the way they campaigned. They used so many materials that were untrue against Tinubu, which the opposition latched onto when it became APC versus the other three prominent parties,” Jaji said.
Continuing, he said, “And I can tell you this…I am a member of the Presidential Campaign Committee for Media and Special Project. The kind of shenanigans perpetuated there (before the presidential election)…we had to talk to ourselves because if we had reacted, it would have impinged on Asiwaju’s chances (during the polls). So, we had to swallow all the nonsense perpetuated by those people who are now seeing themselves as the front-runners in Asiwaju’s yet-to-be-formed Government.
“And when you check the antecedents and pedigree of these people, most of them shouldn’t even go near the man. More so, now that he is the president-elect. Because at the end of the day, they will be the same people the opposition elements will use against the yet-to-be-formed Government,” Jaji declared.
Reacting to Jaji’s disclosure, a political analyst based in Ebonyi State, Roland Nduka, said that undeserving members in the APC should caution themselves and not distract Tinubu. He added that Tinubu’s actions after Buhari’s inauguration as President was worthy of commendation and that if politicians made it their “model for dignified conduct”, Nigeria would be a great country.
He said, “Tinubu is a real statesman. I remember that he was nowhere to be found when all the gate-crashes were taking place during the early days of Buhari’s government. We didn’t hear his voice. Unfortunately, today’s politicians will not understand the wisdom of ‘maintaining’ their dignity.
“He accomplished a lot for Buhari but didn’t trouble the man at all. I urge those who may claim to have helped Tinubu before and during the election to exercise some restraint and not trouble the man as he continues in the background to put his incoming Government in place.
“If these people….I am talking about APC members, and they know themselves. They should not trouble the President-elect…and if they use Tinubu’s actions as a model for dignified conduct, Nigeria will be a great country. If they also have the interest of this country at heart, they will understand that a crisis could erupt in the party if they don’t get their act together. We want the best for this government, but charity begins at home,” Nduka said.
Apart from the jostling for political appointment by “undeserving” members of the APC, Adamu’s position as the national chairman of the APC may be in peril and this has the potential to create a “fire-on-the-mountain” scenario in the APC.
Keen political observers have stated that the APC national chairman is not a true fan of Tinubu willy-nilly. They have also argued that even if he was conspicuously present during Tinubu’s campaign rallies, he didn’t support the political generalissimo at the outset and his removal might be imminent.
Adamu was Buhari’s anointed candidate for the national chairmanship position of the APC. And Adamu, who said he didn’t know he would occupy the party’s top seat a month before the party’s National Convention in Abuja on March 26, 2022, emerged as the consensus candidate after six other contestants reluctantly bowed out from the chairmanship race during the convention last year.
Apparently, Adamu played a partisan role when the party was scouting for a “formidable” presidential candidate. He said the party had endorsed the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, who is from Yobe State in the Northeastern region, as the APC consensus presidential candidate, even though APC governors from the North had asked for the party’s presidential ticket to be zoned to the South.
“Keen political observers have stated that the APC national chairman is not a true fan of Tinubu willy-nilly. They have also argued that even if he was conspicuously present during Tinubu’s campaign rallies, he didn’t support the political generalissimo at the outset and his removal might be imminent”
Adamu didn’t back down in his support for Lawan. However, the Senate President, and others, were roundly defeated at the APC primary by Tinubu. Many agree that Adamu’s actions will likely attract some kind of sanction or punishment. But if this were to happen after Tinubu has been inaugurated as President, Adamu, the man in the eye of the storm, would surely kick against any effort to replace him as the national chairman of the APC.
Another intricate issue the APC is expected to delicately handle because it has stirred dissident voices speaking for or against it, is the calls for the party to zone the Senate Presidency to the South-East geopolitical region. Already the issue is on the front burner and has the potential to distract Tinubu’s yet-to-be-formed government.
After Tinubu and his running mate, Kashim Shettima, from Borno State in the North-East, emerged victorious at the polls under the controversial Muslim-Muslim ticket of the APC, some political analysts said it would make a lot of sense and be logical if the third highest office in the land, the Senate Presidency, was occupied by a Southern Christian from the South-East region. This, however, has continued to provoke a raging debate.
Former Senate Majority leader from the South-South, Victor Ndoma-Egba, said the Senate Presidency should be zoned to the South-East. Ndoma-Egba used the government of former President Olusegun Obasanjo as a historical precedent that supported the South-East taking the Senate Presidency spot when a President and a Vice President emerged from the South-West and Northern part of the country, respectively.
Various groups who highlighted the pros of gifting the South-East with the Senate Presidency said that it would help douse tension in the region, and give the people there a sense of belonging in the project called Nigeria.
Although there are also agitations for the office to be zoned to the South-South region, advocates of zoning to the South-East have insisted that the APC can use the decision to consolidate on their performance in the South-East, where the party has two APC governors, in Imo and Ebonyi States, as well as a Governor-elect in Ebonyi State. The APC also has six Senators-elect and eight House of Representatives seats in the National Assembly.
A political commentator, Reginald Anene, while addressing the issue whether there would be a potential crisis situation should the APC not zone the Senate Presidency to the South-East and the effects it would have on the party going forward, said, “Let’s not lose sight of the fact that in the just ended NASS, the South-East didn’t have the Senate Presidency and the party was still able to get six Senatorial seats from the region.
“But compared to the result Buhari had in the South-East (in 2019) and what Tinubu had, you can make an argument for the South-East not clinching it. President Buhari did far better than what Tinubu was able to achieve in terms of votes in the South-East. So, here is my take.
“Perhaps, hopefully, to be able to get more votes from the South-East, they may elect to zone it to the South-East. But I have my doubts, simply for this reason: the votes the APC got from the South-East at the recent polls were very abysmal. I would be surprised if they actually zoned it to the South-East.
“But if we also look at the principle of fairness and national integration, zoning the Senate Presidency to the South-East might be the best thing to do. So that as you have the President who is from the South-West, you have the Vice President from the North-East and you have the Senate President from the South-East and probably have the Speaker from, maybe, the North-West.
That would be for me my ideal configuration,” he said.
Anene also said that the Senate Presidency zoning palaver would not cause a crisis situation the PDP would exploit as Tinubu would soon have the situation under control.
“One thing the PDP should know…there will be no crack in the wall for the lizard to fall through like it happened in past Assemblies. One thing is sure, Tinubu is going to sit down with those vying for the position and they are going to come to a compromise. And then if they ever get anyone who rebels, I can guarantee you that person is going to be a marked man,” Anene concluded.
