Why 2023 permutations may change in a few weeks
BY BENEDICT NWACHUKWU, TIMOTHY AGBOR AND MAYOWA SAMUEL
Ahead of the 2023 general elections, the Presidential candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, who until about two months ago caught the figure of a frontrunner for the coveted office of the President of Nigeria, has dropped far out of contention.
The Point’s investigation showed that following a series of missteps and inexplicable political blunders, the once huge political capital at the disposal of the Kano State born politician may have dramatically vanished into thin air.
Handsome, urbane and with a standout physical stature at any gathering and with a name that easily sticks to the subconscious, Kwankwaso was among the leading four contenders for the plum job by January this year.
With the contest increasingly narrowing into a three horse race, notwithstanding the about 140 days to the 2023 presidential election, indications are that he would do well to prepare for 2027.
Speaking to The Point over the weekend, a socio-political analyst, Umar Ndagi, dismissed the Leader of the Kwankwasiyya Movement as standing no chance in the current process.
Ndagi, who doubles as an Economist and Investment Banker based in Port Harcourt, said, “He doesn’t stand a chance. The problem with the Kwakwanso quest is that he hadn’t been able to gravitate to a national platform. He had remained stuck as a regional candidate, and based on the constitutional constraints, I don’t see him making it, because he has not established ground work here in the South South, neither in the South East, nor in the South West, not even North Central. He is practically restricted to the North West.”
“There is really nothing about the guy. The best is that he had allowed his ego to override quite a number of considerations, otherwise, he should have tagged along with Peter Obi. He may be more politically savvy and mature than Peter Obi, but the reality and the sentiment of a Southern president had already given Peter Obi an edge over him”
He argued that even if the whole of the North West was conceded to him, that still won’t make him win the presidency.
“Let’s even give him North West, at least, he has gubernatorial candidates in all the North West states and in terms of opinion polls, they tend to be doing very well with the gubernatorial candidates but only in the North West. And that is no guarantee for a national spread,” he contended.
Kwankwaso, in March, dumped the People’s Democratic Party, the second time in eight years, and pitched a tent with the NNPP where he easily emerged the presidential candidate.
He attracted, almost immediately, a horde of heavyweight politicians of northern extraction, especially from the North West. But the influx of politicians who were disgruntled with their parties stopped as those parties moved quickly to ensure reconciliation.
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“Kwankwaso’s decision to join the NNPP has remained a talking point with analysts saying his refusal to stick with a popular party with a national outlook and bide his time has done incalculable damage to his ambition.
Again, Umar Ndagi weighed in saying he stood no chance in the two major parties.
“He didn’t stand a chance of getting a presidential ticket with either APC or PDP because APC had already made the decision to zone the ticket to the South. So, that had disqualified him. In the PDP, he doesn’t have that kind of financial war chest Atiku Abubakar and Nyesom Wike have, so, that had actually knocked him out. But I think where he would’ve made an impact would have been a merger between NNPP and Labour Party, which would have been monumental.
“Even his choice of a running mate is nothing to write home about. There is really nothing about the guy. The best is that he had allowed his ego to override quite a number of considerations, otherwise, he should have tagged along with Peter Obi. He may be more politically savvy and mature than Peter Obi, but the reality and the sentiment of a Southern president had already given Peter Obi an edge over him.
“Perhaps, as it is now, he could pick one or two states in the North West. He stands a chance in Kano; he could produce a governor in Kano. He might produce a governor in Kaduna and Jigawa but I think he’ll just end up getting one or two governors that, maybe after the general elections, before you know it, they too will start decamping to whichever party forms the Federal Government,” Ndagi argued.
Also speaking to The Point, political scientist, public affairs analyst and a chieftain of the APC, Moyo Jaji, described the NNPP flag bearer as “politically confused.”
He said Kwankwaso emerged as the man who rightly should wear the big shoes of the late Aminu Kano and the late Abubakar Rimi from the ancient city but had, through a series of wrong political decisions, become a local champion.
“Perhaps he is confused. He’s now a local champion. He used to be the Lord of the minor in Kano, after Aminu Kano and Abubakar Rimi. Recently, he seems to have lost his way because of the way he’s playing his politics. And that’s why others too are rising. We now hear of Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau, and the likes of the governor (Abdullahi Ganduje). They are all challenging him now,” he noted.
Jaji said the most the NNPP candidate could do now was to make things difficult for the APC candidate, Asiwaju Tinubu, in Kano and nothing more.
He stated, “The worst he can do is to be a spoiler for APC votes in that area because no matter how bad, Kwakwanso is a very experienced politician.
But his wrong moves only show that he’s just human. He might have lost his way politically. He is more or less on his own now. One would have expected him to be with the APC, then they will do the whole thing, that’s why I said he seems to be a confused man.
“In politics, your friend today may be your enemy tomorrow, and a day after, he will become your friend again. That’s why they say, in politics, only interest matters. The only thing constant in politics is interest. His interest is driving him all over the place and in the process, he is losing momentum.
“The Kwakwanso that I know of years back, like when he came second after Buhari then, why he can’t do anything now is because he left the mainstream, he felt he could be on his own. Our own view of him now is that he is just going to be a spoiler. There’s something people are not even talking about which some of us are even very afraid of. Are we sure that the mainstream northern elite are ready to work for Tinubu?”
According to him, north westerners, in the axis between Kano, Kaduna and Katsina, believe they should be playing major roles “in who becomes what”.
“But the choice of Kashim Shettima this time around, a Kanuri, not Hausa, not Fulani, is making some people feel left out in the equation.
“So, we are very afraid now that they can decide to play the spoiler game and say instead of tagging along, they’ll rather vote for Atiku in the PDP. Their main reason is that power should remain in the north, but we know that God is not like that. This theory I brought out now will ruffle some feathers, that they are not supporting Tinubu wholeheartedly. They should prove me wrong,” Jaji concluded.
Another political scholar, Adekunle Animashaun, said Kwankwanso’s presidential bid was being doubted because he now had a weak party that might be incapable of winning a presidential election.
He argued, “We can only make permutations and conjectures. Ultimately, it is the Nigerian people that will determine who goes home with the presidential trophy. But we know that as a politician, Rabiu Musa Kwakwanso is a very prominent actor in the Nigerian political scene. If he had remained in the PDP, if he had won the PDP presidential ticket, nobody would have doubted his capacity to win the presidential election.
“The only disadvantage that he has presently that I can see is the fact that the platform is weak to run for the presidency. It’s not a mainstream platform within Nigerian politics.
“I see his party, NNPP, winning some seats in Kano State and, probably, Kaduna State. But at the national level, NNPP cannot go far.
Although, that party would enjoy the very powerful profile of Rabiu Kwankwanso, having been a former governor, having been a Minister of Defence and having been a Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives. So, Kwankwaso, by every standard, is a national politician, but the platform on which he is seeking to get the presidency will be the danger for him in the 2023 general elections.”
The fear that Kwankwaso’s NNPP may turn out to be the decider of the election as a result of how it performs was reechoed by a professor of political science, Omitola Bolaji, who said Kwakwanso might be playing a spoiler game in his presidency bid.
Respondents said the former Minister of Defence has a “weak political platform that couldn’t win a national election.”
They added that the almost lack of mobilisation by the party might attest to Kwankwanso’s tendency of pretending to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari.
Speaking exclusively with The Point, Bolaji said the NNPP presidential candidate might be one of the Nigerian politicians who only contest for the sake of it and to also play games.
He said, “In every cycle of election, whether general or off-cycle election, it is always a normal thing to see that there are always frontline or prominent candidates and we always have those ones that just want to ensure that they are part of the process; they are just contesting for contesting sake. Within themselves, they know they are going nowhere but at least, to partake. Especially, in the Nigerian tradition, we like titles a lot and some even prefer to be called a former presidential aspirant or candidate.
“For the man Kwakwanso, there was this news, I can’t really place where I read it, where Kwakwanso, himself, said if not that he was contesting, he would have supported and voted for Tinubu. And so, that means if you are not seeing the man (Kwakwanso) coming up now, I don’t know what is happening. But that also speaks volume about his candidature. Even among the people that are contesting with him, he (Kwakwanso) recognises the fact that Tinubu is a better candidate, he respects that too much.
“Of course, I have been seeing some information about the Kwakwanso man. At least, I saw some of his posters in Kwara State, but coming to Oyo, Ogun, Osun, I have not been seeing his presence, other than billboards that show ‘Kwakwanso for President’ and all that. So, I wouldn’t know because I am not a party man, whether at the grassroots level, he is doing a lot of mobilisation. Of course, we can venture to say that there has not been much mobilisation.
“Kwankwaso is not the only one in this. There are other candidates including Kola Abiola. I am not sure if Kola Abiola is contesting an election in Ikeja, Abiola’s residence, whether he will win there, even in his own family. I wouldn’t be able to know Kwankwanso’s strength in the North because I am not from there but one thing I can say, gauging from the way people are declaring for Tinubu and Atiku in the North and the mobilisation that is going on in the North for PDP and APC, I am not seeing the Kwankwanso’s presidency gaining ground like that except for people who argue that in Kano, you know they have this Kwankwasiyya movement, that could also push a lot of things there.
“So, Kwankwanso and other unpopular candidates are going to cause a lot of damage for the candidates here and there. That’s another side in politics because some of them are contesting to be able to negotiate at the end of the day.”
NO, HE’S THE MAN TO BEAT
Curiously, members of the party would not agree that their man stands no chance in the February 25 presidential election. The Gombe State governorship candidate of the NNPP, Khamisu Ahmed Mailantarki, declared that Kwankwaso had the brightest chances of winning the forthcoming election.
“The worst he can do is to be a spoiler for APC votes in that area because no matter how bad, Kwakwanso is a very experienced politician”
The former two time member of the House of Representatives, representing Gombe/ Kwami/Funakaye Federal Constituency in the 7th and 8th Assembly on the ticket of CPC said it was the right of every politician to claim victory ahead of elections but argued that the electorates know who to cast their votes for at the polls.
“Our political mentor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, who is our presidential candidate, if you look at his political records in Kano where he introduced a lot of policies and programmes in education, agriculture, sports and a whole lot more, stands very tall. Today if you go anywhere, Kano is known.
“A lot of people in Kano benefitted from these policies and programmes and one good thing is that he did not limit it to himself. He spread it across board, even the common man benefited and that is exactly what our programme is in 2023,” he noted.
Mailantarki added that NNPP was not new and that “the candidate in NNPP has been in existence for over 20 years.”
He explained, “What we did was to energise the party and the new energised NNPP is what is on board now and that is the NNPP, led by our able presidential candidate.
“I can categorically tell you that APC and PDP have drastically dropped on the ranking and have lost their first and second eleven and that is exactly as it is with all the 36 states of the federation and Abuja.
“Those two parties are relying on names they don’t even have again. The people are not happy with them because they have jointly destroyed our country and there is no remorse.”
Mailantarki maintained that the NNPP standard bearer remained a force to reckon with in the 2023 political calculations and claimed that he had endeared himself to the hearts of the voting populace because of his records as governor, minister and even senator, a record, he said “none of the other candidates has.”
Buba Galadima, another ardent supporter of Kwankwaso, boasted that the NNPP flag bearer was the most preferred candidate for the 2023 presidency.
“I have said it times without number that, given a free, fair and credible election, nobody can beat Kwankwaso as far as majority votes are concerned. We are working on the other leg, which is securing 25 per cent vote cast of Nigerians in 2/3 of the states. For the majority votes, none of them can come a distant second to Kwankwaso. Of course, we don’t have money, but it doesn’t matter. We know that some individuals are spending millions on traditional rulers and the Emirs to persuade Kwankwaso to step down for their candidates. We also know that some heads of state and other statesmen have been used to persuade Kwankwaso to step down for certain individuals. If Kwankwaso does not have electoral value, why are they persuading him to step down for certain individuals? It is because they know that he is a candidate to beat in this election,” he said.
Also another chieftain of NNPP in Osun State, Adekunle Ismail Abolade, told The Point that Kwankwanso had been visiting states across the country to galvanize support for his presidential bid, and expressed confidence that the former governor of Kano State would emerge victorious at the presidential election next year.
Abolade, who is the House of Representatives candidate for Irewole/Ayedaade/Isokan Federal Constituency, said, “I want to tell Nigerians that Engr Rabiu Musa Kwakwanso is still in the presidential race and he has been going from one state to the other seeking for support. Last week, he was in Port Harcourt but we have yet to kick-start our official campaign. We have been visiting states and canvassing for votes over time. By 2023, I am convinced that Engr Rabiu Musa Kwakwanso will emerge as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. According to the leadership of the party, NNPP will be commencing presidential campaigns anytime in this new month.”
There has been a crisis in the Osun State chapter of the party as four National Assembly candidates recently dumped the NNPP and declared support for the presidential candidate of the APC, Bola Tinubu.
It was gathered that the four chieftains and other members of NNPP had worked for the APC in the last July 16 governorship election in Osun State.
The four NNPP candidates that exited the party included Clement Bamigbola, Osun Central; Bolaji Akinyode, Osun West Senatorial; Olalekan Fabayo and Oluwaseyi Ajayi of Boluwaduro/Ifedayo/Ila, and Ijesa South Federal Constituencies respectively.
They had attributed their decision to dump Kwankwaso for Tinubu to lack of transparency in the running of their party at the national level.
