As we race towards the 2019 Nigerian general elections, there are bound to be many political occurrences competing for attention and consideration.
It is therefore incumbent on all patriotic Nigerians to monitor these occurrences closely, analyse them critically so that we can all be in the right frame of mind when the time comes in February 2019 to take the momentous decision as to who we consider most suitable to pilot the affairs of this traumatised country for the next four years.
Thank God, most of the political parties have now selected the candidates that would fly their flags in the forthcoming general elections. The Presidential candidates of the two major parties, APC and PDP, have emerged though not without its unpalatable aftermaths.
In the PDP primaries that produced Alhaji Atiku Abubakar during which the former vice president roundly beat all-comers, reliable witnesses reported that the unexpected victory was attributable to the heavy dollar rain that took place at the Port Harcourt convention.
Happily, the dust raised by the surprising emergence of Alhaji Atiku amongst contestants like Bukola Saraki, Aminu Tambuwal, Musa Kwankwaso etc has since settled and all of them have pledged to work for the success of party and candidate in the elections.
Immediately after Atiku’s trumph, keen political watchers were tickled by the sudden and favourable turn-around of Atiku’s erstwhile sworn enemy, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the former President who invited candidate Atiku to his Abeokuta residence where he publicly endorsed him as the next President of Nigeria.
Most Nigerian political analysts were taken aback by the sudden volte-face of Atiku’s former boss given all he had said and written about him and his unsuitability for the presidency due to his corrupt and disloyal nature.
Another intriguing aspect of this Abeokuta endorsement episode was that Atiku was accompanied to the venue by a coterie of religious leaders like Bishop Oyedepo of the popular Winner’s Chapel, Rev’d Father Kukah, Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, and Sheik Gumi, a Muslim Cleric, all suggesting that Atiku’s endorsement also had the backing of the two major Nigerian religions.
And for anyone who appreciates the importance of religion among the Nigerian populace, this assumption is of no mean importance. However, one or two of the affected clerics have since publicly explained that their presence at the endorsement occasion was coincidental rather than intentional.
But be that as it may, Alhaji Atiku who has since picked the former Governor of Anambra State, Mr Peter Obi, as running mate in the coming Presidential election, appears poised and ready for the big electoral challenge.
On the other hand, the APC Presidential candidate, Muhamadu Buhari, picked his party nomination without any let or hindrance since he was the sole candidate. The party convention held in Abuja merely endorsed his candidature. However, that was where the APC nomination honeymoon ended.
The primary elections conducted to elect candidates for gubernatorial, senatorial, and House of Representatives positions ended in a most rancorous and acrimonious disputations. Even up till the moment, an amicable settlement of the disagreements among party chieftains is not in sight, a few months to the elections.
The genesis of this acrimony in the APC is not unconnected with the new direct primary method insisted upon by the new party chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, and his NWC to select party candidates for elective positions.
Hitherto, the method of making that selection had been through the indirect primary, a method that the State Governors had manipulated to fill the elective positions with only their cronies. Apart from this method working to the detriment of national leadership and party supremacy, it has proved to be prone to corruption and disadvantageous to the generality of party membership.
The adoption of the pernicious indirect primary otherwise called the delegate system had led to the state governors becoming extremely powerful to the extent that they controlled both the national and state party machinery. They thereby controlled the party and determined what the party did.
It was a clear case of the tail wagging the dog, a situation that led to the downfall of the former party chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun.
It was therefore the determination of the new APC chairman to correct this anomalous situation that led to the adoption of the direct primary whereby all card carrying party members would now participate in the selection of party candidates for elections.
Ordinarily, the direct primary system makes better sense since it curbs the endemic corruption that was inherent in the previous method as well as taking power back to the national party leadership. But quite expectedly, the governors who are being deprived of the political clout which the old order bestowed, are not taking the matter lying low, they are fighting back ferociously.
That is the root cause of the rumblings and tremors that currently shake the APC to its foundations and which, if care is not taken, may spell the ruling party’s waterloo in the coming elections.
In the on-going recriminations in the APC, four or five cases particularly stand out. In Ogun state, Governor Ibikunle Amosun is very bitter that his plan to install his favourite as the next governor of the state is being thwarted. Instead of his annointed Akinlade, one Dapo Abiodun had been slated to fly the party’s flag in the coming governorship election in the state.
Since this incident, Amosun has been running from pillar to post to reverse the party position on the matter. He had led a delegation to the President; he had organised a protest; he had accused the Lagos cabal of masterminding his current predicament, but up till the moment, the governor is yet to have his way.
In Imo State, Governor Rochas Okorocha is fighting the battle of his life to impose his son-in-law as the party’s candidate but his opponent within the party are equally determined to thwart his efforts. As things stand now, the Governor may not have his way and for this he has blamed the party chairman and the NWC of the party.
In Ondo State, Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu has publicly criticised his party chairman, Adams Oshiomhole for allegedly mishandling the party primaries because the outcome did not favour his cronies exclusively.
It must be noted that under the Governor’s watch, the APC had been polarised down the line in the state because of the rancorous way he emerged in the governorship primaries that produced him. Since then, the APC in the state had been totally dominated by Arakunrin and his hangers-on in the party to the exclusion of a large number of other party members.
But for the new direct primary system, only Akeredolu boys would have taken all the elective positions in the party. It is for his inability to achieve this objective that he now blames the party’s national chairman.
Other state governors in the north like Bindow in Adamawa and Yari in Zamfara also have similar problems with their party leadership thus fueling the spate of party chieftains decamping to rival parties going into the coming elections.
Even the Kaduna State APC is not at ease too. Senator Shehu Sani who has been at loggerhead with Governor Nasir El Rufai finally dumped the party for the PRP.
How all these will pan out at the coming elections is not too clear yet but what one can say for now is that all is not well with the ruling party.
One particular point that one must not fail to mention here is that concerning the governorship primaries in Lagos State in which the incumbent Governor Akinwumi Ambode lost his second term bid.
Before the party primaries, many people both inside and outside the state thought Ambode had performed well and so deserved a second term in office. But the party members thought otherwise.
What must however have surprised the APC detractors including the PDP in particular which had spearheaded a campaign of calumny against the imaginary godfather who was bent on imposing another governor on the state instead of the popular incumbent, is that Ambode after the primaries quietly pledged his support for his party and moves on.
This is the only silver lining in the cloudy firmament of the current Nigerian polity where decamping or cross carpeting is the one thing in vogue among party chieftains who are always eager to sacrifice the well-being of their parties on the altar of personal selfish ambitions.
Ambode’s exemplary character must therefore be celebrated and encouraged. We need more of such demonstrations of character and positive attributes to sanitize our politics in this country if we truly want to move forward politically and economically.
Let us then focus our attention on 2019 now that the major parties seem set for the electioneering campaigns which begin in November. The die is cast and the battle lines are now clearly drawn.
