Following yesterday’s announcement of new dates for the 2023 general elections by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), political parties hoping to participate in the elections and aspirants nursing ambitions have been left with no option than to adjust themselves to new realities.
As it is now, all political parties are expected to conduct primary elections as well as resolve all disputes arising from such exercises between April 4, 2022 and June 3, 2022.
The commission also slated submission of nomination forms by political parties as follows; Presidential and National Assembly for 10th June to 17th June 2022 while governorship and state assemblies by 1st July to 15th July 2022.
How ready are the parties?
Although there are well over a dozen parties expected to join the the 2023 general election contest, analysts say it will still be largely a two-horse race between the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), while a couple of the less known parties may spring surprises in a few locations across the country, by winning a handful of state and federal seats.
But APC and the PDP are battling a number of issues that, if not properly handled, may threaten their chances. For both, the road to 2023 still seems inauspicious. Aside been bogged down by raging zoning debates, both parties are plagued by obvious survival battles. Pundits say neither APC nor PDP can boast of being united enough to conduct crisis-free primary elections.
The crisis rocking the ruling party continued during the week following the shifting of its national convention to March 26. The party has been unable to conduct a convention to usher in a substantive leadership since the sacking of the Adams Oshiomhole-led National Working Committee (NWC) in June 2020.
Though the party has announced a new date for the convention, while also fixing a date for zonal congresses across the country, observers insists the worst is not over yet for the APC.
While agreeing that there were differences among APC governors over the shift in the date of the convention, Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, said it was not correct to say the party is divided.
Although the opposition PDP has been able to end its protracted leadership tussle with last December’s election of the Senator Iyorchia Ayu-led National Working Committee (NWC), pundits are of the opinion that the many court cases instituted by some party chieftains against the party pose great threats to its preparation for the 2023 general elections.
According to Barrister John Gbulie, “any judgement that favours Prince Secondus and his group will put PDP in a tight corner, even if momentarily.”
The Supreme Court in Abuja recently suspended its planned hearing of the case brought by the sacked National Chairman of the PDP Prince Uche Secondus, challenging his removal from office. A five-man panel of the apex court, led by Justice Musa Dattijo Mohammed, took the decision upon realising that a respondent in the case, the South-South Zonal Chairman of PDP, Dan Orbih was neither in court nor was he represented by a lawyer.
Meanwhile, permutations over which zone should produce the president have become a major issue. Within APC and the PDP, zoning has assumed a serious dimension to the extent that analysts say their fortunes may be decided by the decisions they take over the matter.
Already, an array of aspirants from the North and South has emerged in both parties seeking presidential tickets but many are anxious to see how the leading political parties will address the issue.
For aspirants, the time of reckoning is at hand.
Aside the parties, INEC’s latest correspondence also call on aspirants within parties to buckle up ahead the general elections. Going by the new provisions of the Electoral Act and the new dates released by the commission, it may not be business as usual for some party chieftains seeking political offices. Aspirants who are currently political appointees at state and federal levels are particularly hit by the new development.
Section 84(12) of the Electoral Act makes all political appointees in government at all levels, ineligible, either as voting delegates or aspirants during the conventions or congresses of their political parties. The implication is that key ministers in Buhari’s cabinet, said to be nursing presidential ambitions would be barred from seeking the nominations of the ruling APC. And the truth is, not many of these aspirants who have been campaigning behind the scene, especially through various support groups, are ready for this development.
By implication, ministers, commissioners and other political appointees are expected to resign ahead of their parties’ primaries in order to be eligible to contest in the primaries.
Some of the appointees of the federal government likely to be affected by this new amendment are Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi, Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele and Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, who are believed to have presidential ambitions, even though they are yet to declare their interests.
Also in the league are some ministers believed to be interested in the governorship seats of their various states. For these people, the options aren’t many; they either resign their current positions or forget about their runoured political ambitions.
The heat is on them as increasingly questions are being asked about the morality of them remaining in office, while surreptitiously campaigning for tickets.
As for the parties – especially APC – time is running out for it to tidy its affairs first by conducting a convention like PDP and in the closing window, hold primaries to picking its presidential candidate. Put simply, the parties and aspirants are walking a tightrope.