While Rivers State governor Siminalayi Fubara was busy fulminating against his opponents in the midst of the supremacy battle between former vice president Atiku Abubakar and FCT minister Nyesom Wike, ex-Kano State governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso and ex-Anambra State governor Peter Obi were forging ahead uproariously in their anticipated political marriage of convenience. Speaking in Hausa in a video clip hosted on X (Twitter), the former Kano governor surprised Nigerians when he indicated his willingness to be Mr Obi’s running mate in the 2027 presidential poll should certain conditions be met. That possibility was briefly explored in 2023, but it was discarded as both unfeasible and farcical. Dr Kwankwaso, who was New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) presidential candidate in the last poll, is mercurial and opinionated, while Mr Obi is superficial and bigoted. It would be hard for the two points of view to meet; but given their desperation for power, they have not stopped tantalising the electorate with the prospect of a joint ticket.
It is not known why the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) felt compelled to respond to the rumour of a Kwankwaso-Obi ticket, seeing how absolutely tenuous it is, but they poured scorn on the idea and argued its unworkability. Indeed, perusing Dr Kwankwaso’s Twitter statement, and given the many direct and indirect caveats he alluded to, the idea of the two governors running on a single ticket seems terribly far-fetched. According to the former Kano governor, “I’m bigger than Peter Obi politically, I’m his elder brother, I’m a PhD holder, I performed better than him when I was a governor of my state. I’ve no problem with deputising Peter Obi, but only if certain conditions are met. We are willing to engage in discussions, provided that trust is established.” Having stacked the deck against Mr Obi, it appears non sequitur for him to offer to play a subordinate role to someone he indirectly denigrates. He did not of course indicate what conditions must be met for him to deputise Mr Obi, but two explanations emerge from his statement: either he never meant a word he said about running on a single ticket with the former Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, or he knew that his unstated conditions could never be met, with the onus for failure resting squarely on the narrow shoulders of Mr Obi.
Dr Kwankwaso of course exaggerates his worth. He may have a PhD, and is thus a little better ideologically moored than the former Anambra governor, but in terms of political size, it is hard to see the former Kano governor commanding anything more than a sizeable fraction of Kano. It is incontestable that as governor he performed better than his Anambra counterpart, especially seeing how indistinguishable and platitudinous Mr Obi was and has remained, but Dr Kwankwaso did not also leave Kano a considerably changed state than he met it, at least not on the ‘unforgettable’, howbeit illusory, scale of Caesar Augustus who “…found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble”. When the two former governors differently campaigned for the presidency in 2023, neither made any serious reference to their legacies, nor spoke grandly to visionary ideas and projects. All the things they said and did were fairly humdrum and commonplace.
By speaking to a possible joint ticket with Mr Obi, Dr Kwankwaso underscores the point everyone knows already, that an Atiku candidacy would be a tough sell in 2027, not only on account of his age and the attendant lethargy it brings, but also because of political equity. Rotational presidency may be an informal and fortuitous formula for national peace and stability, but it has seemed to serve the country fairly well as well as appeared to lower tension. Whether the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leaders manage to heal the fractures in their party or not, it is unlikely Alhaji Atiku will be adopted as presidential candidate by any serious party. And if he is selected, it is unlikely he will command votes on the scale he managed in 2023. Dr Kwankwaso knows this, and even suspects that the country will be in no mood to break that North-South rotational formula. He is of course himself not a principled man, and he may be fishing for a coalition that will project him into higher office, but it is hard to see the joint ticket he waffled about with Mr Obi amounting to anything.
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After regaining control of Kano, Dr Kwankwaso is predictably seeking other adventures, probably at a much higher political level than the governorship. Like Alhaji Atiku, everything about the former Kano governor is ambition and higher office, or at any rate, public office. He and his cohorts hijacked the NNPP, but they have neither turned it into an exemplar nor fine-tuned its platform or ideology to make it irresistible to the electorate. It will remain a special purpose vehicle for winning elections and maintaining relevance. Worse, he has not worked on himself. He is as truculent as he was years ago, and his ideology more amorphous than it is practical. His ad hocism and vengefulness bloomed during and after the Kano governorship campaign. And even though he is book intelligent, there is little else about him. He prides himself on his charisma, but that appeal finds fulfillment only in Kano State for reasons that should worry him. Yet he seems unaware of his many limitations, not to talk of his many illusions. Like many other politicians, he snickers at the fickleness of the electorate, believing that if the circumstances are right they could be led by the nose to vote for a ticket as implausible as the one he flirts with.
Beyond the religion and ethnic factors, the distinctly unideological Mr Obi has no other issue to campaign with. Yes, he is a perfect fault-finder and an incurable idealist, but in 2027, he will have no grounds upon which to campaign. Like Alhaji Atiku in the PDP, his identification with LP is based on exploitation, not symbiosis. He neither shares affinity with the party nor does he have sympathy for it, whether it dies or lives, whether it grows or is stunted. It is significant that Mr Obi is not any less opportunistic than either Alhaji Atiku or Dr Kwankwaso, but this inconvenient fact will not discourage him from the grand posturing and grandiloquence that hallmarked his campaigns and public life. The former Kano governor gibed at him about his unremarkable time as Anambra governor, but he doesn’t care. After all, like his university certificate, he did not use his governorship legacy to campaign in 2023, preferring to stick to the inflammable issues of ethnicity and religion. In 2027, he will still not use his eight years in Anambra to campaign given the chance to be on any presidential ticket, notwithstanding whether the LP survives its ongoing war of attrition. And having not developed the interest in improving himself beyond the frenzied and unnatural manner he is seeking friends and contacts all over the country, and lacking in intellectual and analytical depth on all counts, he will be hard put to find and sustain issues on which to anchor his campaign.
The LP foot soldiers have welcomed Dr Kwankwaso’s offer, with supporters of both politicians jousting over who between the two leaders possesses the higher market value. They are all tilting at windmills. Not only is an assessment of the two men too early, it is also unclear whether two years down the line, both of them would still possess any market value at all. They are not the best their states can produce or offer, and it is not even certain that regardless of their flaws they will have anything to recommend them.
