The stage is about now set for the 2023 general elections as the presidential candidates of the parties have emerged after their primaries while commencement of campaign and electoral activities is a short way away. It is going to be straight fight and a clash of the titans between the old war horses with rattling saber from the ruling APC and the opposition PDP. There are no doubt other aspirants from less known parties whose presences would not be more than side attractions and CVs for the candidates probably as bargaining chips.
At the presidency, the coin has only two sides; head or tail. It is either APC or PDP while the other less known parties may poach seats at the National Assembly or states assemblies. After the PDP convention, the Jagaban himself, Bola Ahmed Tinubu sounding so confident congratulated Alhaji Atiku Abubakar the winner of his party’s primary that he was only one that can stand him in an election and that they would meet in 2023, like the man who saw tomorrow. This was in spite of the intrigue in his own ruling APC which was targeted to mar his emergence. Like the sage said, only the deep can call to the deep.
Peter Obi of the Labour Party is a good guy, prudent and suave and probably well-polished and his campaign is gaining traction on the media, both social and mainstream but it is common knowledge that the internet soldiers do not set boot on ground and deploy in the physical fight. A good number of them do not have PVCs but sit at coffee shops as bookmakers to award result in imaginary phantom polls. We may as well attach integrity, prudence and urbaneness to Peter Obi as a good man but the truth is that in political contest the best and good horses do not win the race.
In any case, Peter Obi is cast in the mode of typical Nigerian politicians vacillating like weather and without consistent principle moving from one political party to another to seek where his political fortune will be oiled and buttered. Like in the primaries, the election is going to be determined by the depth of the pocket of the contestants and Obi does not have a deep pocket and is so frugal not to throw money about. He does not have the reach of an Atiku or a Tinubu in political structures. The support base that Obi is counting on is the youths who are not capable of great drive and revolution because they are hungry. Nigerians vote for their stomach and not principle or ideas.
I cannot put my money on any of the two contestants from APC and PDP because it could go either way because the two old wily foxes are equally skilled in political schism and intrigue. Religion may not be a big factor this time because both contestants share similar faith. Hate or love him, what the Jagaban has going for him is the ability to pick the best from the pack like a man picks a pin from a haystack. The two contestants have equally huge baggage but trust Tinubu’s media team of first class journalists and campaign group with savvy to sell any product.
The parties’ primaries were also equally exciting in more ways than one; not just simply to pick a flag bearer but also a test of popularity of the contestants and public perception which was mirrored through the delegates even though they were equally cash-and-carry delegates. Abuja was painted red and there was dollar rain, I saw it. The vice president, Yemi Osibanjo was vilified as a traitor and a betrayer but I prefer to differ on that score; he may not have been loyal to his political benefactor and mentor because of his fluid principle as an inchoate politician that sees only the glamour in political power and ignore every other thing. He did not realize that he had no political base and structure believing that his eloquence and media campaign will take the place of every other thing.
How dead wrong he was and he saw that clearly in the result when he came a distant third position. He has now become a political spent force and an orphan. As the saying goes, you may boast of good clothes with an elder, but you cannot boast of the same quantity of rags with an elder.
For Pastor Tunde Bakare the loquacious clergy who has turned his one auditorium church to political platform, it is clear that political popularity and acceptance is not based any ecclesiastic ordination or divination. He got zero vote and in a real election it would not have been different. He almost reduced the Nigerian leadership to occultic world when he consistently told his congregation that he is number 16 in hierarchy and that after General Buhari he was next; what bunkum! Let me not dignify other contestants because they are vacuous and lack leadership qualities to drive a nation like Nigeria. It is only in a country like Nigeria that anyone would have taken governor Yahaya Bello (GYB) as he is popularly known or an Ameachi Rotimi for that matter, any seriously.
The next is preparatory stage to the 2023 general elections. In the days and months ahead there will be flurry of activities in disinformation, half-truths and outright falsehood on both social and mainstream media to shoot down the contestants. The campaign is not likely going to be issue-based or ideological; it is going to be about ethnicity and religion especially to the electorate. We should begin to understand by now that Christians’ votes alone cannot win the presidency just the same way that Muslims votes alone cannot guarantee victory to the presidency. It is divisive as it is diversionary from the core issues like the economy, security, education and youth empowerment; we all need each other.
The evil bedevilling our country today is the evils of religion and tribe sown by this same bunch of politicians from the beginning. It is about time we move away from this twin devil and gravitate towards Nigerian citizenship, and it can begin today.
The Southeast has clamoured badly for the presidency to be zoned to them on the basis of equity and justice. However, they have not demonstrated the astute and strategy to be major players as they remain very individualistic. Look at the showing of their candidates during the primaries in the two leading political parties; they simply traded off their votes and could not agree on a consensus candidate. Their attitude was that, if I cannot get it, no one else should get it and they would be blaming outsiders.
I have heard of theories that the Nigerian Establishment has decided that Ndigbo cannot be trusted with the presidency and will not allow power to rotate to southeast. I do not understand this amorphous establishment that came to the agreement but I want to believe that the strongest point is that the Igbo betray one another even when they chant “igwe buike” (that there is strength in unity), they are not united. How many votes did the Igbo aspirants get from the Ndigbo delegates in total? The same thing will play out during the election; those people shouting Peter Obi is the best candidate will not go beyond the multiple social media entries they are using to lie to themselves. They do not have PVCs and even when they have they may not go out to vote and even when they vote, they will not give their vote to Peter Obi.
In any case, tribal appeal at this time of our national history is inimical to any ethnic group. The Igbo therefore would have to build bridges and stop the trader mentality of getting the profit alone, or nobody gets it like Orji Uzor Kalu demonstrated during the last primaries. In the two leading frontline parties, their voices are lost in individualism and greed. No group or section has the right and power to exclude the other from aspiring or denying the other a position on account of our past history. That conspiracy theory is not profound, the Igbo need to take a long look at its image in a mirror and re-evaluate its political strategy; if it does not like what it sees in the mirror, she has to change her image and not break the mirror.
It is important to know that the problem of the nation is beyond transfer of power come 2023. However, the person who becomes the next president should be of concern to us not because of the religious or ethnic nationality of the person but on competence so that we can retrieve the country from a cabal that has ceded our sovereignty to non-state actors while the state convulse in insecurity.
- Kebonkwu Esq is an Abuja-based attorney.