What set last Tuesday’s meeting between All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate and the Organised Private Sector (OPS) was not just the substance and coherence of the plans he laid before the business community, but the political orchestration that went into conceiving the meeting and pulling it off. The meeting was attended by a host of governors and deputy governors as well as former governors, top political leaders and business moguls. It was a remarkable meeting between politics and business. It was also an acknowledgement of the fact that the business community, as Britain’s business community showed in the deposition of former British Prime Minister Liz Truss, is highly influential in determining who becomes leader and whether that leader succeeds or fails.
Judging from the feedback from the meeting, the APC candidate appeared to have made a persuasive case for his leadership. It was thoughtful and proactive of the APC leaders to have gone to the meeting with a high-powered delegation. Such a delegation had its intrinsic quality and value, and it sends meaning and significance far in excess of the numerical power of the APC delegation. Then there is the sensible optics of constituting the team from the country’s geopolitical zones, a composition that was undoubtedly not lost on the business community whose variegated business interests run across the length and breadth of the country. The attendance was also remarkable, and interest in the discussions was focused and riveting. By and large, the outing was a good one for both the OPS and the APC. This is how politics should be done, not only rallies and soapbox theatrics.
The campaigns were flagged off in late September, and the parties really began to flex muscles only in October. It is thus only about a month since the 2023 campaigns really began. Three of the leading parties have released their manifestos, to wit, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) without fanfare but with overweening graphics, the APC colourfully, and the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) almost mutedly. The Labour Party (LP) is just transcending its initial faux pas of demeaning the significance of a manifesto, and has finally promised to unveil one soon, insisting that the one leaked to the media last week was still being reviewed. Apart from unveiling manifestos, the parties have tried their hands at organising rallies, with the LP being the first to set great store by the public shows, not to say give the impression that elections could be won by rallies, especially sizable rallies. After the APC made a humongous show of organising its own rallies, and the PDP thundered through three states with their own, the message seems to have been conveyed to the political parties themselves as well as the rest of the country that rallies are after all not as significant as first imagined.
This is probably why the APC has seamlessly reverted to its initial campaign design of scientifically coursing through the country and conferencing with interest groups to convey persuasive messages of hope and renewal. They have identified major interest groups and vote herders, and have begun systematically to meet with them with high-powered delegations – not solitary and grumbling delegations – to deliver impressive messages that cannot be gainsaid, messages filled with hope and interspersed with can-do spirit. This is in addition to making huge efforts to lock up the votes in political districts and geopolitical zones, and commissioning canvassers to carry the flag to every nook and cranny. The other leading parties will try to mimic this style, but they appear, so far, to lack the oomph and conviction, not to say the resources to execute what they long to imitate.
After the APC and PDP responded with rallies of their own, the LP has been left panting. It has suddenly lost the zeal to do rallies, perhaps because it can really never match the crowd of the two leading parties, or because organising rallies cost a pretty penny. As far as the soapbox goes, the LP decided to take off from Nasarawa State. Their campaign rally became like an athlete who put his worst foot forward. Either in response to that showing or the exigencies of costs, the LP has appeared to become flatfooted. They should have put their best foot forward, assuming but not conceding that rallies even indicate strength and signpost victory. The NNPP, led by a solid politician and ideologue, never really got off the starting bloc, despite its voluminous manifesto. They too have been left panting, quite unable to respond with roadshows or campaign rallies. They will learn a thing or two from LP and will try to put their best foot forward. But their best effort will undoubtedly seem contrived. Nigerians know the NNPP does not have the money or the administrative strength, and can in fact muster very little of anything. But they won’t roll over and play dead. They will flex a muscle or two in the weeks ahead.
By far the most puzzling of the four leading contenders for the 2023 throne is the PDP, which for reasons probably connected with its internal dynamics has been unable to pull its weight so far. It has the potential to dazzle and bewitch the electorate, and may even manage to conjure the requisite resources to make huge statements. But, so far, it has been left breathless, if not transfixed. Three campaign rallies have barely made the country to budge in their direction. And they have neither made a solid statement with their manifesto nor organised convincing roadshows, nor yet shown by example and panache that they understand the scientific method of herding votes. After their defeat in 2015 and 2019, the last of which was probably their best chance of retaking the presidency, they have lost steam and have been unable to regain composure. Except they are able to pull a rabbit out of their hat – and there are no magicians among them – it is unlikely that their best days are not behind them.
Herdsmen give mystifying conditionalities
At their expanded executive committee meeting last Monday, the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore Fulani socio-cultural association, mostly known as Miyetti Allah, listed some conditions to be met before peace could be restored in troubled communities where farmers and herders have been at daggers drawn. Among the conditions is the immediate designation, publication in gazette and development of all 415 grazing reserves across the states of the federation. They gave their parameters for that development. They also want a Ministry of Nomadic Affairs, and the cessation of profiling of Fulani pastoralists. They then warned that self-help could be imminent if what they identified as the Taraba massacre was not investigated and culprits identified and brought to justice. The association made a number of other demands.
The problem is not that Miyetti Allah has demands, whether reasonable or otherwise. As an association they are entitled to seek ways and conditions to advance the business of their group. The problem, however, is the threat of self-help and their demand for an end to continuous profiling. There had been instances in the past when they had threatened self-help and carried it out, a fact that has now made the farmers-herders crisis in Benue intractable. Their demand for the development of grazing reserves, though unclear in its scope, is at least an improvement on their long-running demand for the re-establishment of grazing routes, a demand the federal government had inexplicably attempted to enforce years back. It is also curious that the law enforcement agencies have not responded vigorously to their threat to embrace self-help over the Taraba conflict.
At least, by shifting ground, particularly in asking for the development of grazing reserves instead of doubling down on grazing routes, it seems eventually that Miyetti Allah has started to recognise that the world has moved on in animal husbandry and dairy farming. They must now find the wisdom of making recourse to the practice of lobbying the legislature and state and federal governments in order to advance and protect the interests of their members. If they resent being profiled, then they must reform their methods and objectives. Exhibiting a sense of entitlement, which they had done over the years, was both retrogressive and counterproductive. It was never going to work in an increasingly complex and changing world.