It’s no longer news that Ahmed Tinubu has clinched the coveted APC Presidential ticket against all odds. He was able to maneuver several banana peels set by his close allies and foes alike. Tinubu’s political sagacity is way beyond our media permutations. Many has attributed Jagaban’s spread to his goodwill over the years, which only paved way for many of his sons to reciprocate his kind gestures.
Obviously, President Buhari didn’t see it coming. I took greater part of the night watching his facial expression, which weren’t anything short of acrimony. But, Buhari had a debt to pay. His hands were tied. He didn’t want to be disgraced, hence, it was safer to throw the contest open since the new electoral law gave enormous power to the Governors who already were not totally in agreement with him.
Away from the primaries, Tinubu will face a herculean task. He was able to buy delegates, but buying enough votes that will guarantee his victory at the polls will be another research in politics all together.
I doubt if Tinubu will be able to gain the general trust of APC power brokers around Buhari that could enable them take extra risk for him. Nigerians will have several questions to ask about his health. He could hoodwink a delegate few, but to further force visibly weak candidate on Nigerians might spell doom for APC. Nigerians ordinarily will only question your age when it is associated with health issues. For example, Atiku’s hand is not shaking, it doesn’t mean he is young but when push comes to shove, they will forgive Atiku’s age and focus more on Tinubu.
APC may’ve set him up. This part is highly speculative but in the coming days and months, the number of decampees from APC to PDP will give us more insight.
Will Tinubu pick a Northern Muslim and run a Muslim-Muslim ticket ? With the recent security challenges in the country and its correlation to religious based belief, it could make it difficult for Nigerians to tolerate. To get a strong Christian from the North might not be advantageous enough to garner enough votes. Perhaps, hon. Dogara; but the choices are limited.
If the choices are limited to the two candidates of APC and PDP, Igbos are better off with PDP. An Atiku’s Presidency will return back power to the Igbos if we negotiate properly while a Tinubu’s Presidency will return power to the North after 8 years. Southwest would’ve taken our turn while with Atiku, we are widely open for negotiations especially considering his closeness to Igbos. Atiku’s choice of an Igbo Vice, could give more credence to this analysis.
Tinubu didn’t step his feet in any Igbo State for consultation, that’s a red flag but Atiku is at home with Igbos including his investments.
Do we go with Peter Obi as our Igbo choice ?
I would suggest we align with Atiku for a better tomorrow in national politics if we are not so sure of Peter’s victory. That may seem a lesser risk than following Peter and losing out totally should anything changes the trajectory. At that stage, it will be a new song of marginalisation because we would’ve failed to submit enough votes that could register our presence at the sharing table.
However, We could make inroads into Southwest with Peter Obi but the choice of Tinubu has made it more difficult. Make no mistakes, Tinubu is ruthless when it comes to elections in the Southwest. He is worshiped and his frail body couldn’t stop the westerners from giving him their support. He has the war chest and the political reach. Where it will matter, he will bring both money and thuggery.
Peter is a big name currently but it leaves us with lesser number of votes from east. SouthSouth will be shared amongst the 3 candidates leaving the North to decide. The bad aspect is that decision in Nigeria is basically within the elites in the North and West. They don’t see what we see and Peter could be a bad market for them considering their selfish interests. Voters in the North are actually weapons in the hands of those elites. They weaponized them with poverty to the extent, Peter’s economic indices do not move them. For instance, these are same set of people that are used to chase protesters who come out to defend them. Their language is different from dollar exchange rate and they can easily overrun people who come out to protect them just because a certain Muslim told them to do so. Deji and other activists can easily relate to this..
How Obi will penetrate the North with his new Labour party and form structures will be another theory in political Science…
Ikechukwu Iroha is a public affairs analyst…
