By ’Tunji Ajibade
COLUMN
Previous interventions in the series focused on the internal situation as it concerned the All Progressives Congress and its presidential ticket. Now there are new developments that call attention to what is happening within the main opposition party and which occurrence, I believe, gives strength to the APC ticket. In reality, the noise of dissention now being heard in the camp of the opposition party is not unexpected for any keen political observers.
I had known from day one it would be heard. I had hinted, even before the presidential primaries of both the APC and the PDP happened, that such noise within the PDP would give strength to whatever religious colouration the APC presidential ticket eventually had. I had come to that conclusion from the time it was clear that the PDP presidential ticket would go to the north rather than the south.
What are the reasons for holding this view? With the current political climate and some past experiences, it was clear that the best that should happen in any of the main political parties was to allow the presidential ticket to go the part of the country that the nation’s mood indicated it should go to. Back in 2007, the mood was that the presidential ticket should go to the north. The then president, Olusegun Obasanjo was clever enough to follow the mood of the time, so it became a myth that he singlehandedly selected Umar Yar’adua. That time, the opposition party too was clever enough to select a northern presidential candidate because the north was where the national political mood had swung. Yar’adua eventually succeeded Obasanjo without a hitch.
In 2015, the mood was that the presidency should again return to the north. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (rtd.) was the candidate for the north at the time, so the north went for him. Even the governors of the ruling political party folded their hands and allowed the votes to go to the APC, although they the governors remained in the PDP. They worked for their own success, but quietly allowed the opposition party’s presidential candidate to have the votes under their watch. It happens in politics, if the main political actors go against the prevailing political mood of the nation. The PDP did in 2015 and it paid for it.
In 2022, it is obvious the opposition party was going against the mood of the nation the moment party leaders began to say they wanted to put their “best foot forward”. They meant they wanted a northerner as their presidential candidate when the prevailing mood was that the presidency should go to the south. Northern APC governors were smart enough to see this and they followed the tide, allowing the wind to give them a smooth sail. Not the PDP. From the moment the party structure decided its “best foot” was a northerner, I knew they were calling for an implosion, and it was what they got after the primaries. APC couldn’t afford to do the same. The implosion would be bigger if the party made another northerner its candidate, the reason I’ve since criticized all the contestants from the north who didn’t have the political sophistication to withdraw even at the last minute at Eagle Square, Abuja.
Now, since the primary happened the opposition party has found its decision to make a northerner its presidential candidate the target of stones thrown by aggrieved segments in the south. The south-east has not been happy, and some of its youth who normally camp with the PDP are now following their own Igbo man who is in another opposition party. In the south-south, political elements have been saying they would show the PDP what it meant not to underrate their votes or take their votes for granted.
More than that, Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, has been firing political salvos; I state here that many of them have sounded contradictory and I believe it is the outcome of an unsettled political home. The situation within his party has made to him to so sound. He has been criticizing his party’s presidential candidate for steps taken after the primaries. Of course he has not taken it well that he is not the vice-presidential candidate. This state governor has since been making different sounds that come across as confusing to a political observer. He has been receiving all manner of visitors from different political parties, making some of them commission projects in his state, while insisting that others visited just to discuss political matters.
The other day, the Lagos State APC governor visited to commission project, and in the course of it Wike sent negative political messages to the party of the visiting APC governor. He said the party wouldn’t win in his state, referring to Chibuke Amaechi and his APC team in Rivers State. One wonders why Wike would be talking like that in the presence of his APC guest. He did this against the background of the confusion within his own party. He is clear that he wants to win the state for his PDP governorship candidate, beating APC. But it’s also clear that by inviting APC governor and an APC senator, Aliyu Wamakko, to commission projects in his state, he was sending messages to the PDP presidential candidate. Wike is saying, Don’t think I don’t have friends elsewhere. He is saying there are other possibilities. He is saying categorically to the PDP presidential candidate that he’s on his own when the 2023 presidential election comes.
Wike would not be the first PDP governor to engage in this kind of game. PDP governors especially in the north did the same thing in 2015. Many of them are likely to do it again in 2023 considering the sound pro-Wike PDP governors are making up and down the Niger river. It’s obvious that the situation in the PDP has grieved Wike so much that the only reason he doesn’t move to APC is because his political antecedent will not let him find a comfortable home. This is not because the APC political leadership does not want him, but because there is a certain Chibuke Ameachi who’s already the leader of the party in Rivers State. Even those in the team of the PDP presidential candidate have asserted this much, in the interviews they give, as the reason they believe Wike will never leave PDP. How PDP selected a presidential candidate of northern origin has sown confusion, and this is seen in some of Wike’s actions and utterances. Without doubt, this situation gives strength to the APC presidential ticket and I shall state the reasons.
In spite of the noise being made across political parties, most governors, and most Nigerians – north and south – believe the presidential tickets of both the APC and the PDP should have gone to the south. We see this particularly in the number of northern PDP members, past and serving governors, who have spoken in favour of Wike’s presidential or at least vice-presidential ambition. With the manner PDP party leadership decided not to zone the presidential ticket to the south, they placed the party above the nation. The mood of the nation is that the presidency should go to the south. By overlooking this, PDP leadership created a crisis situation. What has so far mitigated this crisis is the wise decision of the APC to ensure the ticket goes to the south. Had both parties produced presidential candidates of northern extraction, this nation would be heated up more than it is at the moment.
In view of the action of the PDP, I think they lose the confidence and trust of many thoughtful, patriotic Nigerians who desire the peace and unity of this nation. They may pay for this big in the 2023 election. The fact that APC has a southerner as its candidate therefore gives it an edge, among the voting populace, over the PDP going into the election. It is an edge because for the PDP its deciding votes will come from the south. For the APC the deciding votes will come from the north. Why? The APC presidential candidate has the south behind him already, especially the south-west. He’s also sure to have votes across the other two political zones in the south because of the political bridges he has personally invested in, over the years, to build. In the event, the north will give him the rest of the votes he needs and the APC governors from the north have said they will deliver this. This is not the case for the PDP even among all its governors in the north.
It is certain that the PDP will not get all the votes they need from the north; they cannot even get all votes from the north-east where their presidential candidate comes from and where the APC Vice-Presidential candidate comes from as well. There will be a keen contest in that corridor. If the PDP candidate won’t get all the votes he needs in the north, it means the south will be the decider. But this is the same south where south-easterners and south-south people, among whom PDP often picks most votes, have said they wait to show that their votes cannot be taken for granted.
For me, any political party that takes the political mood of our peoples – north and south – for granted should be made to pay a heavy price. Why? Ours is still a developing democracy, our unity is still being built, so some delicate things should be given attention by politicians within party structures. APC did this well both in 2015 and now in 2022. PDP does not. I think the southerners shouldn’t allow themselves to be taken for granted just as northerners wouldn’t allow anyone to take them for granted. The opposition party took its southern members for granted and it should be shown this for what it is in 2023. When this is done, the ruling party will be the beneficiary regardless of whatever religious colouration its presidential ticket has. And I think this is what should happen in 2023 so that political parties will learn to respect the popular opinion of our peoples, north and south of the Niger river.
tunjioa@yahoo.com
