Non-interference in national/states party crises and courts processes are two known personal attitudes of President Muhammadu Buhari.
In as much as the latter is a qualitative trait for a purposeful and just leadership, it is also a great recipe for smooth flourishing of separation of powers and good governance. It is believe by many that, PMB doesn’t involved himself in managing party crisis due to his 2011 CPC experience and above all, he is not a skilled-mediator or crisis manager. It is an open secret that, whenever aggrieved party faithfuls seek his intervention in intra-party injustices, he declines to get involved but refers them back to those same party officials that denied them fair play and political space.
However, the just concluded APC National Convention (in real sense is an Eagle Square Appointments) came with a new twist, as the nation witnessed his over the top interference on who’s got what in the party’s national executive positions to run the party affairs for the next four years. His maiden open intervention is seen during an “alleged coup” to the Chairman Caretaker Extraordinary Committee of the party, H.E Mai Mala Buni whom was hoodwinked by majority of the APC governors. In that fiasco, after saving the caretaker chairman he went on to single handedly choose the incumbent national party chairman, Sen. Adamu Abdullahi, truncating the ambition and dreams of other candidates to slug out their political and negotiation skills in the convention arena. It was reported by many news outlets that, instead of instilling internal democracy within the APC, the president went out of his way and presented a list of people to the party stakeholders as those he wishes to be adopted automatically for some strategic party positions without undergoing elections.
Unfortunately, only the chairman survived the axe of the APC governors, as they rejected all of the president’s choices except for the chairman. Notable, among those rejected is his preferred Deputy National Chairman (North) Faruk Adamu Aliyu, a man seen by many as an adopted political son and a longtime loyalist of the president. He has been with the president since his political debut two decades ago. His unapologetic rejection by the governors surprised many political observers, because in the past, the APC governors used to blackmailed the president and the party faithfuls that, the president is the only father figure in the party whose wishes are beyond alteration and criticism. Surprisingly, their action betrayed that long political rhetoric!
A Sign Of PMB’s Retirement?
Despite the fact that the president has resisted numerous attempts to revealed his prepared successor, but looking at the zoning arrangement of the party, no doubt about it that its presidential ticket is heading to the Southern Nigeria. Now, it has become an unwritten law in the national political space to have the party chairman and presidential candidate from different regions, this is against the failed 2011 naive outing of Buhari’s CPC outing and party structure. However, a powerful indicator from the president’s body language is suggesting that he is personally torn up between repaying the undeniable support he enjoyed from the progressives of the Southwest and craving in to the wishes of some powerful forces around him to let the ticket goes to the South South. As much as the confusion sorrounding the APC camp on how to go about rewarding political loyalty, it is the same with the main opposition party, PDP which on its side is on dilemma for jettisoning the rotation arrangement.
On the other side of things, many Southerners are of the view that, if they dare miss this chance this time around, they’ll have to wait for another eight years before calling the shot again. And for the Northerners, they want to retain the seat in order to compensate the lost tenure of late Yar’adua and due to the fact that, they are the majority in the Nigeria’s democracy project, whereas democracy is a game of numbers, the majority have their ways while the minority have their says.
Running Mate Confusion:
Starting with the APC, one of their major dilemma is choosing a deputy or running mate. If a tired Muslim Tinubu successfully clinch the party ticket, he will have to find an energetic and capable Northern Christian to serve as his running mate. In the North, politics always goes hand in hand with religion, as I believe that, quite a number of Northern Muslims wont agree to go for a Muslim Southerner with a Northern Christian as his running mate, because many tends to see the Southern Muslims as minorities in a majority Christian South. Anyway, here in the North, he will surely enjoy Ninety percent of the votes of minority Northern Christians. On the other way round, if Vice President Yemi Osinbajo emerged as the party’s presidential starboy, damaging allegations meted against him by Prof. Farooq Kperogi on his religious bigotry and indifference towards Muslims sensitivities will surely hurt his chances in the eyes of many Muslims. Therefore, they must look for a trusted and an experienced Northern Muslim to pin on the ticket in order to gain acceptability of the Northern Muslims. Based on experience in the Nigeria’s politics, one can safely say that, in this scenario the choice of capable hand must come from the progressive governors forum or religious circle. Now, to the former, this will only take us to either Elrufa’i, Zulum and in the religious circle to either Pantami or Prof. Salisu Shehu (VC of Istiqama University, Sumaila) for the party to have a possible winning solution against those weighty allegations. And for the PDP, they are now in a dilemma of either being unfair for throwing away their zoning arrangement or pragmatically doing all they can to have an experienced and formidable candidate from the Northern part of the country, one who is financially and politically capable of unsettling the APC to win the presidency. In this case, any slight political blunder could cost them another Eight years as opposition party.
PDP And The Consensus Candidate:
Peoples Democratic Party as an experienced party, is good in handling internal crises, but with bad history of internal imposition of candidates by its stakeholders against the wishes of ranks and files of the party. Presently, a team of some serving and past governors embarks on contacting major stakeholders in order to arrive on a consensus candidate among themselves for the 2023 election. And by newspapers reports, it is very possible that many aspirants may step aside to allow one person to stand as the party’s consensus candidate. May be that could be another tactics of handling internal crises. So far, H.E Atiku, SP Saraki, Governors Bala Muh’d, Aminu Tambuwal and Nelson Wike are the aspirants at the forefront working to have one among them as the consensus candidate of the party. In Nigeria’s democracy, consensus method of selecting candidate is accepted as a norm which is easily abused by selfish party official to destroy aspirations of party members not favoured in their political books. Additionally, it is a sort of dictatorship in a fashionable cloth, because the candidate may not be the preferred choice of the majority of the party members and is not made out of pure democratic process of internal elections. In this sense, consensus candidature is a bad recipe for a young democracy, primary election(s) should be the best avenue to select a candidate and give credibility to the party activities, give sense of belonging to the party faithfuls and the general public the best out of many or equals in the party.
sagir Ibrahim is a graduate of Economics from the Department of Economics, Bauchi State University Gadau. And can be reached via ibrahimsagir1227@gmail.com or 07019718681
