With barely a week to the deadline for all the political parties to conduct their primary election and submit the names of their candidates for all the elective positions to the electoral umpire, INEC, we have been inundated with all kinds of permutations on how the presidential primaries, especially of the two major political parties( APC and PDP) would be decided. This is my contribution to the conversation and my analysis is founded on the eccentricities our democratic processes have enthroned in the last 24 years.
It's not only preposterous but disconcerting for anyone to think that delegates who would vote in the primary election are independent rational actors who would vote for an aspirant based on his altruistic leadership qualities. Those with such expectations would be highly disappointed at the end of the primaries because the delegates would vote based on ethnicity, religion, and pecuniary considerations, which are the major peculiarities our democratic processes have foisted on us.
Bear in mind that the would-be delegates will emanate from our flawed party system renowned for its lack of internal party democracy and godfatherism. At the moment, the delegate's selection process is ongoing and it has created an acrimonious mood in the two major political parties in most states across the country. That is an indication of a lack of transparency and integrity in the process. Hence, anyone who expects that those who would emerge from such a skewed process would vote their conscience would suffer Pip’s fate in Charles Dickens's Great Expectations.
At my last count, 18 aspirants from the 6 geopolitical zones in the country would contest the primary election on the platform of APC. On this street, many analysts think that President Buhari’s preferred aspirant is most likely to win the party's primary election. Those speculated to be the President's preferred successor are Rotimi Ameachi and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. The wagerers insist that President Buhari would disappoint Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the National Leader of the Party, who contributed significantly to his emergence as the Party's presidential candidate in 2015 and subsequent victory in the 2019 presidential polls.
The reasons they adduce for this intended act of treachery span from Tinubu’s alleged ill health and the desire to give us a younger and more energetic President instead of foisting a frail person on the country. Another reason Ameachi's supporters are touting is that the Ikwere man who now accepts he is Igbo may get the party's ticket if President Buhari decides power should shift to the Southeast because he's more Igbo than all the other aspirants of Southeast extraction in APC. Is he? Only time will tell.
There are other surreal and ridiculous narratives about other aspirants like the Senate President Ahmed Lawal, Governor of Ebonyi State, Dave Umahi, former Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Ogbonnaya Onu, and the Governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi, but the details are not necessary since that's not my focus.
From my telescope, this is how the APC would pick its presidential candidate in the forthcoming primary election. The candidate that would emerge either by voting or consensus would be decided by the voting strength of his political zone and not by popularity or his capacity to do the job. The President would not impose any candidate on the party because if he attempts to do so, the Party would implode. Recall that in 2015, Buhari won the APC’s primary election because of the voting strength of his political zone-the Northwest and not necessarily because he was the most qualified aspirant with the capacity to do the job.
The recent meeting of all aspirants of Southwest extraction on the APC platform, which ended with the consensus that they want the presidency to come to the zone was a preemptive move to stop President Buhari and the Northwest from reneging from the subsisting alliance between them. The position of the Southwest is that the party cannot afford to abandon a political zone that has contributed significantly to her victory in previous polls for any zone that has not done so, considerably. To actualize their intention, it would seem like most of the aspirants have tactically withdrawn from the race leaving Tinubu and Vice President Osinbajo who are the only ones seriously soliciting delegates across the country.
It would seem like the only serious aspirant from the South-South and Southeast who has demonstrated considerable clout and is canvassing delegates across the country is Ameachi. As for the rest of the pack, the former Minister of Niger Delta ministry, Godswill Akpabio, former Minister of Science, Technology, and Innovation, Ogbonnaya Onu, former Minister of State, Education, Emeka Nwajiuba, former Senate President, Ken Nnamani, Senator Rochas Okorocha, Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State, and his Ebonyi State counterpart, Dave Umahi, Nicholas Felix Nwagbo, and Tein Jack Ric, are consensus bargaining chips. The reason one could easily deduce for their being in the race is that they want to participate in the horse-trading for a consensus candidate. That seems to be the role assigned to them by President Buhari as attested to by Governor Ayade on Channels Television after he consults with the President. This explains why they are not seriously canvassing delegates even in their states.
For the Northern candidates in the race, Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State is not in the race to win; not at all. He is in for personal gratification and such delusional self-pride fueled by public funds is not healthy for our democracy. The Senate President Ahmed Lawal and the Governor of Jigawa State Mohammed Badaru Abubakar are proxies for the Party’s frontrunners and potential Vice Presidential candidates. The fact that they are not polling delegates seriously lends credence to my submission. The former governor of Zamfara State, Ahmed Yerima is testing the waters in preparation for his future ambition beyond 2023. From the look of things, it is obvious that the party would not be able to pick a consensus candidate outside the Southwest without creating a crisis in the party. Therefore, there would be a primary election and a Southwest aspirant would emerge as the party's candidate.
How the PDP would pick its presidential candidate, would have been an easy task if the aspirants put the interest of the country above theirs. If they truly want to rescue the country from the ruling party as they claim then they need to do something extraordinary that would reverberate with the electorates. The first step in the right direction is to bridge the gap between the North and South in the party by picking a consensus candidate from the South. To demonstrate the party's seriousness about justice and equity for all ethnic groups in the country the party's ticket should go to the Southeast, which is the only zone in the South that is yet to produce a president for the country.
In my opinion, that's how the party ought to reinvent itself if the leaders had their thinking caps on. However, it would seem like they are not ready to think outside the box since they are bent on producing a candidate of Northern extraction as the party's presidential candidate based on the absurd argument that no Southerner can win the presidential election because the northern voters would not be favorably disposed towards any of them. They forget that the same argument was advanced against Buhari in 2015 by some conservative politicians who felt he was not electable in the South. But that didn't dissuade the APC leaders who understood it was their responsibility to counter the negative perception of him in the South. They didn't shy away from the challenge but took the bull by the horns. In the end, Buhari lost in the South-South and Southeast but won in the Southwest, which gave the party the key to the presidency. So, the narrative the conservative Northern presidential aspirants are pushing against their Southern counterparts is not only unconscionable but suspicious. Based on the reaction their position has stirred in the South, they would pay dearly for it at the polls if any of them emerges as the party's presidential candidate. He too would not be electable in the South.
It's obvious that PDP is not ready to embrace change or be innovative in its electioneering strategy, so the party ticket would go to the highest bidder at the party's primary election. That means the Southern aspirants do not stand a chance because the North has aspirants with deep pockets and the highest number of delegates who have been brainwashed against Southern aspirants. Some Southern aspirants know this and they are ready to settle for the Vice-Presidential slot. The unusual suspects in this regard are the Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, and his Akwa Ibom State counterpart Udom Emmanuel.
For now, no aspirant from the Southeast would accept to run as a Vice-Presidential candidate to a northern Presidential candidate for fear of backlash from his people who have resolved that if the party doesn't zone the ticket to them they are done with supporting the party. If they mean business and no Iscariot breaks their rank, former Senate President, Bukola Saraki, Governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal, and his Bauchi State counterpart, Bala Mohammed would have no choice but to concede the party's ticket to them since Atiku Abubakar had already said he would, if all northerners withdrew from the race. But don't take that to the bank because in politics politicians doublespeak effortlessly. The attempt by Atiku Abubakar to rationalize why he took down the tweet on his Twitter account handle condemning those who martyred Deborah Yakubu in Sokoto State would suffice in this regard.
The take-home message from this long dialogue irrespective of where you come from and the political party you support is that our politicians are more driven by personal interests than our collective interests, so no one should lose sleep over the primary election. One thing is certain, whatever our politicians have up their sleeves would be revealed before INEC’s Expected Date of Delivery (EDD), which is June 3rd, 2022.
Felix Akpan Ph.D
lixzito@yahoo.co.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment