There's nothing extraordinary about the much-touted Fitch report that predicted victory for the presidential candidate of the ruling APC, Bola Tinubu, in the 2023 election. Many of us had already reached the same conclusion before now in several of our precious engagements on this virtual street. For me, the 2023 presidential election was won and lost the day the 14 APC Northern governors threw their weight behind Bola Tinubu’s candidacy. It was also the day they acquiesced to Tinubu’s Emi Lokan speech and decided to support him.
In my opinion, they may have reasoned that he has made a lot of sacrifices for our democracy to flourish, therefore, he deserves the support of the North in all ramifications. If this makes you uncomfortable, then provide us with a more plausible explanation for their action to enrich the conversation on the matter. However, I concede that such high-stakes political issue is not determined by a single rationale, but by multifarious factors.
For the Southwest, supporting Bola Tinubu is an obligation. It's not negotiable. In this regard, Pa Ayo Adebanjo the erstwhile acting President of Afenifere who attempted to go against the core interest of the Yorubas has been issued a red card by the substantive President, Pa Reuben Fasoranti who has endorsed Tinubu and retaken charge of the Pan-Yoruba socio-political group. I doubt if any other candidate apart from Tinubu will be able to secure 25% of the votes in the zone. My prognosis is not predicated on speculation. My thesis derives its instrumentality a priori from scientific-based research on the voting behavior of the Southwest, especially if you take into consideration the zone’s strategic group interest. It's important to note that an election is not an individual game, it's a group sport. Consequently, the dominant political elites in every state usually determine how the votes in their states swing because voters are not rational actors. In all the 36 States of the country and the FCT, most voters dance to the tunes of their local political leaders and benefactors.
No one should rely on the trending psychedelic emotionalism on social media that portends that because of our wobbling economic situation and acerbic insecurity problems, the people would abandon APC. That is not going to happen in the 2023 presidential election because our democracy is not rooted in rationality but in preference. That means people don’t vote based on performance but for what they stand to benefit as a group from the government in power. They probably also know intuitively that politics is different from governance; who knows? Governance is both politics and political, however, this explains why democracy is not necessarily about who can do the job as some folks think but who can maintain the balance between politics and governance to safeguard the interest of the majority group while respecting the rights of the minority group in society.
The North-Southwest alliance that brought President Buhari to power in 2015 symbolizes the nexus between politics and governance and that needs to be reciprocated in the 2023 presidential election between the two dormant groups in the country. The North has already commenced the reciprocity process during the APC presidential primaries, they delivered clinically for Bola Tinubu and no VAR was required to resolve any issue throughout the game to the admiration of naysayers who thought President Buhari would turn his back on Tinubu and handpick a successor. The grand finale comes up in February 2023. As expected, it would bury the jinx of the rivalry between the Southwest and the North in our body politics if the North stays faithful to the pact.
My takeaway from the ongoing 2023 presidential electioneering campaign and all the shenanigans it has so far thrown up, is that the three political zones in the Southern part of the country ( Southeast, Southwest, and South-South) should begin to align more with themselves as a bloc rather than either one of them aligning unilaterally with the North to sabotage the other two. From my investigation, even though the Northwest has consistently produced Heads of State and Presidents for the country, the other two zones in the North ( North Central and Northeast ) have never tried to ally with any of the three political zones in the South to counter the preponderant dominance of the Northwest. Don't worry yourself trying to recall the Buga dance of a few disgruntled middle-belt leaders in the past. How did that impact or dent the current strategically robust influence of the Northwest on our political climate? Isn't that exactly what Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State is trying to re-enact? Like previous political leaders of the zone, Governor Ortom just huffed at the political leaders in the North without taking a definite stand against them-like signing a pact with any group in the South to tilt the balance of power in its favor.
The subsisting pact between the Southwest and the North automatically shuts the door on any presidential candidate from the South contesting against Bola Tinubu because the Southwest would not abandon their own to support a candidate from another political zone and it is “haram” for the North to renege on the agreement, except on social media. What further solidifies the pact is the fact that no one can get to the presidency without winning the Northwest, as for now. The only counter to the arrangement would have been if the PDP had allowed a candidate of the Southeast to clench its presidential ticket. That way we would have had two candidates from the Southern part of the country supported by a divided Northern part. If that had happened, with the support of the South-South, the candidate of the Southeast extraction could have won the next 2023 presidential election. But the pursuit of individual interest by the members of the PDP instead of the collective interest of the Party further accentuated the Southwest-North pact at the expense of the Southeast. As it stands, Peter Obi the candidate of the Labour Party, and a former member of the PDP is contesting against his former boss Atiku Abubakar, the candidate of the PDP in the Southeast and South-South, which is controlled by the PDP. No matter who emerges victorious at the end of the polls neither of them would be able to secure the required 25% of the votes in 24 States of the country. That gives the APC an edge over them since both candidates have not seriously threatened the remaining four political zones under the control of the ruling APC.
Regardless of the outcome of the 2023 presidential election, the three political zones in the South need to sign a power rotation pact to douse tension among themselves in subsequent elections and guide against the extant feudal divide-and-rule tactics of the North. The sooner the Southeast does it the better; if she is ever to taste the Aso Rock Mansion under a united democratic Nigeria.
Felix Akpan Ph.D
lixzito@yahoo.co.uk
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