2023 – For me, it’s Tinubu, Atiku and Moghalu

Last week, I looked at the prospects of Bola Ahmed Tinubu who looks to be in good position for the 2023 presidency.  This week, we look at Atiku and Moghalu.

I met Atiku at Chido Onumah’s book launching a few months ago. He is a lively guy, with above average energy for his age. He is also quick to make friends – and has always been that way before someone says it’s because he is looking for votes. Atiku is also a headhunter and brought in a number of the sharp heads into Obasanjo’s government. He is futuristic and has experience in leadership. He served in government in the good old days (1999 – 2007) and so he could claim the successes of that era, which makes today looks so backward. Atiku carries a baggage of corruption too. But again, perhaps we should be pragmatic. We need someone akin to a benevolent dictator with vision.

Nigeria has the worst incidences of poverty, illiteracy, and insecurity, in the world. So, we need to understand what our problem really is. This country is not at the level of Europe, or the Americas. In terms of human development, we are not even at the level of many African nations. So, what we need and very urgently too, is a leader that can understand this enormous task and set about making then needed impact. Atiku will be a far sight better than Buhari but I hope he has learnt some lessons in his years outside government, of the need to balance economic policy with human development.  

Then comes Moghalu. He is the only prominent person so far who has pushed forward from the class of 2019. The terrain is currently looking like APC, PDP, and Moghalu. Or perhaps, Atiku, Tinubu, and Moghalu – in my view. I think if APC and PDP finally nominate other flagbearers apart from those two old men, they could also play into the hands of Moghalu.  You have to respect his tenacity. Anyone who has lost much money running campaigns in 2019 and is back with a bounce must be respected. When he first asked me about running again in 2023 I told him that from what I see only a candidate on the platform of PDP or APC could win.

I still smart from the mass deregistration of young parties by INEC – a rather senseless move orchestrated by the ruling party (as championed by Kabiru Gaya) in cahoots with PDP (Ekweremadu), really. I saw how blatant these folks can be in holding on to power, and I did not see how we could import new Nigerians in 2023 who will vote based on ideology, and programmes, and eloquence in putting ideas forward. By 2023, hunger and illiteracy will still define our polity, unfortunately even more than before.  But I have seen Kingsley being very tenacious. He recently explained his plans to me after he had joined ADC – known to be Obasanjo’s party. 

On the asset side of Kingsley’s balance sheet is that he is not tainted by corruption. His reputation is intact even though he had served in CBN as a Deputy Governor. He is younger than the two gentlemen I first analysed above. He is eloquent and strong. He is smart and savvy and connected with the modern world. And he is Igbo. Now, that adds a new twist to the equation. The South-East of Nigeria presently roils in some sporadic violence from what they call unknown gunmen. Elite in the East did not speak up as these things ramped up and today, many live with fear. IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu’s idea, swears that they want their own country, but when we examine the reality, we find out it will be a fairly impossible quest. The South-East will at the end not be led by the nose. But Nigeria still owes a debt in that direction. I had pushed for a president from the South-East in the past, then got tired with the recent issues that have come up. However, the thing about these quests is that we often never know who is going to sweep the stakes. Could it be Kingsley? Can he get that elite consensus going? Can he push forward a balanced ideology that doesn’t throw poor Nigerians under the bus but lifts everyone in productivity, human development and wealth?

There is strategic precedence. Look at when Yorubas agitated over Abiola. Who swept the stakes? Obasanjo, whom most Yorubas did not like, or vote for. Nigeria’s presidency has often been handed to underdogs too. Think about Yar’Adua – who never wanted it and wanted to retire as a lecturer (a very honest guy I will say, again). Think about Jonathan, who had to be pushed to step up to the plate – though he had little energy or ideas. Think about Obasanjo himself, sprung from prison. If the elites – powers that be – come together, they may push for Kingsley, and we may find that the money and popularity that he doesn’t have will spring up overnight. This will be my advice to them though, because this country needs a new lease, like never before. His presidency will at once quell the unproductive agitations in the South-East and South-West, and we can then have some reprieve from violence, crimes, kidnappings, and insurrection, just as we had when Jonathan and Obasanjo ascended. It will then be left to him to hit the ground running. Anyone can criticize him to high heavens, but I say, rather than criticize, why not step up and run if you think these things are easy? It is only those who step up to the starting line, that can win the race. It may also be somehow significant that Kingsley is in Obasanjo’s party, because the latter can help put in a word with his foreign connections, without whom no one can become Nigeria’s president. Kingsley, having worked in United Nations and lived extensively abroad, may also have a few buttons he could press. 

Of all these three gentlemen, if anyone really needs my help, it is Kingsley Moghalu. The other two have extensive structures and experience. If the scenario plays out as I am proposing here, it will be quite painful for Atiku, whom I repeat will do a far better job than Buhari and has kept trying to come in. Corrupt as he may be touted to be, I think he has business acumen to have maintained his wealth so many years after leaving government and that is something to go by. It will equally be painful for Tinubu, who supported Buhari in 2015 and was promptly repaid with snobbery and betrayal by the puritan man who hit the ground like a wet towel. His support for Buhari, and nomination of Osinbajo, was meant to strategically open the way for his quest in 2023. These are political Chess-masters. They plan several steps ahead. I could never plan that far for political reasons because my imagination is too volatile. I’d be like, who is sure of being alive in four  or eight years time! But these guys are great optimists.

Let’s talk realpolitik!