Few days to the presidential primary election of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), the political atmosphere is charged as about 30 aspirants have indicated interest in succeeding President Muhammadu Buhari come May 29, 2023.
Daily Trust Saturday reports that President Buhari is the second president to conclude his second term since the country’s return to democracy in 1999. The first was former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2007. Former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was voted out in 2015 while seeking a second term.
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In the cabinet of President Buhari, eight persons, including Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, have indicated interest in the presidential ticket of the ruling party. The governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, had also shown interest in stepping into the shoes of the president.
Before the quit notice given to the aspirants by the president, their aspirations had negatively affected governance as they used state resources for their campaigns.
A valedictory session was organised for the ministers. The ministers who had indicated interest to contest elections included Rotimi Amaechi, Transportation; Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio; Science, Technology and Innovation, Ogbonnaya Onu; Petroleum Resources (state), Timipre Sylva; Education (state), Emeka Nwajiuba; Mines and Steel Development, Uche Ogah; Women Affairs, Pauline Tallen and Niger Delta Affairs (State), Chief Tayo Alasoadura.
However, the Labour and Employment minister, Chris Ngige, Attorney-General of the Fedeartion, Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Minister of Women Affairs, Pauline Tallen, Minister of State for Petroleum, Timipre Sylva; including the CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele had made a u-turn.
Aside from the ministers, some APC governors have also picked the party’s forms for the presidency.
The party had fixed May 30 and 31 this year for its presidential primary election, where its flag-bearer would emerge. A total of 7,800 delegates across the country would determine the APC candidate.
Party chiefs, statesmen, analysts and other stakeholders in the country are expressing reservations about the way governance is suffering as activities, leading to the party’s primary taking the front burner.
To salvage the situation, calls are being made to the president to constitute a ‘committee of wise men’ to assist him. Key stakeholders spoken to, including those in the government, said the president should up his game. According to them, relying on few people around him will not yield the desired result.
Yar’adua: Unveiled, Obasanjo’s secret panel
After his controversial third term agenda failed, former President Olusegun Obasanjo constituted a 9-man committee to work with him on the selection of his successor.
Multiple sources told our reporter that the committee comprised of four persons from the then ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and four governors who are members of the party.
The committee chaired by Obasanjo had Ahmadu Ali, Tony Anenih, Ojo Maduekwe and Bode George as members selected from the party. From the governors’ side, it was gathered that James Ibori (Delta), Olusegun Agagu (Ondo), Danjuma Goje (Gombe) and Bukola Saraki (Kwara) were members. It was gathered that Obasanjo picked four of them because they had no presidential ambition at that time.
Daily Trust Saturday reports that some of the then serving governors had indicated interest in the presidency. They included Abdullahi Adamu (Nasarawa), Ahmed Makarfi (Kaduna), Peter Odili (Rivers) and Donald Duke (Cross River), among others.
A member of the committee said they met severally with Obasanjo in the Villa before he picked the late Yar’adua as his successor.
“Our committee was constituted in 2006 and only members knew of the existence of the committee because we related with the president directly,” he said.
The former governor said that after several meetings, Obasanjo summoned all the PDP governors to a meeting in the Villa.
“During the meeting, he announced that an election would be conducted for all the presidential aspirants of the party, and that whoever won would fly the PDP ticket in the general elections.
“Members of the committee served as an electoral body. After the mock election, the president said we should leave the venue and that the result be counted elsewhere. Before we get to where the ballot would be counted, we got a call that it should not be counted,” he said.
He said that days later, the president summoned them and told them at the Villa that his preferred candidate was Yar’adua.
“After telling us, he said we should go to a guest house belonging to Dangote, that he had sent an aircraft to pick Yar’adua in Katsina.
“After a few hours, Yar’adua came to us at the guest house, and on his arrival, we stood up and addressed him as Mr President. As directed, after a few discussions, we went straight to the Villa, where Obasanjo disclosed his plan to him,” he said.
Another source close to the former president said that before making his choice public, Obasanjo engaged two governors to ‘market’ Yar’adua to their colleagues.
He said the duo of Saraki and Ibori ensured that their other colleagues keyed into the project.
“They moved from one governor to another selling the Yar’adua project. Since some of the governors had indicated interest in the presidency, they were pressured to drop their ambitions to support the then Katsina State governor.
“While Obasanjo was doing this on one side, the two chief marketers of the Yar’adua project were doing the underground work. It was after securing the buy-in of the PDP governors that they went into primary and the general elections,” he said.
Recall that Yar’adua won the 2007 presidential election, which was characterised by massive rigging. The late president attested to this fact during his inauguration. Before the party’s primary, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) beamed its searchlight on some of the aspirants.
In 2009, Yar’adua left for Saudi Arabia to receive treatment for pericarditis and returned to Nigeria on February 24, 2010. He died on May 5 of the same year.
Imposing a candidate won’t be in party’s interest – Prof Odion, Dr Bewaji
A political scientist, Professor Sylvester Odion, in a chat with Daily Trust, said every party member had the liberty to contest for the presidency of the country, and as such, the president should allow the delegates to choose, even if he had a candidate in mind.
“We know that within the dynamics of the politics, there are those who are clowns. There are those who are there just to make their presence felt. There are those who are actually contesting to vie for power. You can see that as a result of an ordinary presidential directive, many of them have already reversed their gear. So it tells you that many are called but only few are chosen. At the end of the day, the party delegates would decide who the candidate would be.
“The over 30 candidates or thereabouts indicate a contest of those who are serious. It is a contest of those who are clownish and those who just want to seek relevance,” he said.
On what the president should do, he said, “I think the president has said he has a preferred candidate. He said if he was to mention the person, they would assassinate him.
“That tells you that the president is not neutral. He definitely would be interested in who succeeds him, but again, notwithstanding his preference and his influence within the party, at the end of the day, the party’s delegates would still decide who would be the candidate.
“But if his influence becomes overbearing he might end up splitting the party because some of the most serious contenders have the means to the split the party and go in any direction they wish.”
Dr Wunmi Bewaji, an activist and former House of Representatives member, said the best way for the president was to allow a free, fair and transparent process in choosing who he prefers to succeed him.
According to him, what former President Obasanjo did during the latter days of his tenure was the beginning of the end of the PDP.
“The best way to go about it is to allow the party to decide. It will not be in the interest of the president to impose a candidate.
“What Obasanjo did at that time was the beginning of the demise of the party. So let the candidate emerge, either through a direct or indirect primary,” he said.
He noted that if such an exercise is free, fair and transparent, anybody that loses out will know that it would be morally wrong for him to protest.
Tajudeen Alabede, the national coordinator of the Network for Democracy and Development (NDD), said the all-comers’ situation in the APC was a further reflection of Nigeria’s poor political leadership recruitment process.
He believes that the “allure of power, not service, drives many of the aspirants. Some may also use the aspiration as leverage to negotiate for future political opportunities.”
He, however, said the “best option for the president and the leadership of the party at this point is to allow a transparent primary at which the candidate would emerge from the field of the finalists. One can only hope and pray that those who are well prepared and possess the right agenda for development would make it to the convention ground.”
