former governors Ahmed Sani, Bukola Saraki and Abdullahi Adamu, Abubakar Kawu Baraje and Chief Audu Ogbeh are the most prominent guests? I will not blame anyone who says, “An APC rally!”  
Some quick qualifiers to this correct answer. The venue of weekend’s event at which these political gurus congregated, the Sultan’s palace in Sokoto, is not a venue for political rallies. But then, no ground is off limits to a Nigerian politician seeking for votes. Not the Grand Mosque in Mecca, not St Peter’s Basilica in Rome and not the Okija Shrine so the turbaning of a new Mutawallen Sokoto cannot be an exception.  You don’t expect so many APC chieftains to congregate at a social occasion unless they believe their party comrade is being honoured and the event will advance their party’s interest. They are right except that the man being honoured, Speaker of the House of Representatives Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, is officially a PDP member. Underline the word officially.
In fact, a few of his PDP mates were present at the occasion in Sokoto, at great political risk to themselves. Deputy House Speaker Emeka Ihedioha, who is passionately chasing a PDP governorship ticket, will plead to PDP bosses that he attended only because Tambuwal is his boss. Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, who also has governorship ambitions, will plead to PDP bosses that the Senate is the House’s legislative sibling so he should be excused for attending an APC occasion. Apart from these two, no PDP bigwig, local or national, attended the event. Though President Jonathan was touted as the special guest of honour, he neither attended nor sent a representative.
What message do you read from all these? The  body language of Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, which has the complexity as well as precision of a honey bee’s waffle dance, is right now very fascinating in Nigerian politics. In three short years Tambuwal rose from the parliamentary backbenches to become one of the most potent politicians in Nigeria. He has much cross regional appeal, much media respect and almost no taint in the murky water that is Nigerian politics.
Tambuwal is regularly mentioned in the media as a likely APC presidential candidate even though he never publicly declared for the party. How does one become a frontrunner in a party’s race without ever declaring for that party? Partly because, as any keen observer can see, APC is headed for a rough time in the choice of its presidential candidate, which must be done by early December. The three big masquerades in the field are General Buhari, Atiku Abubakar and Governor Rabi’u Kwankwaso. Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha is also interested. Each of these four men has some strengths but some noticeable political drawbacks as well. APC’s state governors [once 16 in number but will be down to 14 in December] could be the biggest force to determine who gets the nomination. The biggest bloc within that bloc is the Yoruba governors, and this is the bloc most sympathetic to the Speaker.
PDP’s bosses have over the years driven Tambuwal into the warm embrace of ACN-APC chieftains because they never forgave him for becoming the speaker against their expressed wishes. In truth, Tambuwal was not the first PDP man to rise to a major position in the National Assembly with the backing of opposition lawmakers. In 1999 Chuba Okadigbo was supported by a majority of PDP senators but President Obasanjo drafted AD senators to join the PDP minority and elect Evan Enwerem as Senate President.
Parties don’t often remember their own history. Dr Goodluck Jonathan’s accidental rise to the Presidency in 2010 necessitated a revision of the zoning formula worked out by the party in 2007. The speakership was awarded to the South West and the region’s PDP leaders led by Obasanjo anointed Mrs Mulikat Akande for the post. But then, out of the blues, a cross-party movement sprang up in the House of Representatives intent on choosing their own leaders irrespective of party zoning arrangements. Tambuwal headed the movement or at least, was chosen as its main beneficiary.
Several books could be written about the efforts that PDP leaders made in 2011 to stop Tambuwal’s rise to the speakership. Heading the effort at the time was Vice President Namadi Sambo. Presidential jets went to Sokoto several times and ferried Governor Aliyu Wamakko to Abuja. He was told to talk Tambuwal out of the race. Wamakko himself could not find Tambuwal who had gone underground. He only emerged at the Assembly’s first session camouflaged in a sharp suit with a Niger Delta style hat. He entered the House chamber commando style, surrounded by 30 other members.
Tambuwal’s rise to the speakership signalled the beginning of Wamakko’s problems in PDP. The party leaders thought he did not try hard enough to stop Tambuwal. Maybe they were right; Wamakko is a politician with an uncommon ear to the political ground and a hound’s smell of what the grassroots want. It would be political suicide to stop your kinsman from becoming the Speaker in order to please party bosses in Abuja when it could attract benefits to the state.
As indeed it did to Wamakko himself. If Tambuwal had not been the speaker in 2011 the presidency and PDP national leaders could have denied Wamakko a return ticket in the governorship election of early 2012. All the talk that time was that the well connected Senator Abubakar Gada was anointed by Aso Rock to take over PDP’s ticket but the Speaker proved to be too much of a counterweight. In one notorious instance, Gada got the Police Inspector General to send a special team to Sokoto to arrest eight of Wamakko’s commissioners on the grounds that they defamed him. Midway into their journey, the Speaker got on phone to the IG and insisted that the accused men should be interviewed instead in the Sokoto State Attorney General’s office [incidentally, that’s Tambuwal’s classmate and close friend Inuwa Abdulkadir, now APC’s North West vice chairman]. The policemen never showed up. Last year, when PDP’s leadership under Bamanga Tukur suspended Wamakko from the party, Tambuwal led House members from Sokoto to a solidarity rally where he declared that the governor was their leader.
There were many other occasions in which Tambuwal’s body language differed very markedly from the Presidency’s. Such as when emergency rule was declared in three North East states. President Jonathan told National Assembly leaders that he intended to remove the affected governors and state assemblies. Tambuwal, once a private legal practitioner, retorted that the Constitution did not permit that. Not long afterwards, the Speaker led the House to expunge a provision in the state of emergency proclamation allowing Jonathan to take control of funds accruable to the three states to finance security operations.
The Speaker once said the government is not doing enough to curtail the Boko Haram insurgency. On another occasion, he said President Jonathan’s body language encourages corruption. It is also noticeable that Speaker Tambuwal long since stopped attending PDP functions, not even the rally in Sokoto to welcome former governor Attahiru Bafarawa into the party which Jonathan personally attended. Instead, he finds time to attend many functions organised by APC governors, especially in the South West.
Now, while everyone is talking about Tambuwal as a very attractive prospect for President, he is simultaneously looking across the terrain at the governorship of Sokoto State. I will not know if there is a deal between Wamakko and Tambuwal. I will not be surprised if there is. Wamakko’s political camp is very large and he has many loyal aides and associates angling to succeed him as governor. However, none of them could match the Speaker’s national visibility and charisma. He might decide to take the path of least resistance and go for the governorship of Sokoto State. On APC’s ticket, of course.

I will read this epistle after gej become the president of nigeria

The choice should be between Tambuwal and Kwankwaso. Both men are young, vibrant, intelligent, and loved by Nigerian youths.

EdCure: The choice should be between Tambuwal and Kwankwaso. Both men are young, vibrant, intelligent, and loved by Nigerian youths.

Tambuwal is not a saint! He looted the House of Reps treasury with BankOle. Presently, he is hiding all the bribe takers in the House of Reps like, Umar Farouk, the long cap banker.