By Alhasan Farouk

Unless drastic interventions are made, next year’s general election may prove difficult for our nation as desperate attempts by various sides of the union to ensure that they wrest power, especially the presidency.

President Muhammadu Buhari from the North West, as incumbent, has received widespread criticism from several segments of the society for what has been termed a lopsided appointment policy in Nigeria’s security architecture and several MDAs where the North has been unduly favoured. With the recent spate of insecurity, banditry, herder-farmer violence, IPOB disruptions, and separatist group agitations it is apparent that the nation has never been more divided.

With a fractious polity where ethnic and religious strife have seen sectional violence come to the fore in the North Central, South East, South West, the South is eager to stake a claim to the presidency to sooth frayed nerves across the country. Nigeria’s fragile unity is indeed at stake.

The dramatic but dangerous tussle is best observed in the country’s ruling party, the All Progressives Congress. Formed in 2014 as an alliance between the north and south to oust the PDP which had held power for 16 years prior, President Muhammadu Buhari emerged as its flagbearer, representing the north, and with a promise to surrender power to the south in a high-stake power sharing formula designed to promote inclusion and a sense of belonging.

Political activities this year, including the primaries of the political parties, are meant to set the stage for a change of guard. However, in the APC, several key northern figures, emboldened by their control of the party, particularly with the recent emergence of Senator Abdullahi Adamu, as the chairman of the party, are exploring strategies to keep power and leave the southern region out in the cold.

Multiple sources have alleged a secret plot being orchestrated by northern power brokers to facilitate the nomination of either Mohammed Badaru Abubakar, the Governor of Jigawa State, or the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, as its presidential candidate, despite the expectation that the Southern bloc of the party should produce its nominee.

The allegation of a northern agenda to retain power is strengthened by the delays and postponements that have characterised the party’s candidate-selection process.

Also alleged is a plot to install Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, the PDP president ousted in 2015 and whom the APC famously reviled as incompetent, corrupt, and lacking in leadership. His consideration, according to the sources, should be the next preferred – and fail-safe – option to a northern candidate, considering the constitutional limits, which means the former president, having served another term prior, can only serve another four years before power is promptly returned to the North.

But this is shortsighted given the fact that there is a constitutional limitation to the Jonathan project as a recent constitutional amendment prohibits anyone who has sworn to the oath relating to the presidency more than twice from running a third time. The proponents of this Jonathan project are up for a legal tussle.

It’s no different in the opposition PDP where similar patterns are noticed. After the emergence of a Northern chairman, the party, too, has refused to zone its presidential ticket, amplifying fears that a Northerner, Atiku Abubakar, could once again work his way to the top, creating an implosive prospect of an all-Northern affair in 2023. This is what the Northern leadership in APC is putting forward as a justification for its Northern candidate plan.

The reaction of the Southern to this prospect is easily predictable. Sentiments of Nigeria being a colonial administrative project that funneled wealth from the resource-rich South to the desert and trouble-plagued North is still rife in the region, especially among the intellectual who are increasingly revisiting the country’s history and animating secessionist agenda that regained popularity over recent alleged nepotism.

The apparent mismanagement of the party processes, due largely to the greed and megalomania of vested interest in the North, who do not care about the region but their personal aggrandizement and are terrified by the prospect of life without the cover of federal power and immunity, may not augur well for the country.

So far, the political leaders of the southern region, especially in the West, who control the media, have kept their rhetoric from the mainstream, hoping that a change of power in 2023 may help alleviate the fears of the people and rekindle interest in the preservation of the union. But if they get schemed out of the political play by the northern powerbrokers, they too may reconsider their position, and with that reality comes the real threat of Nigeria coming undone. The center of Nigeria is not holding and the APC’s final act, unless it changes course, may be to preside over the country’s disintegration.

pinkPUSSY:
If Fulanis could be desperate for power without any supporters from the south, what do you think they would do when they now have backing of some southerners ?


The Nothern region of Nigeria is bold enough to retain the presidency because they are capitalizing on the stand of majority of Igbos which is "Zone Presidency to the east or it remains in the north".

Majority APC of Nothern extraction have listened to the voice of Igbo people concerning the presidency and there are a lot of indications that even despite having Nat chairman, they can still retain the presidency because they believe that a major ethnic group in Nigeria is backing their stand...

Trust Me nothing, I mean absolutely nothing will happen if they have the presidency, and National Chairman, infact they might even wish to have the Senate presidency at the same time and get away with it because the south is totally irredeemably cracked .. The only thing that could have checkmated their excesses is the unity of the south unfortunately the unity of the south is not happening anytime soon, hence they had to take advantage of it and rule Nigeria the way they want...

You can't beat them, you can only shout online and rest...

Who could have imagined that Top 3 citizens in Nigeria would come from the same region in the history of Nigeria ?( President, Senate President and the CJN) ..

And to some clowns that are chanting " Igbo votes are Inconsequential" because of least voters registration of SE, it's only a political illiterate that doesn't know the difference between Igbo votes and SE votes.. You are not wiser than your politicians that place or try to identify with the 3 major ethnic groups in Nigeria while campaigning.. There Is a reason for that.

People of SW should have known better that North was never their ally. They have used you and ready to dump you a pick a new bride.. SW should Stop issuing threats to north telling them they can't have Nat chairman and presidency at the same time , the more you issue threats the more they go back to sleep

Obamaofusa:


Thrash

Kyase:
These Yoruba people media no go calm down abi?
This propaganda no go work...

E be like say dem dey fear Lawan and Kalu combo..

Obamaofusa:

If North keeps presidency..which is DOA...Nigeria is gone.If you like believe it or dont.

Either they give it to an Igboman from SE...which Hausas will not at this moment...or a Yorubaman.Nigeria stays.

Igbos cannot align with Hausas except on deceit because they are two opposing poles.
Igbos are mainly Christians who have shown great haterd towards the Hausas.

Hausas too do not trust Igbos at all because of Hausa leaders killed by Igbos in the 1st republic when Igbos introduced the first coup and unitary system of govt that later became the stumbling block of Nigerians.

Apart from SS,the FG gets trillions of money from SW through custom,ports,vats etc.The SE contributes very meagre amount to the national purse.

Kyase:
These Yoruba people media no go calm down abi?
This propaganda no go work...

E be like say dem dey fear Lawan and Kalu combo..

OkoroBufo:

Why are you taking a yamree seriously?.. OUK has been licking Lawan's fart, is that not what their forefathers also did.
Do you think slavery is an easy job?.. abeg give them kudos.

-Okoro bufo

femisplash:

Are you sure you're ok?. Is dailytrust a SW media?

Ebubu3:
South West controlled Media is at it again, using disintegration threats to blackmail the North into Zoning Presidency to SW or at least South so that Tinubu will clinch it

North has refused and insisted that if SW can’t support SE to have it, then it stays in the North.

South West want to first rule Presidency Twice before the true People who own Nigeria (North), gets to rule it twice.


And North says no

Kyase:

Don't be naive

Odin13:


Dem no go understand that Yoruba media propaganda is stale

No Yoruba people were hailing Lawan last month .. and all 7 years

They have nothing to fear .. after all Na Tinubu man

Like say Kalu don hijack am from the Yoruba god .. Yoruba go learn politcs

Power to the people
North 2023

femisplash:

Don't be mentally deficient.

Kyase:
South west should get the ticket first, let's see

Kyase:


As of today Lawan can't win the primaries but who knows what's happening behind the scene...
I was warning those people about Abdullahi adamu but that seunmsg was asking me "who is Adamu"?
Keeping Tinubu and Adamu side by side, Tinubu no near That man politically......

Kyase:


As of today Lawan can't win the primaries but who knows what's happening behind the scene...
I was warning those people about Abdullahi adamu but that seunmsg was asking me "who is Adamu"?
Keeping Tinubu and Adamu side by side, Tinubu no near That man politically......

garfield1:


What do you mean

Odin13:


You know yoruba believe that everything begins and end in Yoruba land

Their media keep jonzing them

Na what I Dey always tell them that the Yoruba god Must Contest
So e go clear to that their god is another’s human slave

Power to the people
North 2023

Kyase:

What I mean is that, left for Adamu alone Tinubu won't win the ticket, if he doesn't want him to win
And Tinubu is no match to Adamu in anyway politically, unless been a godfather...

Odin13:


Dem no go understand that Yoruba media propaganda is stale

No Yoruba people were hailing Lawan last month .. and all 7 years

They have nothing to fear .. after all Na Tinubu man

Like say Kalu don hijack am from the Yoruba god .. Yoruba go learn politcs

Power to the people
North 2023

Kyase:


I don't have problem with Tinubu, in fact he's my second choice after Amaechi, but they way his supporters are doing, is annoying, same thing with Peter obi's supporters( though I noticed some positive changes of recent).
They need to calm down

Odin13:


Tinubu has never be match for Adamu in Nigeria politics

Forget Yoruba hype .. talk more of Buhari he dey use Yoruba brain for ..
Fulani wey his people name Yoruba .. Yoruba ..

Power to the people

Make them snore well

North 2023