₦airaland Forum

President Muhammadu Buhari can be inscrutable. Difficult to predict and divine. You cannot tell what he is thinking. And like the old general that he is, he has perfected the art of not telling it all and choosing his words carefully like a cat on tightropes.

In an interview with Channels Television in January 2022, the old fox kept his mystery and had everyone guessing. When asked who his preferred 2023 presidential candidate was, the artful general said: “I don’t have any favourite for 2023 and if I do, I won’t reveal his identity because if I do, he may be eliminated before the election. I better keep it secret.’’

Since this ‘’tactical manoeuvring’’, many presidential aspirants have been courting the president’s attention and seeking to establish themselves in the national consciousness as his sanctified pick. So who is Buhari’s consecrated presidential choice?

Is it Bola Tinubu, former Lagos state governor and national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC)? Well, one thing is certain – we may not know Buhari’s preference, but we do know those who will not go through his beatification.

In January, Tinubu visited Buhari at the presidential villa. He later announced that day that he had informed the president of his intention to run for presidential office in 2023 and the pyrotechnics began.

Some regard Tinubu’s ‘’ambush’’, considering how, where and why he declared his presidential bid, as a desperate move. It is common knowledge that Tinubu & the president, including members of the recondite cabal, have not had a sunny relationship. It is alleged that Tinubu who contributed principally to the success of the APC in 2015 was given the heave-ho soon after the president and ‘’his men’’ came to power.

Remi Tinubu, the former Lagos governor’s wife, is one of those who have taken this allegation to town. She said Tinubu was ‘’trashed’’ after helping the APC win the presidential election in 2015. Her words: “I was hurt [by] what they did to my husband after the campaign. He didn’t say a thing. We were running three campaigns in my house, and for him to be trashed like that…”

Those privy to palace gossip say Buhari is not ‘’comfortable’’ with Tinubu based on principles. Buhari is of the conservative stock, but Tinubu is the wheeler-dealer politician who understands the art of the deal. If Tinubu was good enough to help bring the current administration to power, why is he not fit to be supported by the same hand he held up?

The declaration of Tinubu’s presidential bid at the presidential villa was not necessarily to seek the permission of Buhari, but to call his bluff and soldier on with ambition. It was a case of ‘’I know you do not want me to succeed you, but hey, I am getting on with my ambition anyway’’.

Is Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo Buhari’s presidential favourite? It will be too hasty to say, but the chronicle of relationship between the two puts a doubt to the question.

In September 2019, Buhari took drastic steps to whittle down the power and influence of Osinbajo. The vice-president had reportedly offended ‘’members of the conclave’’ when he sacked Lawal Daura as the director-general of the Department of State Services (DSS) following the siege on the national assembly by the DSS in 2018. The vice-president was also alleged to have taken some unsanctioned decisions and actions.

In a presidential memo, as reported by TheCable, the president asked Osinbajo to, henceforth, seek his presidential approvals for agencies under his supervision. This was not the case during Buhari’s first term in office.

Osinbajo is the chairman of the governing boards of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), the National Boundary Commission (NBC) and the Border Communities Development Agency (BCDA). He is also the chairman of the board of directors of the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC), a limited liability company owned by the three tiers of government.

The directive was for the vice-president to follow due process in seeking approvals for contract awards, annual reports, annual accounts, power to borrow, and power to make regulations, among other key functions. Buhari also appointed the Economic Advisory Council (EAC) and disbanded the Economic Management Team led by Osinbajo.

Not sparing any effort in this blitz, the president removed NEMA and the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) from office of the vice-president and put them under a newly-created ministry of humanitarian affairs, disaster management and social development, headed by Sadiya Umar Farouq.

However, Osinbajo took the president’s decision well – without acting out or gunning for a dogfight. But does Buhari trust him enough to put the laurel wreath on his head?

Is Buhari’s presidential favourite Rotimi Amaechi, minister of transportation; David Umahi, governor of Ebonyi state; Yahaya Bello, governor of Kogi state, or Chris Ngige, minister of labour? Only the retired general can tell – a clairvoyant will find it hard to decipher this mystery even from the president’s famous ‘’body language’’.

The fact is whoever Buhari ‘’sanctifies’’ will get the support of the north – which holds the ace in elections in Nigeria.Who is Buhari’s 2023 presidential candidate?

By Fredrick Nwabufo; Nwabufo aka Mr OneNigeria is a writer and journalist.

“Buhari may well get a second term with the help of votes from the Southwest. But one thing is as certain as tomorrow’s date: he will spectacularly fall out with the Yoruba elite whose support he’s bending over backwards to court now. He’d no longer have a need for them after 2019 and might even remember that they betrayed him in 2011.

In a January 26, 2019 column titled “Bola Tinubu’s Costly 2023 Political Gamble,” I wrote the following, among other things that have come to pass: “Tinubu is going into another alliance with Buhari in hopes that Buhari and his supporters will reward him with a presidential ticket in 2023. That’s a costly miscalculation for a whole host of reasons.

“I am familiar enough with members of Buhari’s inner circle to know that they deeply despise Tinubu. They snigger at his presidential ambition and are amused by his expectation that they would support him. Tinubu himself knows this. That’s why I am shocked that he appears irresistibly and dangerously drawn to people who will throw him like he is hot after the February election. Maybe he is gripped by the sort of deathly attraction that causes a moth to embrace a flame.

“During a TV appearance on Television Continental on February 20, 2018, Tinubu’s wife, Remi, said Tinubu was “trashed” by Buhari’s northern political machine after the 2015 election.

People who “trashed” you after an electoral triumph to which you’re central will certainly go the whole hog and incinerate or bury you in the aftermath of another victory that will ensure that they will no longer need you.

“Apart from the certain betrayal that will surely come from the Buhari camp in the event that Tinubu helps them to win or rig the 2019 election, a Tinubu presidential candidacy will be beset by a lot of problems.

In a December 22, 2019 social media status update titled “Tinubu’s Dangerous Dance with the Cabal,” I wrote: “The cabal is toying with Bola Tinubu like a yo-yo and he is naively, if gingerly, playing along in readiness for his eventual political incineration by or before 2023. And the cabal is being ruthlessly Machiavellian about it.

“Tinubu has been given a fake promissory note that he’ll be APC’s presidential torchbearer in 2023. On the strength of this worthless promissory note, they’ve sought his permission to destroy some of his most trusted foot soldiers.

“With his consent, they’ve consigned Yemi Osinbajo to symbolic Aso Rock prison. Tinubu endorsed Tunde Fowler’s replacement at the FIRS and is in on his impending trial for corruption. He also stamped his imprimatur to Muiz Banire’s unceremonious ouster from AMCON. He’s giddily approving everything the cabal tells him it wants to do to his “constituents” and foot soldiers.

“He has now fallen out of favor with almost all Southwest governors except his dutiful stooge in Lagos and his nephew in Osun. Of course, he is a bête noire to Afenifere. At this rate, Tinubu would divorce his wife and disown his children if the cabal tells him to do so—just because he’s told that he’d be president.

“This is a strategic, Machiavellian demobilization of his base, but one in which he is a willing participant, using the illusory promise of APC presidential nomination. When he is eventually denied the APC presidential slot, he would have no one of political consequence in his natal region to fall back to for counterattack other than his battering rams in the Lagos media.

“I have no nor do I believe anyone has oracular powers, but I think 2020 would witness the incipience of the alignment of political forces preparatory to the 2023 election. The Buhari/Tinubu alliance would crack more noticeably. The people who prop Buhari in power don’t want Tinubu or anyone outside their primordial constituency to succeed them. That’s my prediction.”

What hasn’t started to happen yet is the fight I predicted between paid Buhari & Tinubu loyalists on social media. In an October 5, 2018 social media post titled “Contest of Idiocy Between Buharists and Tinubuists,” I said, among other things:

“Buharists and Tinubuists certainly share the same slavish, uncritical, freakish mentality, but wait to see what will happen in 2023 (if Buhari wins a second term) when Buhari disappoints Tinubu by not "handing over" power to him--as he expects Buhari would. You'd be entertained by the fight that would break out between the two idiotic camps that are friends today. Save this somewhere.”

So Tinubu had lots of warning that the fate that has befallen him now was a foregone conclusion. He ignored it and chose instead to legitimize the worst civilian regime in Nigeria’s history. He deserves his fate.

Well, the next predictable phase in the unfolding drama is for Tinubu to turn the Lagos news media against the Buhari regime & for his mindless loyalists to clash with Buharists in a contest of idiocy. That would be an entertaining spectacle to watch.

Aufbauh:
The only person Buhari trust is Buhari.

Shetemi12:
Buhari support?

We don't need that... All we need is people's support!

If anything goes wrong and APC loses the 2023 presidential election, they will carry the consequences of that failure on their heads

post=110787099:
Win-Win Situation for sane, honest and hardworking Nigerians.

Children of hate, frustrations and perdition, where is your Atiku?!
Keep supporting him, no one is stopping you.
It's your democratic choice.
So leave other Nigerians to support their choice(s).
Bunch of fraudsters and criminals.
Awon werey 100%

IboHausaYoruba:
Hmmn! Definitely it's Jagaban. The deal has been done and sealed even before now. May God deliver us masses from the shackles of leadership disasters in Nigeria. Japa is the surest thing.

Racoon:
https://www.thecable.ng/who-is-buharis-2023-candidate/amp