ceaser:
Okay. Here is the plot, or so it seems.
Flashback to 2015. There has been serious uproar about how GEJ was handling his presidency vis-a-vis insecurity and the corruption amongst his ministers especially that of the oil minister and Stella oduah. The problem that seemed to stand out from others was the supposed overbearing attitude of his wife (Patience Jonathan) that made many to make her the butt of jokes and even GEJ was blamed for handing over governance to her.
She was truly overbearing because this was reflected at a PDP stakeholders meeting when Amaechi Chibuike (the present minister for works) was talking at the podium. Patience Jonathan went straight to the podium and snatched the microphone from Amaechi and began to berate him. Amaechi, pain and embarrassed, could not do much because she is the president's wife so he went to sit down but later moved out of the meeting. This was all televised on national TV. Although other untoward attitudes of Patience had unsettled some PDP stalwarts before this incidence, but that one with Amaechi marked the start of disintegration of the PDP under GEJ. The PDP governors of the North had been considering backing out of the party. Now a willing tool in the person of Amaechi had been discovered.
Tinubu (of ACN as at then) was watching all these as it transpired. Then he noted the friction between Amaechi and patience and also the already weakening alliance of PDP governors of the North. He decided that was a moment to strike!
That week that Patience Jonathan shamed Amaechi at the podium, the latter was invited by Tinubu and then the various defections and counter PDP moves began. Then what followed was the alliance talks to form the APC from ACN of the North (which received majority of the disgruntled PDP northern governors) and ACN of the south which already had strong presence within the atates of the South west. Amaechi who was hitherto a strong PDP link and PDP stalwart in the south south and south east regions had been shamed by Patience and was now a potential weak link to the party in that region. Tinubu approached him and formed an alliance with him, so began the war to bring down the ruling party.
Fast forward to 2022 and a similar trend is playing out. Wike incontrovertibly is a strong man to be reckoned with in PDP, for it was him who provided the emotional and financial war chest all those times that PDP flimsily hung on to relevance. He kept the spirit of the party alive all through these past years when even GEJ who is an ex-president on the party could not muster his own strenght and relevance to pull the party together and hold the people united. Wike braved it all and held the party to be relevant in tbe South South and South East. He had alliances with Makinde of Oyo and kept in touch with the vocal Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti in the south west, who also vowed to be a die hard PDP man.
All these while Atiku, who is notorious for whimsically adulterating political parties like a petulant child changes toys, was lounging in Dubai. And when the time came for Wike (who now believes that he had the right to the presidency on the platform of the party he has held together), and truly who wouldn't aspire for such too, Atiku jetted back into Nigeria to snatch that moment from Wike, enabled by his northern brother who Wike had also trusted until the last minute when he stepped down for Atiku, paving the way for him (Atiku) to have a majority vote against Wike.
Wike has the arsenal to decimate the PDP as far as the south south and partially the south east is concerned and this is a fact the Northern PDP should realize. Wike is pained and rightfully so on three fronts:
First, he felt cheated that someone who was not with him all the years he invested into the party came overnight and clinched the slot from him accompanied by the betrayal of Tambuwal which allowed Atiku to win the primaries. And before you justify Tambuwal's betrayal as "his choice to support whoever he wants", know that he and Wike reached an understanding of alliance up till the last minute of his defection to Atiku's side. I can't think of any way Wike annoyed him right there at the venue of the primaries to do such at the last minute. It will have been more humane (this is not to say that politicians have humane attributes though, but there is even a code of honour amongst thieves) of Tambueal to have made his mind know from day one so that Wike could have been given a chance to reconsider his options before the primaries.
Second, the unwritten zoning agreement within the party which if strictly adhered to, should favour the unanimous emergence of Wike as a Southern aspirant on the party platform has just been broken with the insistence of Atiku to contest the primaries.
Third, an undeserving Atiku after winning the primaries amidst backstabbing should as a matter of sportsmanship, akin to what Tinubu did, approached the other contestants especially Wike and forged a proper alliance with him. This alliance should possibly include the promise of the vice presidency slot to him, irrespective of the fact that Wkie publicly declared that he will never be a second hand man (vice president) in Nigeria. But Atiku made no such attempt. Even after a party committee was set up to chose between Wike and Ifeanyi Okowa, at which point Atiku had the free pass to appease Wike, he still decided to chose Okowa. This is of course apparent in Atiku's fear that Wike is a man like him - difficult, egoistic, rebellious, corrupt, sometimes recalcitrant and a potential troublemaker; all problems that Obasanjo had from Atiku as his vice president. So Atiku will not love to have the same sword he used passed over his own head, thus his choice of Ifeanyi Okowa, a more malleable person, as his running mate.
Now Tinubu has seen this crack and like a reharsh of 2015 strategy, has gone for the southern strongman of the party, with the hopes of forging an alliance and decimating the chances of the party in the south south, and maybe in the south east, come 2023 general elections.
I sincerely feel that if BAT could claim "investment in the APC" as a reason for a right of passage for him to emerge a candidate in his party, why can't Wike also claim same in PDP? This is irrespective of the fact that this strategy may be counterproductive as it did with the APC who lost the chance to field an egghead like Osinbajo as her candidate, a choice which would have prevented the problems associated with a Muslim-Muslim ticket and a move which would as well placed the APC a formidable opponent towards the rising popularity of Peter Obi who many is seeing as a viable alternative to the vibrancy, great health, oratory prowess and youthful strenght that they were denied in Osinbajo the moment he was stopped from emerging a candidate of the APC.
But at this point, an egoistic Wike will not mind sinking the PDP just so to prove his point. And an equally egoistic Atiku will not mind pushing his luck to the last just so to prove that Wike is irrelevant. Two points of return has been passed. The first point of repair was immediate post primaries when Atiku could have appeased Wike with something as ordinary as an official visit to him in Rivers state, the second point of repair being his chance to choose Wike as running mate. Sadly a point of no return has been reached and for the two giants, is a fight to the finish.
While your claim of placeholder deserves consideration, you are indeed wrong in the bolded. Yar'Adua had what is called Mennier's disease which had many complications associated with it, renal problems included. It was just a matter of time before the inevitable happened.
Tinubu on the other hand appears to be suffering from an early onset of the problems of advancing age. Some people like OBJ, are blessed with delayed onset of these inevitables. What this means is that there is no chance for rapid deterioration in health like it happened in Yar'Adua's case. So BAT may go an uneventful 8 years.
But truly, I still have my concerns, for an ailing BAT is incomparable to an energetic Òsínbàjó and Peter Òbí. However, time is the only referee in this instance.
Having said that, I hope that whoever clinches this position between the duo of Tinubu or Peter Obi should as a matter of urgency start moves, subtle, covert or otherwise to commence true federalism if he really wants to show Nigerians that he has their best interests at heart.
The productive people are bleeding and the goose that lays the golden egg is being starved. And this is serious injustice that must be addressed first to ensure that every other thing falls in line. Obasanjo brought some semblance of balance into the polity when he became the president and the peace was apparent in his reign.
True federalism will significantly reduce the power in the centre, thereby reducing the perennial struggle for the seat in Abuja between the various ethnicities and nationalities in this country. A sanwó-olú in Lagos will not be desperate to clinch the seat in Aṣọ Rock because the monies there will not even be worth the trouble. He will prefer to see the presidency more as prestige than as enrichment. He will rather stay in Lagos where the money is and the citizens will also be a winner because they can hold their governor who is closer to them in a small Lagos to account better than they can do to a Sanwó Olú in a larger, more difficult to administer Nigeria.
Also true federalism could be a first baby steps to regional system of governance that brought the much needed developments to all the regions at their own pace in those previous golden years of Nigeria. No thanks to Aguiyi-Ironsi who destroyed such lofty and great arrangement that plunged us back into the abbyss.
True federalism will ensure the North adopt the trajectory for development, away from this current mode of paratism which their leaders have kept the citizens in falsely believing is the way to live their lives. With federalism, the North will see a thriving, non-religious extremist states thriving and to avoid going hungry because the handouts from the federation account is no longer forthcoming, the citizens will be irked to push their leaders and reconsider a way to fully maximizer their own potentials of religious Ness,
agriculture, culture, solid minerals and tourism to also generate wealth for their region. There is a country in Eastern Africa whose Muslim population does not go to mecca for their hajj. They created their own hajj in their country and they're fairing well. A religiously tolerant, beautiful, digital, literal and modern Northern Nigeria could work to create a hajj for Nigerian moslems in the North and before you know it, the entire subsaharan Africa and Africa at large could soon start seeing Northern Nigeria as a viable, religiously acceptable hajj destination for those not able to afford the financial demands and stress associated to pilgrimage to Mecca.
If we experiment with true federalism for some years, we can decide if it is best we retain it or move again to trying out regional system. Deep insights. I read the whole post. |
