Election scarecrow and bogey

Perhaps, after that, the party will face the odious task of choosing its presidential candidate between Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, a task that many foresee will tear the party into two. Atiku who probably has the last chance to contest the office of president and who cannot be a vice presidential candidate hopes to win the ticket at all cost. On his part, Peter Obi, has a horde of followers who would either have him as the party’s presidential candidate, or give up on the election.         

With such highly divisive posturing, one wonders how the ADC would make any meaningful impact at the polls. Of course, there are lesser mortals who are also eyeing the presidency like Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, former governor of Rivers State, and Nasir El-Rufai, the former governor of Kaduna State. Amaechi, who many believed is positioning himself as a potential vice presidential candidate for Atiku, will now have to contend with Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, who has reportedly offered a war chest of N10 billion to become the vice presidential candidate to Atiku.

Read Also: Senate okays N140bn NCDC budget, seeks priority for agriculture, security

As a political bogeyman of this era, Makinde is hoping to sell the dummy to the Southwest that they should vote for ADC so that their son can be a vice president instead of returning their son, Tinubu, as president. How he intends to market that bogey remains to be seen. Again, with Atiku pledging to do one term of presidency, Makinde hopes to convince other parts of Nigeria that it is fair for the presidency to return to southwest after four years, of Atiku’s presidency.

Of course, the chances are that Atiku is selling the bogey of one term to draw sympathy from other parts of Nigeria, and when the time comes he will renege. The trap many believe was originally conceived to entrap Peter Obi into agreeing to run for the presidency with him. The political mathematicians believe that adding the votes Atiku won in the 2023 election with that of Obi, will gift the ADC a win in the 2027 presidential election.

The spin-doctors for Obi knows that there is no way they can force Atiku to keep the promise in 2031 should Obi, agree to join forces with Atiku to oust Tinubu in 2027. For the Obi-dients, they are afraid that should the two succeed; Obi may become a persona non grata around Atiku, early enough to destabilize him for 2031. On his part, Obi had earlier sold the bogey that he would also do one tenure should he be elected president in 2027.

The reason for the strange offer is to foreclose any complaint from the north that should Obi win and do eight years as president in addition to the four years that Tinubu would do by 2027, the northern region would be out of power for 12 straight years. Again, many political actors have argued that there is no way to force a sitting president to obey an unconstitutional pre-election agreement. Of note, Obi would have the challenge of selecting a fitting vice presidential candidate should he have the outsider’s chance to clinch the presidential ticket of ADC.

The enfant terrible, El-Rufai, whom I had argued at the beginning of the ADC experiment was just positioning himself as the candidate of the party in 2031, would be an electoral burden to Obi in 2027. Apart from his discriminatory policies as governor of Kaduna State, he is perceived as a religious bigot and irredentist within the south. Even within Kaduna State and in the north generally, he is seen as a divisive figure who can go to any length to achieve his insular interest.

As Kaduna State governor, he spoke ill of the people of southern Kaduna who are mainly Christians, despite constituting about one-half of the population of the state, and he went to ahead to bring on as deputy governor, a fellow Muslim, during his second term and the subsequent gubernatorial election. Unlike him, his successor, who has since fallen out with him, is managing the plurality of the state very well. So, such a vice presidential candidate would be a scarecrow to Christians and voters in the southern part of the country.

To affirm how controversial, he is, El Rufai has within few days of returning to the country from Egypt stirred up two serious controversies. The first was his claim that he has criminal collaborators who wiretap and listen to the telephone conversation of Nuhu Ribadu, the National Security Adviser (NSA). While trying to justify his claim that the NSA ordered his arrest, he said on a national television that: “He (Ribadu) made the call because we listened to their call.” He went on: “Someone tapped his phone. The government listens to our calls all the time without a court order. Someone tapped his phone and told us he gave the order.”

Even before that controversy is investigated, he wrote a letter to the NSA alleging that the office of the NSA was involved in the importation of Thalium Sulphate, which is considered a very dangerous chemical, into the country. Employing the bogey of a watchdog citizen and a whistle-blower, on a government official, he made that serious claim, but is yet to supply any shred of evidence.  As is usual, during every election circle, politicians push the country to breaking point, with all manner of scarecrow and bogey.