Search for party platform

Atiku, a serial presidential contestant on his part was still ruminating on which of the political party to join considering the legal quandary faced by ADC, which his associates had hijacked as the platform for his 2027 presidential ambition. Expectedly, the judgment of the Supreme Court, in the case filed by a faction of the ADC, led by Nafiu Bala Gombe, against that led by David Mark, as party chairman, did not give the certainty that Atiku and his group expected. So, there is a possibility that Atiku may move to another party, in his quest to context the next presidential election.

As I have said before on this platform, the leading opposition figures who migrated to ADC from their different political parties, failed to do due diligence before joining. They went there, sheepishly, without first doing something as basic as reading through the party’s constitution, which provides the qualification for election into the party’s executive committee. If they were unwilling to engage in the task of building a new party from the scratch, they should at least have commissioned a team of experts, to conduct due diligence on ADC, before joining the party.

Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, one of the famous five governors of PDP that made sure that Atiku Abubakar lost the 2023 presidential election has joined the circle of peripatetic politicians, strangely, as an acolyte of the same Atiku, he “betrayed”. Few days ago, he invited Atiku and other leading opposition politicians to Ibadan, where he sought to galvanize them to join forces to present a single opposition presidential candidate. Lacking in ideas on how to achieve their common purpose, Makinde resorted to fear mongering, against his kith and kin.

When he threatened his political opponents that Ibadan was the epicentre of the infamous operation wetie, he failed to realize that such rabblerousing and sabre rattling means nothing to the majority of Nigerians. Even for majority of the Yoruba voters, who are as young as himself, or much younger, the threat of operation wetie, sounds like a folk story, which they cannot connect to, as a solution to the socio-economic challenges, they face as Nigerians. How does purchasing very expensive fuel, and using it to wet political opponents, and lighting them up, solve their problems?

Poor fellow; Makinde, an engineer, does not realize that resort to such violence in this era could be very devastating. In an era of petro-bombs and drones, Makinde is threatening opponents with the crude machination of dare-devilry of party extremists, carrying fuels in jerry cans, and moving around neighbourhoods with lighters, seeking out their political opponents for immolation. May God not allow outmanoeuvred politicians like Makinde sell the idea of extermination of opponents, as solution to political disagreements, to our educated but disenchanted youths, because an educated idle mind can become the devil’s laboratory.

Another rootless presidential aspirant, the former governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, has resorted to an uncanny comparison of which of the supporters’ club insults more – between supporters of Atiku and Obi. According to Amaechi, his supporters are decent and don’t engage in the social media abuses, associated with the Obidients and the Atikulates. But apart from his former commissioners, special advisers, and aides, who benefited from his about 24 years in power, this writer, like many Nigerians, will want to see his supporters engage Nigerians, in one way or another.  

Even in Rivers State, which he governed for eight years, Amaechi appears to have very few followership. Of course, I am not talking about the ‘hungry men’ he invited to his last birthday party, but those who would root for him as a presidential candidate, because they believe he has something different to offer. Perhaps, those who can support his presidential ambition are the kinsmen of former President Muhammadu Buhari, so that he can complete and connect to Abuja, the rail line that passed through Katsina to Maradi in neighbouring Niger.

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The enfant terrible of the Buhari era, Nasir El-Rufai, can be likened to someone in protective police custody. After he failed to make Tinubu’s ministerial list, he became a person destined to ‘one week, one trouble’. A man of voluble garrulity, if the trouble does not come to him by itself, he talks himself into one. He was the first to bandy about the determination of the leading opposition figures to form a coalition to run President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressive Congress (APC), out of power in 2027.

Of course, it was pure gas as he had no plans to achieve that. He first jumped into the Social Democratic Party (SDP), believing that other opposition figures would follow suit. He wanted to be the one welcoming them to their new platform. Atiku, who he had betrayed severally, and the leading figure he was hoping would join him, choose the ADC platform instead. Before he became a regular customer of the security and anti-corruption agencies, El-Rufai was planning to join the ADC platform. With his hands behind his back, answering the many charges against him, doing the necessary biometrics for a new party is now a tall order.

This writer thought that the new Electoral Act 2026 would bring discipline to party membership and participation in electoral contests instead of our politicians derisively treating political parties as mere special purpose vehicle. Until our leading opposition politicians, learn to fight for long term interests, and not just for the next election, this writer refuses to take them serious.