A few years to the next round of fresh national elections, Nigeria is in the midst of a protracted, bitter, often violent, and sometimes deadly struggle to determine what kind of society and government structure it will have and what kind of future Nigerians can hope for.
Two years from the 2023 general elections, it is too early to know how this struggle will turn out, or what the process will be like until some more or less settled pattern emerges. But it is not too early to know what the current tenants at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa and the several blocs in the ruling All Progressives Congress want, to identify the tools with which they work, and to be clear about what they hope for and what they fear.
This cabal that holds the throttle in the Muhammadu Buhari presidency wants, above all, to stay in power. Its principal leaders such as Justice Minister Abubakar Malami and enablers fear a loss of power which would limit their access to goods and funds, and make them vulnerable to legal and political processes, for example for violations of human rights, or corruption.
As to tools, this has been an evolving process. The cabal has, and is clearly exercising control of the executive branch of government, including institutions that monitor and control elections, and is relying on a compliant judiciary, and counting on a range of security forces that have played an active role in harassment and repression of the opposition. What the regime no longer enjoys is the popular support that carried President Buhari to a sweeping electoral victory in 2015 after three previous failed attempts.
Two years to the completion of the eight years tenure of Buhari, with the current economic situation is so bad, and the government’s popularity so low, his designated successor is being schemed by a tiny but powerful force within the ruling APC and entrenched deeply in the villa. The first step the further discredit the aspirations of the already dormant opposing Peoples Democratic Party candidates on charges of corruption, or “inciting violence.” If demoralization this fails anyway, a second step is to cripple the PDP’s capacity to gather the required force to pose a meaningful challenge at the election.
Numerous strategies are therefore being adopted to achieve the final destabilization of the PDP which involve engaging in a series of delays for the APC congresses and sequential changes of rules while strengthening the regime’s position with decampments of opposition state governors and Party bigwigs.
The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) may zone its presidential ticket to the south ahead of the 2023 general elections.
Already the main opposition is facing a hard time as a result of this scheme with the loss some of its governors to the APC and many other big boys to go soon.
According to reliable sources, in the pursuit of the latest game-plan against the PDP, arrangements have already reached the ‘advanced stage’ for Jonathan’s formal defection to the APC in August 2021.
President Buhari is thus expected back in Abuja early enough to celebrate the “grabbing of another big fish” out of the opposition camp, to give the 2023 agenda a more befitting strategic foundation.
These revelations of the express resolve of the close-knit circle of presidency cabal and kingmakers in APC have to offer the party’s 2023 presidential ticket to former President Goodluck Jonathan have also potential placed the ambitions of the Party’s long time loyalists and critical stakeholders in the Niger Delta in imminent jeopardy as well as completely and permanently sealed the fate of the entire South East and South West.
While the national caretaker chairman of the APC, Mai Mala Buni is said to be eyeing the vice presidential ticket of the party in 2023, the unfolding plot does not appear to favour him as it is more in favour of a Jonathan/Malami ticket.
The plot has therefore already pitched the Governor of Yobe state, Mai Mala Buni, the minister of justice, Abubakar Malami, Borno State Governor, Umara Zulum and Jigawa state Governor, Badaru Abubakar in a fierce fight for the vice presidency while scheming Elrufai, Ganduje and Shettima out the match and out of the cup invariably.
In frantic moves that also nailed the ambitions of Tinubu, Osinbajo, Fasola and Fayemi from the West, Amaechi and Co from the Niger Delta and almost the entire South East, Buni, Malami and Badaru are already deep into discreet consultations, expanding their reach among stakeholders including the clergy and monarchs across the northern and southern parts of the country.
Buni has expectedly used the goodwill he has built as the acting national chairman of the ruling party, to start building a formidable campaign structure ahead of the declaration of Jonathan as the party’s joker for 2023.
It is still unclear how Amaechi, Tinubu, and the South East plan to respond to this impending political emasculation and whether Jonathan would submit to what his fellow kinsmen see as a bait to diminish his acquired national and international reputation by rubbing him into the failures of the current administration.
What is clear however, is the unwillingness of the new thinking in the North which does not favour a non-competitive regional ceding of power in the first place. The North may also not be in hurry in particular, to forget the shared legacy of bombs and bullets that was the Jonathan administration.
VANGUARD
