A race horse’s staying power

AtikuAbubakar’sconvincingvictory in PDP’s presidential primaries at the weekend has sharply defined the choice before Nigerians in next year’s elections. The two major parties both held their conventions on Saturday but the opposition PDP’s convention overshadowed the ruling APC’s Abuja convention because there was no contest at the latter. President Muhammadu Buhari was the only aspirant in the party’s direct primaries of two weeks ago. It was announced at the convention that he got 14.7million votes, nearly what he got in the 2015 general elections. The import of this figure was to intimidate PDP, though the results’ potency is somewhat diminished by the fact that it was a nocontest and the credibility of the figures is not certain.

PDP bosses and delegates had 12 aspirants to choose from at Port Harcourt and they were spoilt for choice. Despite many hours of haggling, no aspirant agreed to step down. The desperation among the all-Northern field of aspirants was understandable because PDP is expected to re-zone its ticket to the South in 2023. For many of them this was like the last throw. The way politicians’ minds work, some Southern PDP leaders may not be keen for a Northern candidate to beat Buhari next year because he might then serve two terms until 2028. Many of them are already looking forward to 2023, when both PDP and APC could zone their tickets to the South.

That all 12 aspirants competed for votes made for a very keen contest with the winner getting just under half of the total votes cast. Sokoto State Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, on whom many pundits placed their bets, fell far short of Atiku’s total with 693 votes. The front of PDP governors that was expected to back him split sharply. According to reporters, this was due to Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike’s crude posturing, which alienated his colleagues. Senate President Bukola Saraki, the heaviest hitter among the aspirants by virtue of his current office, finished a poor third with 317 votes. Maybe the delegates feared that Saraki’s Kwara origins may not satisfy either the North or the South, given Nigerians’ weird way of political thinking.

Senator Rabi’u Kwankwaso, who finished second at APC’s 2014 convention with more than 900 votes and beat Atiku Abubakar to third place, spectacularly underperformed this time around. He finished fourth with 158 votes. Maybe it is because he is no longer a governor, does not control any state government and probably has less resources than in 2014. Besides, party bosses may be dubious about the strongwilled Kwankwaso and may be afraid of his uncompromising politics, as seen in Kano since 2015. Other PDP aspirants that underperformed in Port Harcourt include former Senate President David Mark with 35 votes; former Sokoto State governor Attahiru Bafarawa with 48 votes; former party chairman Ahmed Makarfi with 74 votes; very early entrant into the race Sule Lamido with 98 votes; and Gombe State Governor Ibrahim Dankwambo with 111 votes.

In choosing Atiku Abubakar to fly its flag in 2019, PDP delegates simultaneously followed the path of least resistance and at once followed the path of hard resistance. I say path of least resistance because Atiku is the best known of all the 12 aspirants. As a frontline member of Shehu Yar’Adua’s political machine, a very robust Adamawa State SDP governorship aspirant in 1991 before the IBB regime disqualified him, who finished third in SDP’s Option A4 presidential contest in 1993, who was elected governor of Adamawa State in 1999, who was Obasanjo’s Vice President for eight years [the first four of them very amicably, the last four very acrimoniously], who finished third as ACN’s candidate in the 2007 presidential elections, who gave President Goodluck Jonathan a very tough fight for the PDP ticket in 2011, who finished third in APC’s 2015 presidential primaries and who loomed large on the political stage ever since, they did not calculate wrongly.

Visibility is the first factor in politics but as far as the 2015 race is concerned, there are other very important considerations. What does Atiku bring to the table against the APC candidate, Buhari? At 72, his nomination denies PDP the chance to use the age factor against Buhari. Atiku is starting off from the weaker position due to platform. At present APC is much stronger than PDP, with control of the Federal and 24 state governments. This will increase to 25 when Dr. Kayode Fayemi takes over in Ekiti State soon. However, this factor is no longer as daunting politically as it once was because PDP was roundly defeated in 2015 despite having the same kind of advantage.

Then there is the image. President Buhari has lost some of his shine as a candidate since 2015 because of controversies and problems that dogged his tenure, including insecurity, poor performance of the economy, the administration’s slow approach to problem solving, accusations of imbalance in appointments and reluctance to punish wrong doing by its own members. Yet, Buhari’s personal reputation for incorruptibility is still largely intact and it is his strongest selling point going into the 2019 elections. As for Atiku, public perception of him in this regard is negative, to say the least.

To win the 2019 election, Atiku must flip around the regional calculations that gave APC the edge over PDP in 2015. In 2003, 2007 and 2011 when he tried and failed to win elections, Buhari’s support was mostly restricted to the far North. This widened considerably in 2015 to include North Central and South West. To defeat him in 2019, Atiku must retain South East and South South in PDP’s corner, somehow pluck away the North Central from Buhari, and then add either South West or North East to his corner.

It is a Herculean task. North Central voted for Buhari in 2015 largely due to the failings of PDP governors in the region. This time around, the prospects are brighter for PDP for at least three reasons. Bukola Saraki’s machine could flip Kwara from APC to PDP. The atmosphere in Benue is toxic for APC because of the farmers/herders clashes; Governor Ortom saw the signs and defected to PDP. Kogi too could swing back to PDP because of Governor Yahaya Bello’s controversial tenure. Besides, if the recent upsurge of violence in Plateau does not subside soon, rising inter-ethnic tensions could reverse APC’s gains in the state. So Atiku has a chance in the Middle Belt.

The South West is dicier. Atiku once held the key to entry into South West politics through his alliance with Bola Tinubu in 2006-7 but he destroyed it when he returned to PDP after the 2007 elections, apparently without consulting Tinubu. Except for the poor image with respect to corruption, South Westerners might prefer him to Buhari because of his more liberal outlook, his Yoruba wife, a better record of ethnic balancing and his recent, strident [though ill-defined] campaign for restructuring.

Since 1999 Atiku also championed the politics that within the far North, the North West marginalizes the North East and that it is time for a power shift to the latter. In 2003 when Obasanjo launched his North East regional campaign in Maiduguri, Atiku brought a very eloquent Imam who argued for an hour how the North West marginalised the North East. It is a message that seems to have little resonance in the region. Most Northerners tend to view politics in North versus South terms. Buhari is as popular in the North East as he is in the North West, especially in Borno and Bauchi where he rolled up to 90% of the votes in 2011 and 2015. However, Atiku is deeply rooted in Adamawa and Taraba politics, and even has the suspected sympathy of Adamawa’s APC governor.

The Nigerian public’s feeling about the 2019 presidential race has been less than exciting thus far but weekend’s events could shake things up. As the two major candidates prepare to square up, I am reminded of the local saying that it is a vast open field that tests the true staying power of a race horse.