2019: Our Hobson’s choice
AHobson’s choice refers to a situation in which you are offered a free choice to pick only one specific thing, or none at all. For instance, you get a choice to pick a particular fruit from an assortment of fruits, or none at all. The APC and PDP Conventions that produced President Muhammadu Buhari and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar as candidates brought the potency and relevance of this phrase rather forcefully to the nation. It is almost as if the two largest parties had conspired to make us choose one from the same type of aspirants, or forfeit the chance to affect the choice of the next President altogether. Those who thought either or both parties will provide Nigerians with an opportunity to vote for a future that will address today’s challenges and avoid tomorrow’s nightmares will be sorely disappointed. A third option is not on the cards.
Atiku represents a past that abused the nation and frittered away its opportunities to avoid its current desperate state. He was Obasanjo’s VP for eight years, a period that saw him starting with huge powers and ending as a bitter, discarded spectator. Obasanjo’s PDP started with tremendous goodwill and high expectations that it will launch the nation on the path of sustainable democratic governance, economic growth and an end to violent expressions of political grievances. It bequeathed the nation a legacy of the powerful ruler, impunity and entrenched corruption. Atiku roamed the entire political spectrum, motivated only by the hunger for the chance to be president. Nothing changed in or about him except the party platforms he contested on and fabulous wealth. Three times he tried to be President, and three times he lost. Now in his 70s with a legion of enemies and a bag full of bitterness, he has a fourth chance, on the very platform he started with, the PDP.
President Buhari, of course is the APC’s candidate. Consistent with Nigeria’s hallowed political traditions, no one in his party could or should have challenged him in a contest over whether he represents APC’s best. No one presumably could advice or convince him against running for another term on the grounds of poor health, advanced age and a disappointing performance. Like Atiku, he was also a perennial contestant, winning only on his fourth attempt. His performance and the entire hue of his government suggest that he was thoroughly ill-prepared to govern. His party and government derived their basic character from his limitations and weaknesses, tragically failing to respond to worsening political, economic and security challenges by translating his popularity into a powerful movement for good governance and security. Buhari’s only claim to another shot at the presidency is that he is Buhari, owner of the APC and the politician with the most pronounced capacity to divide the nation neatly between fanatical followers and bitter opponents.
Atiku’s PDP will compound worries that the nation will be stuck with its basic problems for a long while. This is the party that was rejected in 2015 because it had run the country aground with corruption and incompetence. A party that is unable to change its basic character is unlikely to rebuild the weakening foundations of a nation. PDP was gifted undeserved advantages by Buhari’s failures, the fate of many of its chieftains in the hands of state agencies and widespread perceptions that it stood solely for plunder of the commonwealth, but these did not spur it to undertake serious make-overs. Its contest for a candidate fielded only one or two aspirants who represent a future, not a past. The aspirants Atiku beat had systematically destroyed and propped up the party at will at various stages in their political career, and a few may yet do more. He won because he outspent everyone else in an obscene bribing orgy which PDP does best, without shame or regret. If he becomes President, he would owe much of it to surviving the primaries not because he was better but because he had more money to buy his way to the ticket.
President Buhari walked to his party’s Convention knowing that he is the party, and the party is him. His face showed no traces of concern that the APC was falling apart from deeply-divisive squabbles over rules and what exactly what he wants done. APC is bleeding from indecision, flip-flops and cynical opportunism by powerful beneficiaries of his weaknesses. Typically, he may have assured himself that all will be well with him as president, and all negative developments will be the work of corrupt opposition intent on fighting back. It is perfectly conceivable that it has not crossed his mind that the cumulative effects of the rancor in his party could cost him the elections. President Buhari is not the type of politician who believes that the party is important to his political fortunes. Because he needs it as a statutory appendage, he will set up a campaign council and select a few people to raise his election fortunes and design campaign itinerary in a contest against Atiku which he will be certain will be a walk over.
It will be unwise to expect that the campaigns will differentiate between the two candidates both will promise to restructure the country, to find employment for the young, to improve security and build bridges across a deeply divided nation. Buhari will hold up Atiku as the embodiment of corruption, and the PDP as unrepentant looters. Atiku will accuse Buhari of hypocrisy and perversion of the fight against corruption. Their campaigns will be paid for in hundreds of billions by other people, all of whom will rely on the sustenance of systemic corruption to recoup and keep the circle going. Both will lament the divisions in the nation, and then play to ethnoreligious sentiments for blood-smeared votes. Buhari will promise to do better to improve security. Atiku will blast Buhari’s record on security, but will skirt around dealing with complex matters such as herder/farmer clashes and a restive Niger Delta because they are potential vote losers. The nation will hear much about the economy. Buhari will offer excuses, reel out highly suspect statistics and promise to do better. The nation is unlikely to believe him anymore that it will believe that Atiku and PDP will shield the economy enough from the predatory fingers of traditional looters.
A few months ago, the nation celebrated the passing of legislation lowering the ages prescribed for running for elective offices (#NotTooYoungToRun). In next few months, the nation will be made to choose between two geriatrics, one representing a disappointing past, the other representing a worrying and uncertain future. Do the math. None of them is Macron or Trump. If the nation will reinvent itself, it may have to wait for the expiry of Buhari or Atiku’s Presidency.