Defections help boost Jonathan’s chances in presidential election
Former anticorruption chief Nuhu Ribadu is latest to join Nigeria’s People’s Democratic Party, write Elisha Bala-Gbogbo and Yinka Ibukun
ASTRING of defections to Nigeria’s ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) from the opposition may have strengthened President Goodluck Jonathan’s chances of winning next year’s elections.
Nigeria’s former anticorruption chief, Nuhu Ribadu, who ran against Mr Jonathan in the 2011 vote, is the latest significant switch from the All Progressives Congress (APC), the strongest opposition coalition mounted against the PDP since military rule ended in Africa’s biggest economy in 1999.
Others include Buba Mohammed Marwa, a former military governor of Lagos, and Ibrahim Shekarau, an opposition governor of Kano state and founding member of APC.
Mr Ribadu “helps boost con- fidence in the PDP because it’s a demonstration of their current political strength,” Thomas Horn Hansen, senior Africa analyst at London-based Control Risks, says. “It’s a political coup for the PDP over the APC.”
Africa’s biggest oil producer and most populous country of about 170-million will vote to elect a president on February 14. Mr Jonathan has faced criticism from the opposition and citizens for failing to check corruption, contain an Islamist insurgency in the north and deliver on promises of economic reform.
While that had given the opposition coalition its best prospect of toppling the ruling party through the ballot, the recent defections point to the PDP gaining against its rivals.
“Mr Ribadu’s defection to the PDP is a blow to the opposition on multiple fronts,” Philippe de Pontet, Africa director at New York-based Eurasia Group says. “It’s a setback for the APC’s selfpromoted brand as a true alternative to the ruling party.”
Mr Ribadu plans to contest the governorship election in Adamawa state in October, Ibrahim Toungo, co-ordinator of Ribadu Support Group in the state capital Yola, says.
Three calls to Mr Ribadu’s mobile phone for comment did not connect.
“Clearly, no party wants to lose anybody,” Lai Mohammed, an APC spokesman, said from Lagos, the commercial capital. “But I can assure you the party is stronger than individuals.”
Mr Jonathan, a southern Christian from the oil-rich Niger River delta in the south east, succeeded Umaru Yar’Adua, a northern Muslim, after his death from an undisclosed illness in 2010. Mr Jonathan went on to win a fresh mandate a year later despite opposition from party members aggrieved that he did not honour an unwritten rule to rotate the office between the mainly Muslim north and predominantly Christian south.
While he has not said if he will seek re-election, speculation that he will contest the vote prompted key party members, including former vice-president Atiku Abubakar and four governors, to leave the PDP a year ago. They teamed up with other opposition parties to form the APC to end what would be the ruling party’s attempt to extend its 16 years in power next year.
Since then, the ruling party has clawed back ground. Murtala Nyako of Adamawa state, a governor who defected from the PDP to the APC, was impeached and removed by the PDPdominated state legislature last month on charges of misconduct and violation of the constitution. Mr Jonathan’s party also won back Ekiti state in the south west from the APC, gaining a significant foothold in a region it had lost in the previous election.
As head of Nigeria’s anticorruption agency from 2003-07, Mr Ribadu established a reputation for taking the fight against graft even to those with political influence, including more than a dozen former state governors and former ministers. He fled into exile in 2008 after being fired by Mr Yar’Adua, who did not give a reason at the time.
Mr Ribadu alleged that a number of attempts were made to assassinate him, including an instance in which he was saved by his bullet-proof car. He returned to the country after Mr Jonathan took office two years later.
Mr Ribadu joined the Action Congress of Nigeria as the 2011 elections approached, coming in third behind Mr Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari of the Congress for Progressive Change in the presidential election. The two leading opposition parties joined last year with other smaller parties to form the APC.
Mr Ribadu presence in the ruling party may undermine his own antigraft stance “given the corruption scandals and patronage politics that will continue to swirl around the PDP in coming months,” Mr De Pontet says.
While Mr Ribadu has a profile in Nigeria and abroad, he does not hold popular support, University of Ibadan senior lecturer of political science Emmanuel Remi Aiyede says.