In less than six weeks from now, precisely at the end of May, the various political parties jostling to unseat the governing APC-led administration would have produced their presidential candidates. May, going by the timeline provided by INEC, is the cutoff date for the parties to hold their primaries. Then the crowded field of presidential aspirants would have been pruned, shorn of the political lightweights pretending to the four-year tenancy of Aso Villa.
The romantic picture of an opposition united by the firm handshake of the African Democratic Congress is quickly fading. The tall tale of a political contest between Nigerians, read the ADC that has sworn to win the 2027 election, and the governing APC, increasingly stretches credulity. As the self-interest disguised as a principled defence of democracy that had animated recent opposition agitation becomes more apparent, the reality of their political situation has set in.
Ahead of the primaries, each of the leading aspirants of the ADC, all potential presidential candidates of the embattled party, are making their pitch by taking their campaign directly to Nigerians. The stakes are as high as the time is limited. The claim that they are all engaged in the pursuit of a common cause that is greater than their individual interest has been exploded. Each has elected to carry his cross. In a space of one week, the three leading politicians of the ADC have separately made the rounds of media houses. There is obviously a lot going on behind the public scenes of friendship and warm comradeship that has been projected to Nigerians. Peter Obi, the most vulnerable and for that reason most nervous among them, led the way to the media houses.
Obi took his case to Arise News where he sat before Charles Aniagolu to repeat the worn lines of the freewheeling, generalised commentary that has become the hallmark of his public utterances. Aside balking at the idea of stating clearly what he would do differently from what Bola Tinubu is being called out for, Peter Obi's responses lacked specifics. His refusal to speak directly to the question posed was a cop-out to conceal his lack of ideas. The ideas he shared across speaking platforms since 2019 have become jaded, fact-checked and subjected to close scrutiny since Nigerians became aware of his propensity to purvey both false and misleading statistics. He has since reduced his fishing expeditions to China, Bangladesh, Singapore and other countries in the Asian subcontinent.
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About 24 hours after Obi's interview, Aniagolu was back with Atiku Abubakar. Like Obi, Atiku too also chose to keep his ideas about governance or how to oust Tinubu closely to his chest. But he was quick to express his disappointment with the state of the nation, heaping the entire blame for food and economic insecurity, and their claim of Nigeria drifting towards a one-party state, on the president. He took a swipe at his co-travellers, highlighting how inadequate each stood when compared to him. It was either that they lacked experience or the ability to garner votes. Kwankwanso, he said, is a one-state champion whose political influence has been considerably diluted by the presence of the incumbent governor of Kano. For his ADC rivals, perhaps the worst news he had was for Peter Obi and his followers. Without equivocation, he restated his plan to stand for the presidential election. While he preferred a consensus approach to the primaries, he is fully ready for an election, he said.
As if anxious not to be left behind, Rotimi Amaechi was on Channels less than 24 hours after Atiku's Arise News interview. As far as the ADC presidential ticket is concerned, he is the only pan-Nigeria candidate. Atiku and Obi, he said, respectively represent religious and regional interests. He was confident he is the best man for the job. Which was a fact he repeated when Obi went with an entourage comprising Senator Victor Umeh and former Governor Achike Udenwa, to seek his support for Obi's ambition. Never mind Umeh's spin that the visit was for consultation, his rambling explanation about the visit confirmed what he would not admit: they went to beg Ameachi to step down for Obi. But Amaechi rebuffed their plea. Each of these men couldn't have been mistaken about their assessment of each other. The nature of their rivalry reveals deep distrust among them and cements the foundation of their defeat which they would as certainly as morning follows night reject as they did in 2023. Theirs is a marriage of convenience contracted solely to oust an incumbent far superior to them by many metrics and is executing the neo liberal policies they all committed to before the 2023 election.
After Tinubu, Atiku comes next in terms of readiness to manage the complexity of Nigeria's economic, political and religious challenges. Not Amaechi, much less Obi who is the sentimental candidate of the Igbo. The strange convergence of events that gave him six million votes no longer exist. His six million votes is the only reason he is at all under consideration. Otherwise, he is a very weak candidate who is ill-prepared for the office he seeks. It is not surprising that he has been going backdoors trying to get others to step down for him where his unruly online mob he calls supporters are not trying to bully others into handing him a ticket above his pay grade.
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That he expects any of his ADC rivals to stand down for him amounts to an overreach. Amaechi has better political profile than Obi as a two-time governor and two-time minister who came second after Tinubu in the APC presidential primaries. All of this count in addition to his earlier life as a Speaker in the Rivers State House of Assembly. He is generally more grounded as a politician than Obi. The only reason Obi will be placed ahead of him is because he comes from a minority group. Yet, both Amaechi and Obi are in the category of Tinubu's proteges, some of who like Raji Fashola and Kayode Fayemi are better gifted leaders than Obi.
What all of them, including Atiku, should be doing is to be better and more effective opposition politicians who could help set right what Tinubu is getting wrong in the management of the economy and security. He is not doing as much as he should or could do but he is doing better than any of them could have done, which makes the idea of any of them replacing him a non-starter. The security situation that is being weaponised by his critics is not of his making and he can only do so much where the Northern Nigerian political and religious elite are yet to accept responsibility for what they've made of their region.
