OPINION: The burden of APC presidential aspirants

There will eventually be a motley crowd of contenders and pretenders to the
presidency of Nigeria in 2023 on the platform of the ruling All Progressives
Congress [APC] political party. It does matter that for now they are all still
lurking in the shadows. That’s understandable because until recently nothing was settled especially in the area of the conventional zoning of party offices which impacts the eligibility for contesting for elective government posts especially the office of the president and that of the vice president.

But there is one contender who has since emerged from the shadows (was he really in the shadows?) and thrown his hat into the ring. He is routinely humoured as the national leader of the party and he has been wearing the title on his sleeves these past seven years or so. He belonged to none of the formal organs of the party- not the national executive committee [NEC], nor the national working committee [NWC] nor the stillborn board of trustees. His embarrassing status would usually be in full display whenever a meeting of any organ of the APC was called. This particular national leader would inevitably be absent.
Fortunately, calling meetings of the organs of the ruling party to discuss
issues and take positions is not in the DNA of APC. On the few occasions
the party felt like meeting, it schedules them inside the Presidential Villa where the real national leader and president would preside. The morality,
decency and propriety of holding political party meetings inside the
Presidential Complex would be a subject for another day. For now we will not allow ourselves to be distracted by this vexatious subject because it is not peculiar to the APC. In fact the Peoples Democratic Party [PDP] which was ousted from the presidency in 2015 after 16 years in office started the immoral, indecent and corrupt practice.
Back to our conversation. Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is the phony national
leader of the APC. But he is the real Jagaban Borgu and the undisputed
frontrunner among aspirants in the ruling party angling to succeed the
President, Maj-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari in 2023.

In January, Alhaji Tinubu met with Alhaji Buhari, the president in the Villa. After the closed-door meeting Tinubu came out and told journalists: ‘I have informed the President of my ambition but I have not informed Nigerians yet, I am still consulting. And I have no problem consulting. And I’ve not set a parameter of limitation to the extent of how many people I will consult. You will soon hear. All you want to hear is the categorical declaration. You’ve gotten that truth from me that I have informed Mr. President of my ambition,…’

Prodded by reporters of the President’s response to his ambition or at least
a reading of Buhari’s legendary body language, Tinubu tactfully said: ‘That’s
our business. He is a democrat. He didn’t ask me to stop. He didn’t ask me
not to attempt and pursue my ambition. So, why do I expect him to say more
than that? You are running a democratic dispensation, and you must adopt
the principles and the values and the virtues of democracy. That’s it’. Tinubu
also spoke to the issue of a kingmaker wanting to become a king. He said:
‘About the cap of the kingmaker. I’ve never seen the cap of a kingmaker
before, That is the truth. And I’ve never seen where it is written in the rule book anywhere in any country that a kingmaker cannot be a king unless you
commit murder.

READ ALSO: OPINION: Who is Buhari’s 2023 candidate?

As it has turned out, the declaration by Alhaji Tinubu of his ‘lifelong ambition’
to be elected president of Nigeria has become the easiest part of the journey.
The fact that he is the early bird and frontrunner has not made his situation
any better. Indeed, I believe that he has made himself a guinnea pig. I will
skip some of the notoriously simple questions that should otherwise elicit
simple and straightforward answers but have not. For more than 20 years as
far as Tinubu is in the mix, questions such as what’s your name, your state
of origin, the schools you attended and who were your class/school mates,
what’s your age, who are or were your parents have become ‘Cambridge’
questions. Over 20 years ago, one Senator Tokunbo Afikuyomi was made the fall guy for some of the tardiness in Tinubu’s filings with the Independent
National Electoral Commission [INEC]. In some other climes that incident of
1999 should have ended the political career of Tinubu. But no, not Tinubu, a
man likened to the cat with nine lives. He has gone on as two-term governor
of Lagos state, became reportedly stupendously wealthy man so much so
that a bullion van had to reportedly deliver cash to his Lagos-home on the
eve of the 2019 elections, a political colossus, a godfather and a kingmaker.
And he now wants to be the king.

The reality, whether we accept it or not, is that Tinubu’s path to Nigeria’s
presidency is strewn with banana peels. There is little likelihood that he
would be able to ‘jump and pass’ all of them successfully. In the unlikelihood
that he does, he would be confronted by the biggest hurdle of them all- Gen.
Buhari. You may be wondering how the same man Tinubu allegedly helped
to make president would turn around to scuttle his ‘lifelong ambition?
Simple! Tinubu and other aspirants and finally whoever emerges the presidential candidate of the APC will not be able to campaign and articulate their programmes before the critical Nigerian electorate. If you have been following Tinubu’s ongoing consultative visits to monarchs in his south west region, you would have noticed that he had hardly gone beyond asking for the prayers of the traditional rulers. He offers no specifics about what he would do differently from Buhari if elected president. Whatever difficulties Tinubu is going through now would be the lot of other aspirants on the platform of the APC whenever they step forward including Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, Chief Rochas Okorocha, Rt. Hon Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, Chief David Umahi and others. The choice before Tinubu and other aspirants is to campaign on the ‘glittering performance’ of the regime of Buhari or to repudiate Buhari and promise Nigerians a new
beginning. It will never be easy for APC aspirants. They cannot afford to own
Buhari’s style, programmes and policies because they represent unmitigated
and spectacular failures from the economy with a majority of Nigerians
contending with grinding poverty to public utilities that have ensured that
citizens are now in perpetual darkness to insecurity with kidnapping for
ransom our daily experience. To campaign on Buhari and the APC ‘achievements’ is to own unfulfilled promises from 2015 such as restructuring of the country, creating three million jobs every year, rehabilitating existing refineries and building new ones, banning of medical tourism for public servants, promoting state and community policing, 35 percent appointments for women, average gross domestic product [GDP] growth of 10 percent annually, 20,000 megawatts of electricity and 50,000 megawatts within 10 years as well as uninterrupted power supply and raising life expectancy by
an additional 10 years on average. Buhari and the APC failed miserably in
the 62 major promises made to Nigerians ahead of their accession to power
at the centre in 2016. If you add the additional promises made in 2019, then
you will appreciate the magnitude of the failure and why APC presidential
aspirants and candidate had their jobs cut out for them. It is looking more like head or tail they…

AUTHOR: Ugo Onuoha

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Articles published in our Graffiti section are strictly the opinion of the writers and do not represent the views of Ripples Nigeria or its editorial stand.

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