The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has just ended its national convention in Portharcourt with the former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, emerging as the party’s presidential flag bearer for the 2019 election.
The next question on the table is, from which zone will the party pick its Vice Presidential candidate?
Before expressing my views on this, I like to clarify my position with regards to Nigeria as a country:
I reasonably believe that Nigeria, as presently structured, is fundamentally flawed and must either be restructured to allow the regions develop at their individual pace or balkanized to allow her different peopleS go back to how they were living before the almagamation. Any other thing aside these two is only but a cosmetic solution to the problem.
Yet,
As a practical man, I am not unaware of the fact that neither restructuring nor balkanization will fall from the sky. While pursuing the above two options and seeing as I have no weapon to achieve my aim militarily, I have to work with the limited options available no matter how inadequate those available options appear.
I am a REALIST, not an IDEALIST.
We have two major political parties (PDP and APC) with two major candidates (Muhammadu Buhari and Atiku Abubakar) and JUST FOUR MONTHS TO A CRUCIAL GENERAL ELECTION. One of the two candidate, President Buhari has conclusively proven to be a murderous genocidist. The remaining one, Atiku, though not without his own baggages, is far better than his main opponent. it will be romantically foolish of me to claim to want an end to Buhari’s murderous rule and still adopt a non-challant attitude in the political activities that will see to his (Buhari’s) end.
Anyone who want Buhari out has only one option here and that option is to vote Atiku Abubakar not necessarily because he is good. He may not be. In fact, he may be bad but even bad is still better than worse and Buhari is certainly worse if not worst.
At this point in time, I believe we need more Realists who understands the EXISTENTIAL THREAT we face under the Buhari presidency than Idealists who will spend the whole time writing beautiful ideas of how Nigeria can be transformed EVEN WHEN HE KNOWS THAT GENERAL ELECTION IS JUST FEW MONTHS AWAY AND THAT NONE OF HIS IDEAS WILL SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY WITH A DARK HEARTED MAN SUCH AS BUHARI IN POWER.
Let me add that should Buhari win a second term, we should just prepare to have him as a life President because that is his real aim as shown in the speed with which he placed all the security as well as other critical institutions in the hands of his kinsmen. So, once again, this is no time for idealism.
NOW, HERE IS MY THOUGHT ON PDP VICE PRESIDENTIAL SLOT:
First, the PDP must be careful not to start fighting over the sharing formula for the animal whose body is still in the forest, alive. Every effort should be on how to kill the animal first and bring it home. So the Party must be strategic and not allow mawkish sentimentality guide it here.
Strategically speaking, the PDP does not need to worry about placating the Southeast with the VP slot. That will amount to wasting scarce resources making an ally of one who is already your ally. Ndigbo have no intention of voting for Buhari for obvious reasons. So giving them the VP slot won’t bring any extra electoral value to the PDP. Ndigbo are like that male child who, having lost his father, doesn’t really care who remarried his mother as long as he keeps getting the chicken leg his late father used to gift him with every festive season. The “chicken leg” here represents a level playing field. An average Igbo man wants nothing but a level playing field where he can actualize his full potentials. Any other strategic position will do for Ndigbo.
The South South, of course, has the PDP chairmanship slot already. With the two region already in the bag for the PDP, plus the herdsmen ravaged Middle Belt to some reasonable degree, the party needs to focus on splitting Yoruba votes by all means possible.
Most Yoruba progressive are fully aware that the position of the VP in the current APC govt is nothing but meaningless tokenism which has only benefitted Tinubu and company Nigerian Limited. With a very influential Yoruba as the VP, PDP has a very good chance of getting reasonable votes from the region as all those uncomfortable with Bola Tinubu’s influence in the Southwest will see it as a good opportunity to break his greedy hold.
COMING TO THE NORTH AS A WHOLE ,
The biggest political capital Buhari rely on is the fear factor which is a product of his strong hold on the Northern almajiri who see him as a god and are ever ready to spill blood for him. Good news is, he is not the only one who has control over Northern almajiris. Former Kano state governor Musa Kwankwanso and his Jigawa state counterpart Sule Lamido control the same if not more number of almajiris combined. It was Kwankwanso who pulled almost 2million votes for Buhari as governor during the 2015 Kano magic votes. He would later boast how he used almajiris to remove Jonathan. Aminu Tambuwa as a sitting governor at the heart of the caliphate (Sokoto) should be able to bring something to the table.
Should all the Presidential Aspirants, who are all Northerners, agree to pull their material, human, financial as well as almajiri resources to work for the success of Atiku, no amount of naked manipulation will save the lifeless one from going back to his cows in 2019.
Buhari will try to rig with the help of INEC and the Transmission police IG who coincidentally was the Kano state police Chief under whose watch the Kano INEC REC was burnt to ashes alongside his family in what some people claim was an attempt to cover up the 2 million magic vote in 2015. But I believe that the ex Generals plus the Aspirants are not unaware of the fact that Buhari will finish them if he gets a second term so I like to believe that seeing as they are masters in the game of rigging themselves, they have a plan to use their international clouts to checkmate Buhari’s rigging plan. Again, the election will be held simultaneously so there will be no 30,000 policemen per state for Mr transmission to use in intimidating opposition members.
By Charles Ogbu
