The nation now knows who the candidates of the major Parties for the Presidency of the Federal Republic of Nigeria are. President Goodluck Jonathan is being fielded by the PDP along with Architect Muhammad Namadi Sambo, the Vice President. General Muhammadu Buhari and Pastor Tunde Bakare are the candidates of the Congress for Progressive Change. The All Nigeria Peoples Party is fielding Malam Ibrahim Shekarau and the Former Governor of Edo State, John Odigie-Oyegun. The Action Congress of Nigeria is fielding Malam Nuhu Ribadu and Dr. Sunny Ugochukwu.
The stage is now set for monumental battles, which will test the resilience of the emerging democratic traditions of our country. The P.D.P as the dominant Party will be confronted by three other Parties, each with a claim to some credible chance of having its candidate elected. The campaigns will be both interesting and challenging, in view of the events and developments which have substantially altered the political terrain in the last one year.
The PDP and President Goodluck Jonathan have mixed fortunes, and their chances of success will largely depend on the degree to which they address their obvious limitations. One of these weaknesses is the perception that President Goodluck Jonathan has deprived the North of an opportunity to field another Northerner as a PDP candidate for the 2011 elections. There are many people in the North who will not forgive him for this, and very dirty campaigns against his candidature will emphasize negative elements of treachery in his character and his religions faith. He will also have to contend with hostility from strong people in the old PDP brigade who had rallied around Atiku Abubakar, and who may still nurse grievances against the manner of his loss, and the orchestrated humiliation of the North by PDP Northern Governors who supported Jonathan. He may substantially overcome these limitations in the manner he targets major sources of hostility and limiting their potential damage by positively engaging Northerners who have relevance in religious and community affairs. He will also have to move quickly and decisively to limit the damage which the Party suffered as a result of its Primaries. He will also have contain the spreading fire of insecurity in many parts of the North which threaten to show his concernment as incompetent. He will also have to keep Niger Delta secure and peaceful to show that he has support at his backyard.
On the other hand, his strength may lie in the support of PDP Governors, who will also expect him to reciprocate by working for their success at the polls. This is a very sensitive area he will need to handle with great care, because the Northern Governors in particular are aware of the depth of feeling over what is perceived by people as their loyalty to either Jonathan or to the North. Their own fortunes may depend largely on how they are seen to relate to the Jonathan campaign. Many Northern Governors will work a very tight rope, balancing their own interests against an overt, active support for President Jonathan.
President Jonathan may also count on the support of the South-South and, to a lesser extent, the South East, going by the result of the PDP Convention, but even this is not an absolute given. A delicate negotiation and understanding on whether he will also run in 2015 if he wins in 2011, and if the South East will produce the next PDP Presidential candidate will have to be handled with sensitivity. The South West will be a difficult terrain for President Jonathan, given the massive influence of the ACN and the Labor Party in that zone. President Jonathan will also expect to benefit from the growing distance between the Muslim and Christian North, although, again, there are still significant residual sentiments about a political North among the old Northern brigades. Vice President Namadi Sambo will need to be very busy mending walls and limiting the damaging divisions along ethnic and religious lines in the North, as well as selling President Jonathan as a credible and genuine leadership material under whom the North will have both peace and prosperity. But the major battle will have to be fought by President Jonathan himself, who has to leave the comfort of Abuja and cover the length and breadth of Nigeria and assure citizens that he can find solutions to insecurity, lack of basic infrastructure and underdevelopment of the ordinary Nigerians citizen. He will not win the Presidency by remote control. President Goodluck Jonathan has a good chance to win, if he can exploit the weaknesses of the North, and heal the damaging raptures that are evident in his party arising from the Primaries.
General Muhammadu Buhari and his Party, the CPC started with a tremendous promise, but has lost a lot of steam in the manner they failed to capitalize on his immense popularity. The General is very popular among the ordinary citizens in the North, and many other Nigerians who believe that he can provide good leadership for Nigeria in a different direction. His running mate may mitigate the negative perception the General has in many parts of the North and other parts of Nigeria over his religious faith. But mainstream Christian North may not feel comfortable with a Pentecostal Pastor as his running mate. The CPC has lost huge political capital in the manner it mishandled intra-party issues, and over its failure to achieve a strategic electoral alliance with the ACN much earlier than now. As things stand now, the Party will pay dearly for lost opportunities and the subversion by its members in many States such as Kebbi, Katsina, Kano and many other parts of the North. The situation of the CPC will be aptly captured in the Hausa proverb which laments that a good party can not be attended because there is no appropriate dress to wear.
The CPC has a formidable Presidential team which can challenge the PDP, but it has to work very hard to assure Northern Muslims and Christians that they can find peace and accommodation under its leadership. It has to reach the South-East and South-South and sell the messages of a new Nigeria, with the pristine record of Gen Buhari and the impeccable courage and commitment of Pastor Bakare at the helm. It has to mend many fences, and re-integrate many of its disillusioned members that it is the party of the masses and the future. To do this General Buhari leader who has become captive of a clique in his Party.
Malam Nuhu Ribadu and his running mate can make major inroads if they are successful in selling the message of a National rebirth. They represent the hope of young Nigerians, and their Nigerian elders who worry that they are leaving behind a terrible legacy for their children. Malam Ribadu’s ACN has a strength in the South West and has made serious advances into other parts of Nigeria in the recent past. While it has reduced its limiting image as an ethnic party therefore, it still has to fashion out winning strategic alliances with one other Party which now does not seem feasible. As it stands, both the ACN and CPC have wasted excellent opportunities to engineer winning electoral strategies long before now. Whatever the reasons for this historic failure, and they do not go beyond the sad fact that only General Buhari in the CPC and Governor Bola Tinubu call the shots in the ACN, the fact still remains that today both Parties have Presidential candidates, and both have to fish in the same small ponds. They are more likely to damage each other, than damage the PDP, unless they can agree to urge their members to votes en bloc for the other candidate given the rather disappointing and bitter end to the protracted negotiations, these two parties will go into the field as enemies, not friends.
Malam Shekarau’s ANPP would appear to be the weakest of the four major Parties. This Party has suffered seriously from the defection of General Buhari and his millions of supporters and opportunists, as well as the dominance of its State Governors in its affairs. Its Candidate, Malam Shekarau has a very good record of accomplishment as Governor, but it is doubtful if Nigerians in sufficient numbers can trust him and his Party with the nation’s leadership. This is a pity, because Malam Shekarau may be precisely the type of leader Nigerians need to break from the past, and build bridges across communities, restore human dignity, honest governments and faith in leaders.
For those who are interested in geo-ethnic equations, the facts on the ground are that three candidates, all Muslims from the far North, will challenge one candidate who is both Christian and from a minority tribe in the South. The North will be torn to shreds by the vigorous campaigns of President Jonathan, and the three other northern Candidates, all of whom will take a major chunk of the North. It is not difficult to predict that PDP’s Candidates will have easy ride, because northern politicians have made it easy for them.
But, parties do not elect themselves. Citizens will exercise their choices, and with a free and fair election, any of the candidates that convinces Nigerians that he will offer the best leadership will win. In the end, it is only a free and fair election that will determine the President, not his tribe, religious faith, or his Party. This is why every vote in the 2011 elections must count.
No comments:
Post a Comment