Nigerian
politics today shows the truism in the saying, ‘a stitch in time saves
nine’. It seems all the major characters in this rapidly developing
drama had ignored to
make use of a vital ingredient in politics: timing. Now everyone is
scrambling to
gain the upper hand, reclaim lost territory, control damage or throw
wild
punches hoping that they will hit the right target. In the next few
months, Nigerian voters
will be asked to decide who made the right moves, who took the sensible
risks
or who made life-time blunders. What happens between now and then will
be
determined by political intelligence, huge resources and the disposition
of
agents of the Nigerian state.
It now seems clear that Saraki’s side had
delayed bolting out of the APC until the fear of the Buhari mystique and the
EFCC had decimated its ranks of the big names that
were its natural first eleven. Now Saraki’s side is out, but not out of danger. Until
the National Assembly resumes in September, they will have to fight for their
political lives to improve their ranks and acceptance as the side that decides
Buhari’s political future. Buhari himself had to be vigorously awakened by a
handful of governors and a new party chairman to the reality that
politics is all about protecting and expanding turfs. By the time he descended
into the real world of deals, pleas and huge doses of humility ,a big
chunk of his turf had drifted away. The subjects and objects of this huge
tussle themselves were so engrossed in the search for options that they left all
their flanks exposed. It was not a question of if, but when they would leave
the party, a situation that left little room for unanticipated maneuvers. The
major receptacle of the outpouring of APC’s losses, the PDP, was poorly
prepared to handle the largess, or it couldnt believe its luck. It may now find
that it has too little room for the defectors, or it may fail to unseat
Buhari because it is unable to digest much of its old and fairly new ambitions.
All
this frenzy will be amusing if it were not
seriously about the nation’s future. Buhari will now have to carefully
count,
almost on a daily basis, how many of the satellites that revolved around
him
are still there. This will be very stressful for a politician who had
routinely ignored too many turning points. The strategy of denouncing
all
the defectors as worthless and irredeemably corrupt will have many blunt
edges.
These were the people who made a major contribution to his electoral
success, the same people his corruption-fighting government co-habited
with for three years. He
is left with a rump of loyalists that bear a disturbing resemblance to
those
who defected, people with cases before the EFCC who may be holding on
only out
of fear or the hope that he still has some capacity to help them win
elections.
He has highly elusive numbers, but not the quality he needs to say his
camp is
better qualified to fight corruption, fix the economy and secure large
populations. When he takes stock, he will find in his camp deeply
unpopular
governors, incompetent ministers, handpicked party leaders, senators
that could
be in jail next week if the judiciary and the EFCC do their jobs.He may
yet find that many
of them are greek gifts when he attempts to create harmony out of bitter
enemies,
such as el-Rufai and Shehu Sani.
The
Saraki camp must be involved in critical damage assessment, and how much political asset it needs to make it feel secure. The
challenges it has before it are mind-boggling: managing ambitions of returnees
and traditional presidential flag-seekers; creating room for Kwankwaso in
Kano without offending hostile interests; balancing the gain in Tambuwal
against hostility from Wammako, Aliero and Yarima in the strategic north west;
making full use of the outing of Speaker Dogara from the APC among northern
Christians; eroding the remnants of Buhari’s support in the middle belt without
risking a backlash from poor handling of religious politics; deepening the
divide around Tinubu in the south west; consolidating strong resistance against
Buhari in the south east and the south south even in the face the fear of
persecution of powerful politicians by the federal government; and above all, demystifying
Buhari’s infallibility among millions of northern voters.
They
will have to do all these with very little time; while fighting a regime
desperate to retain power, and in a party which may still prove a serious
hard sell in many parts of the country. Its considerable numbers of defectors
must make immediate and pronounced impact by squeezing APC’s space. Their
biggest liability is the good case to be made that they are all about getting
more power than they had under the Buhari administration. The Buhari camp will
twist the knife with propaganda that they merely want to return the nation to the
Jonathan-type kleptocracy.
The
nation will be challeged to choose between politicians who will fight for new
mandates with old, tired weapons. President Buhari’s depleted camp will be
hesitant to campaign around security in a nation that gave it full endorsement
mainly to secure citizens. These days, in its stronghold of the north,
death and destruction stalk communities that were substantially spared the
ravages of Boko Haram before the Buhari presidency. The Boko Haram epicenter is
not out of the woods yet, and terrorists remind the nation of this every once
in a while with suicide bombs and audacious assaults on communities and the
military. Buhari’s fight against corruption is visible only in the number of
court cases against a handful of politicians, many of them filed long
before he became president. Figures from sales of crude oil represent the only
changes in an economy that does not create new jobs or opportunities. The
assault against a resurgent opposition will be led by a president in his 70s
whose vision is still as unclear as the state of his health.
The
job of his opposition is no less daunting. It will have to prove that it is
more than a combination of the left-over of the discredited PDP and defectors
whose only political goals are to recapture and abuse power. It will have to
resolve major tussles between those who think its future requires new vision,
new faces and a new brand against those who believe that its traditional
reliance on big, familiar names and tons and tons of money is the way to go. It
may have too little time to convince enough Nigerians that it wants to do more
than just replace the Buhari administration. Can it sell new ideas and
strategies on security, job creation and building new foundations for a nation
in search of a future?
If we stay awake until end of September, we may very well witness a desperate dash in place of a long distance race.
