The Trumpet Newspaper Issue 552 (August 25 - September 7 2021) - USA Edition

Page6 TheTrumpet AUGUST 25 - SEPTEMBER 7 2021
Opinion
2023: Tinubu vs Bello and others
BY REUBEN ABATI
From what we have seen and heard so
far, it seems most likely that the race
for the 2023 Presidential position
would end up as the fiercest, most
contested, and perhaps the most
controversial since Nigeria’s return to
civilian rule in 1999. We all must keep an
eye on 2023. In 1999, President Olusegun
Obasanjo emerged not because he was a
known, seasoned, politician but because the
country needed a pair of steady hands and a
strong character, with the right connections
and experience to save the faltering ship of
State, and move the country beyond the evil
annulment of the 1993 Presidential election.
Obasanjo delivered. But he ran into troubled
waters with his succession plans: the
politics of Third Term, the bitter quarrel
with his Vice President, Alhaji Atiku
Abubakar, and his open endorsement of
Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, whose
health status and eventual death in office
defined the highest office of the land.
President Goodluck Jonathan who
succeeded his boss, Yar’Adua was a
collective product of the law, and the
majority insistence on what was right. His
Presidency was a turning point and a major
historic landmark for Nigeria, an
affirmation that Nigeria could also be a land
of dreams where a man of humble
beginnings could rise to the top.
By 2015, the forces of elite conspiracy
and ethno-religious myopism, organised an
acidic campaign against the Jonathan
Presidency and got him out of office. He
was succeeded by President Muhammadu
Buhari, a former military Head of State,
who had sought the Presidency of Nigeria
as a civilian three different times – 1999,
2007 and 2011. In 2015, he was propelled
into office by an electorate that had
embraced his managers’ promise of change
and hope. He was yet another rallying point
for great expectations. In 2023, the
circumstances would be different. There is
Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu
no coalescing, propelling force, at this time
behind any aspirant, on such a national
scale, and of such a momentum as we saw
with Obasanjo, Jonathan, and Buhari’s cultlike
popularity. And this is why the 2023
Presidency is fast becoming a desperate
gamble, a ‘try-your-luck’ kind of
proposition, without any core basic
agreements. A kind of anybody’s game,
generating tension, so early, so far from the
commencement of the 2023 electoral
process.
There is no consensus on any issue. The
people of the South East argue, rightly that,
it is their turn to produce the President of
Nigeria. No Igbo man has been President
since 1999, although Igbos have helped to
put others into office. They want the
marginalisation of Igbos to end. They want
it on record that the Igbo race is not inferior
to any other group in Nigeria. Igbos are the
third largest ethnic group in the country.
They have been told by Northern
spokesmen that nobody will offer them the
Presidency on a platter of gold, and that in
any case, they should go and organise
themselves and reach out to other Nigerians
especially now that there is an internal
debate in the South East about identity
politics – who is Igbo and who is not and
who is more Igbo than the other? Many
persons consider this suggestion, an insult!
The people of the North East and Central
zones also insist that it is their turn to have
their kinsmen inside the Presidential Villa
and that after the Presidency has gone
round the six geo-political zones, we can
then begin to talk more seriously about
those principles of merit, competence,
knowledge – the same issues the other
privileged geo-political zones never
stretched when the Presidency fell into their
laps.
Constitutional provisions on eligibility
for the Nigerian Presidency are stated in the
1999 Constitution. There is no mention of
ethnicity or geographical zone, although
Section 14(3) and (4) mention Federal
Character, diversity, unity and justice. The
two major political parties have since
agreed on an unwritten code of Rotational
Presidency, but this is beginning to look
more like a tool of political expediency.
Ahead of the 2023 general elections,
Nigeria’s two major political parties – the
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the
All Progressives Congress (APC) are both
engulfed in crises that could be counterproductive.
There is no clarity on both sides
about how the 2023 process could be used
to address the people’s concerns. Not even
the National Assembly is serious about the
provision of an electoral framework that can
inspire trust and confidence. In 2021,
Nigeria’s 9 th National Assembly, dominated
by the ruling party, voted to prevent the
adoption of electronic transmission of
election results. The Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) says it is
possible and doable, the politicians
disagree. In smaller, neighbouring African
countries, electronic transmission of results
is not a problem. In Nigeria, it is a source of
crisis.
But what I find even more disturbing is
the bad rhetoric that is beginning to build
up, the high velocity intolerance and the
threat of violence that hang dangerously in
the air, and the refusal of some emergent
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