Ochereome Nnanna: If APC wins, Tinubu will lose

by Ochereome Nnanna

Tinubu-Amaechi

Tinubu will supply the Vice President, and his platform will begin to play the second fiddle. With power in the hands of an APC Northern president, it will be easier for Yoruba followers of Tinubu to play the “Akintola versus Awolowo” game on him, opting to go direct to the president for their political gratification; a move that will be welcomed with open arms.

There is not doubt that if the All Progressives Congress, APC, succeeds in its current drive to absorb the new-Peoples Democratic Party, nPDP, Nigerian democracy will be the better for it.

It will turn Nigeria into a very balanced democracy dominated by two political parties.

However, whether these two parties will be ideologically driven to give the Nigerian electorate a clear choice will be another matter.

For all we know, the APC, like the ruling PDP, will continue to be a mere platform to contest and win electoral power. Right now, APC is nothing more than the most attractive political party for opponents of the PDP seeking to wrest power from it.

These include those who have been members of the ruling party but at one time or the other and for one reason or the other, parted ways with it either voluntarily or were forced out.

It also includes elements of the old post-NADECO Alliance for Democracy, AD and the All Nigerian Peoples Party, ANPP, an offshoot of the late General Sani Abacha’s “five leprous fingers” parties, as the late Chief Bola Ige venomously described them.

It is still a mystery that a platform that owed its relevance to their struggle for the de-annulment of the presidential mandate of Chief Moshood Abiola and its hated enemies who were campaigning for the self-succession of Abacha should be locked together in a merger that could produce a true mega-party to counter-punch the ruling PDP.

This is more so, since there is absolutely no ideological nexus between both camps other than the common resolve to wrest power from the PDP.

Over the past week, the APC leadership embarked on a political evangelism of sorts, visiting some of the G-7 governors in their respective states in the North to woo them into their party. These included Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso of Kano, Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa and Governor Magatakarda Wamakko of Sokoto states.

Already, some of the loyalists of Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State have moved over to the APC, Nyako is very vocal about his preference for a wholesale dumping of the PDP, mainly because he has been uprooted from the PDP by the National Chairman and fellow Adamawite, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur.

If the seven governors on the platform of the rebel PDP should accede to the pressures of the APC and join them, it will be a major political game-changer, not only since 1999 when the new democracy was born, but also for the 2015 general elections.

It will mean that the APC will be coming to the party with 18 governors. If that should happen, nothing will guarantee that more Northern governors who are currently on the side of President Goodluck Jonathan might not jump ship for strategic reasons that I will expatiate shortly.

The PDP maintains its grip on power because of the perception that it is the only political party with the clout and spread to win the presidency and hold onto it very comfortably.

But if the APC scores unexpected goals and becomes the party with the ability to overrun the PDP at the presidential, gubernatorial and federal legislative elections in 2015, it will become a matter of political survival for politicians to want to go there.

This is how Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu will “lose” if APC gets what it is looking for. Tinubu’s platform will become overnight, the minority shareholder. He will have control of six states (Lagos, Ogun, Osun, Oyo, Ekiti, and Edo).

There will be two renegade states, one from the South East (Rochas Okorocha’s Imo) and South-South (Rotimi Amaechi’s Rivers) though I cannot swear these governors can win their states for the APC. The North will become the master of APC, with 10 states (Adamawa, Borno, Yobe, Kano, Jigawa, Nasarawa, Niger, Sokoto Kwara and Zamfara).

With this kind of new configuration, it will be easy to persuade the North (especially Arewa North) to give a block vote to the Arewa APC presidential candidate who will run for the party.

Tinubu will supply the Vice President, and his platform will begin to play the second fiddle. With power in the hands of an APC Northern president, it will be easier for Yoruba followers of Tinubu to play the “Akintola versus Awolowo” game on him, opting to go direct to the president for their political gratification; a move that will be welcomed with open arms.

I am speaking based on the lessons of history. With power in the hands of a Northern president, Tinubu’s political empire will disappear almost overnight.

When the North becomes the majority shareholder in the APC, Tinubu will no longer be able to manipulate Northern politicians for his own end as he succeeded in sponsoring Alhaji Aminu Tambuwal as Speaker of House of Reps in 2011 against PDP’s desire to give it to a Yoruba person.

He sponsored Tambuwal and also Senator George Akume as Minority Leader of the Senate in order to give the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, a national outlook. Till today, Tambuwal is still Tinubu’s hidden joker against General Muhammadu Buhari for presidential candidate of APC in 2015.

If the G-7 joins APC, there will be an influx of tested and experienced politicians and leaders with presidential ambition, such as Sule Lamido and Atiku Abubakar. I am watching to see how the centre can hold. More particularly, I am watching to see what Tinubu is going to do when he realises that he has played deep into Arewa political killing field.

Some say he might play the same card he did in 2011: Do deals and ask the South West voters to give it to Jonathan.

Remember, Osun was the only state in the South West and the country at large where the presidential candidate of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, won the presidential election.

Indeed, the odds facing the APC in its effort to upstage President Jonathan are so hydra-headed it will take a major political miracle for them to get to their destination. And if they get there, it will not be everybody who will be shouting Hallelujah!

 

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Read this article in the Vanguard Newspapers

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

here is not doubt that if the All Progressives Congress, APC, succeeds in its current drive to absorb the new-Peoples Democratic Party, nPDP, Nigerian democracy will be the better for it.

It will turn Nigeria into a very balanced democracy dominated by two political parties.

However, whether these two parties will be ideologically driven to give the Nigerian electorate a clear choice will be another matter.

– See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/11/if-apc-wins-tinubull-lose/#sthash.wprkZlU6.dpuf

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