The North Consolidates Its Coup Against The South Ahead of 2023 Presidential Election
From all indications, Former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode has found his groove in the All Progressives Congress, APC.
The loquacious politician who dumped his party, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, on September 16, last year, has largely been clutching at straws, gasping for a breath of relevance or notoriety in the ruling party.
Finally, Fani-Kayode stirred the hornet’s nest, recently, with a call on the APC to field a candidate from the Northern part of Nigeria in the next presidential election ” The truth is that Atiku is likely to win the presidential primaries in PDP… Given that, the only way APC can win is by fielding a Northern candidate. .. Whether anyone likes it or not, this is the truth. Politics is a game of numbers. Take it or leave it” he tweeted.
With those few words, the controversial politician brought to the open what was hitherto discussed in hush tones in the Northern Cities. Indeed, it was the first emphatic statement since the phony debate on zoning resurfaced in the APC.
Earlier in February the party’s hierarchy took a decisive position on the zoning of offices. Briefing State House Correspondents after a meeting of APC Governors and President Mohammadu Buhari, on February 22, at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa, Abuja, Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai declared that ” We have agreed to zone for all the six geopolitical zones. Essentially, the Northern zone will have the positions the South has had in the last eight years, and vice versa”
Clear and unequivocal, El-Rufai’s declaration struck the right chord in every logical quarters. Since 2015, the office of the President of Nigeria has been occupied by Buhari, a retired General and former Military Head of State, from Kastina North West Nigeria. Going by the known rotational arrangement which informed the outcome of the February 22 meeting in the Villa, the next President should come from the South.
Expectedly, therefore, the first set of 15 presidential aspirants on the platform of APC are from the Southern Nigeria. Some of them include former Lagos State Governor, Bola Tinubu, incumbent vice president, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, former Governor of Imo State Anayo Rochas Okorocha, former Governor of Ogun State, Ibikunle Amosun and Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi. Others are: Minister of Transport, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, Lagos Minister of Labour, Dr Chris Ngige, Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio, Cross River State Governor, Professor Ben Ayade, Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, and the founder of Citadel Global Community Church, Pastor Tunde Bakare.
Suddenly, Northern presidential aspirants,on the platform of APC, showed up. First to blaze the trail was the Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello. Next was former Governor of Zamfara State, Ahmed Yerima, followed by theJigawa State Governor Mohammad Badaru Abubakar. The last and perhaps, the most indicative entrant into the race from the North is Ahmed Lawan, incumbent President of the Senate. With the Lawan now in the race, it is clear that the North is damn serious about dumping the zoning formula heretofore touted by the ruling party.
TALE learnt that APC leaders from the North have not been comfortable with the idea of power shifting to the South after the expiration of Buhari’s eight years in office. They cited the controversial anti open grazing laws which are now in force in many Southern states. Led by the vocal and courageous governor of Ondo State, Rotimi Akeredolu, the Southern Governors Forum, last year, decided to ban open grazing of cattle in the South. This drew the ire of Miyetti Allah, some Northern governors and a large chunk of politicians from the North. The Southern Governors took the decision in the wake of widespread killings, arson and kidnapping allegedly perpetrated by Fulani herdsmen across the South and the Middle Belt. In addition to banning of open grazing, the Southern Governors also demanded that the the South must produce the next president. Weeks after the declarations were made, Akeredolu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, continued to trend with a relentless fervor. The thinking in the North is that a president from the South may implement far reaching policies like the Anti Open Grazing Laws at the national level. Hence, the Northern political elites began to perfect the moves to ensure that the two major political parties field Northern presidential candidates in the 2023 General Election. They needed a Southerner to bell the cat. And Fani-Kayode made himself available for the historic assignment. Referring to Fani-Kayode’s obsequious nature, former President Olusegun Obasanjo once said ” Femi Fani-Kayode is my boy. Provide him food, he will eat and then sing for you. He is a smart boy”. Perhaps, the former minister has eaten the food of the Northern elites to have led the chorus against power shift.
Though the APC may have made a tacit commitment to zoning at the February meeting, the party began a placid shift of grounds after the ascendance of Abdullahi Adamu, former Governor of Nasarawa State, as APC National Chairman. Adamu told State House Correspondents last month, shortly after the formal presentation of Biodun Oyebanji, APC candidate in the June 18 Ekiti State Governorship Election, to President Buhari, dropped the bombshell that the party had not decided on the zoning of the presidential ticket. That opened a floodgate of reactions. Those who know the new APC chair say he is a Northern irredentist who offers no apologies for his views. Speaking at a media briefing in Abuja in September last year, Adamu didn’t hold back his convictions on the presidency. ” Nowhere in the Nigerian constitution does it say we should zone any public office. There is federal character, but not that parties must zone positions for presidency during election,” he said.
“Yes, somebody is saying the east has not had a president. I agree and I sympathise. But the constitution says you can only become president through the ballot box.
“We have been saying it during elections that every vote must count. So, why do you want to zone?” Adamu had said this seven months before becoming the chairman of APC. With him now in the saddle, zoning is as good as forgotten.
Reliable sources told TALE that the plot to drop zoning became urgent following the aborted plan to draft former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan into the race on the platform of APC. Soon after Buhari began his second term in office, Northern power strategists wrote the Jonathan script. The former president who lost his re-election to Buhari in 2015, was to defect from PDP to APC where he would clinch the ticket. A beautiful plan it was but not attractive enough to Jonathan who feared being messed up in the end. The strategists preferred him because having ruled as substantive president between 2011 and 2015, he will only spend a single term of four years. And power returns to the North. These Northern thinkers deployed rented crowds, sponsored editorials and social media advocacy to persuade the Bayelsa born politician. The climax of the script was executed on Monday May 9, when a Northern group paid the sum of 100 million naira for the purchase of the APC Presidential Nomination and Expression of Interest form on behalf of Jonathan. The former president thanked the group but he rejected the offer to run.
With the failure to get Jonathan on the ballot, the plot to ensure that the North remains in power is getting thicker by the day.
Creating confusion in the ranks of Southern political leaders is a key element of the plot. In the South West alone, there are seven aspirants: Tinubu, Osinbajo, Fayemi, Amosun , Bakare, former Speaker of the House Representatives, Dimeji Bankole and deputy senate leader, Professor Robert Ajayi Boroffice. South East has its share of the maddening crowd: Okorocha, Ngige, Nwajiuba, Ebonyi State Governor Dave Umahi, Science and Technology Minister, Ogbonaiya Onu, former Senate President Ken Nnamani and a female aspirant, Uju Ohanenye. The South South is not spared of the collective confusion. Apart from Amaechi, Akpabio, Ayade, the zone has other aspirants: Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timiprey Sylva, former Governor of Edo State, Adams Oshiomole, and a relatively unknown pastor Nicholas Felix.
Unlike the Southern semblance of a city divided against itself, the entire North has just four aspirants, namely Yerima, Yahaya Bello, Badaru and Lawan.
What seems to have spurred the desperate moves of APC leaders in the North is the unfolding scenario in the opposition, PDP.
As at now, PDP had screened it’s 17 presidential aspirants, majority are from the South. But just like their ilks in the APC, many of them are mere pretenders masquerading as contenders for the highest job in the land.
Former vice president Atiku Abubakar, Sokoto State Governor Aninu Tambuwal, Bauchi State Governor Bala Mohammed, former Senate President Bukola Saraki are PDP presidential aspirants from the North. Nyesome Wike is the poster boy of the PDP in the South. He is also the irrepressible voice, insisting on zoning the presidency to the South. Nevertheless, if demographic considerations are anything to go by, the PDP’s ticket may be clinched by a Northern aspirant. And given his rich political experience and spectacular reach across the country, Atiku may get the nod to run against the ruling party. He may also pick a running mate from the South East. In 2019, the former VP contested with former Governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi as running mate. Will PDP repeat the Atiku-Obi ticket? The reality of an Atiku candidacy has sent jitters to the camp of APC, especially those in the North. That explains the Fani-Kayode’s outburst against APC Southern ticket in the 2023 presidential election.
With Lawan and Badaru joining the race from the Northern axis, it appears that the North has fully consolidated its coup against the South. TALE learnt that Adamu will soon announce that the ticket of APC is open to all. “This is unfair” says Akeredolu “No statement must suggest, even remotely, that the party harbours certain sentiments which may predispose it to consider throwing the contest open. This is certainly not the time for equivocation. Equity dictates that we take a stand,”
In the same vein, the Igbo Elders Consultative Forum rose from a meeting last week and condemned attempts to exclude the South East from the presidential race. Leader of the group and former governor of Anambra State, Chukwuemeka Ezeife, called on the two political parties to zone 2023 presidential tickets to the South East in the interest of justice, equity and fairness.