2023 is upstaging 2019

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo seldom makes controversial statements but he sure raised eyebrows at the weekend when he said President Muhammadu Buhari, after serving out a second term, will hand over to the South West in 2023. Speaking at the Alafin’s Palace in Oyo on Saturday, Osinbajo said, “The 2019 general elections is our own. […]

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo seldom makes controversial statements but he sure raised eyebrows at the weekend when he said President Muhammadu Buhari, after serving out a second term, will hand over to the South West in 2023. Speaking at the Alafin’s Palace in Oyo on Saturday, Osinbajo said, “The 2019 general elections is our own. We are not looking at 2019 but 2023. If we get it in 2019, Yoruba will get it in 2023. Because if we don’t get it in 2019, we may not get it in 2023 and it may take a very long time to get it…What we are doing now is for tomorrow and not for today.”

Osinbajo’s statement might confuse some listeners because he donned a lawyer’s wig, an academic’s gown, a pastor’s robes, a politician’s doublespeak and a Yoruba traditionalist’s fly-whisk all at once. He used “we” to refer to two different sets of people. One “we,” the one about “if we get it in 2019,” referred to Buhari and himself. The second “we,” as in “we may not get it in 2023,” refers to the Yoruba as a group. Stripped of all the dress, what he was saying was: If you elect Atiku Abubakar in 2019, with his Igbo running mate, he might serve for 8 years and afterwards hand over to Peter Obi for another 8 years, then it goes back to the North for another 8 years, before the Yoruba will have a chance. It is a scare tactic fit for Donald Trump because no one can predict what will happen in Nigerian politics in the next 25 years. Hopefully by then, region, religion and tribe will not be the dominant themes.

We are not supposed to inquire into discussions that took place between the two top guns of the Federal Government. Earlier this year, when Acting President Osinbajo fired DSS director general Lawal Daura, some Nigerians were asking whether he cleared with President-on-leave Buhari before he acted. The public never found out if he did. This time too some people are bound to ask, did the VP clear with the President before he made the solemn promise to South West voters? The question is pertinent because only a week earlier, Secretary to the Government of the Federation [SGF] Boss Mustapha said in Umuahia that President Buhari will handover to an Igbo person in 2023, if the Igbos vote for him in 2019.

Mustapha did not however say it himself. He was represented at the inauguration of the South East chapter of the Presidential Support Committee by his controversial aide Gideon Sammani, a Second Republic speaker of the Kaduna State Assembly. It was Sammani, we recall, who said in 2016 that Buhari was shy in the presence of women, which was why he did not appoint many women into his councils. The Presidency promptly denied that statement, which it probably thought questioned the bravery of an Army General. In contrast, it did not disown what Sammani said in Umuahia, which contradicts what Osinbajo said in Oyo on Saturday.

To add to the confusion, the super Minister of Power, Works and Housing Babatunde Raji Fashola said in October that the Yoruba will inherit the presidency after a Buhari second term. Speaking in Yoruba language at a townhall meeting in Ibadan, Fashola said, “Do you know that power is rotating to the South-West after the completion of Buhari’s tenure if you vote for him in 2019? A vote for Buhari in 2019 means a return of power to the South-West in 2023. I am sure you will vote wisely.” Fashola’s assertion flatly contradicted those made over the years by two other APC chieftains, Governor of Imo State Rochas Okorocha and his party mate, Orji Uzor Kalu. Both men said Igbos should support Buhari/APC in 2019 in order to inherit the presidency in 2023, and both men did not hide their intention to be that Igbo man who will inherit the manor. Both of them had tried before; Okorocha finished second at PDP’s presidential primaries in 2007 while Kalu flew the flag of his PPA party in that year’s election. They skipped two presidential elections since then, are ready to skip next year’s race but have their gaze firmly fixed on 2023.

The Presidency never came out to deny, modify or clarify the earlier claims made by Okorocha, Kalu and Fashola and it will be interesting to see if it will let the latest one by the Vice President to stand. These claims and counter claims of handing over to one region or another in 2023 are double-edged political swords. While a party obviously seeks to hold on to a region where it is popular, it also wants to expand into other regions. PDP, which is thought to have a grip on the South East and South South, has not flatly said it will give them the presidency after Atiku, because it must leave the door open to attract South West support. APC faces the same dilemma.

That Osinbajo, a very cerebral man, resorted to geo-ethnic appeal was probably a sign of desperation. South West voters’ flipping from PDP in 2011 was the biggest game changer of the 2015 polls, after PVC and card reader. APC in the region is riddled with conflicts this time around. It was nearly defeated in Osun State; its Ogun and Ondo chapters are in rebellion; its governor in Lagos must be seething; and Communications Minister Adebayo Shittu said he will be a bastard to support its candidate in Oyo. A reconciliation team headed by Governor Kashim Shettima just left the zone and it is as yet unclear if it succeeded in patching up all the quarrels.

Personally, I was wondering what it means to handover the presidency to a zone. Does that mean, in 2023, assuming he serves a second term, Buhari will assembly all the people of the South West or the South East and hand over the presidency to them as a collective? That will make for a very rancorous presidency. If, as the Constitution expects, only one person will raise his or her hand and swear to the oath of office, then why are some people saying the people of a zone will take over the presidency?

Osinbajo left a big question unanswered because he did not say who in the South West would succeed Buhari in 2023. If their ticket is re-elected, by 2023 Osinbajo would have been vice president for eight years and it would be cruel if he did not become the leader thereafter. Yet, pundits expect his godfather Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to make a lunge for the top job, and he could start as soon as Buhari enters his second term.

But why are we so engrossed in this talk now? Last time I checked, the election notice that INEC issued was for the 2019 elections. Why are so many top politicians talking instead about 2023, for which no election notice has been issued? Is it that there are no issues to talk about ahead of 2019? What about the faltering economy, precarious internal security, unending war against insurgency, millions of IDPs, corruption, value of the naira, Niger Delta environmental spoliation, potholed roads, mass unemployment, comatose industries, labour unrest, our schools, our hospitals and 12 million almajirai?

It is noticeable that this year’s election campaign is the slowest to take off and the least exciting in living memory. By this time in 1979, brothers were not on speaking terms, landlords were evicting tenants that belonged to rival parties, fathers-in-law were taking their daughters away from husbands, customers were no longer buying provisions from traders that belonged to rival parties and worshippers no longer prayed behind imams who supported rival parties. That little of that is happening is not because Nigerian voters and politicians have improved their game. No; the 2019 election lacks passion essentially because it is a choice between two far Northern, Hausa-Fulani Muslims so there is a political Third Mainland Bridge spanning all the major fault lines of Nigerian politics.