One year in Nigerian politics

The happy part of it is that the day is a paid public holiday. It is suitably misnamed Democracy Day because beyond the fact that a president was inaugurated in Nigeria on that date in 1999, there is no other evidence to support the claim. What is likely to be the feeling in our top […]

The happy part of it is that the day is a paid public holiday. It is suitably misnamed Democracy Day because beyond the fact that a president was inaugurated in Nigeria on that date in 1999, there is no other evidence to support the claim.
What is likely to be the feeling in our top executive office holder’s mind when he looks at the circled date? It entirely depends on which electoral cycle he belongs to. If he is one of the 18 state governors who are completing their second terms in 2015, the date is a reminder that he has exactly one year to go before he gives up the exalted office. It means he has one year before he undergoes what Dr Chidobelu Offia once called “remassification,” which he defined as “sinking back into the relative anonymity of the masses.”
A governor who has a year to go should be pondering about his place in history. American politicians say that while a first time president is running for re-election, a second and final term president is running for the history books. In Nigerian politics, the policies and programs targeted at winning a second term are different from those that could earn you a good place in history. While short term social and infrastructure projects better serve the cause of re-election, grand legacy projects register much better when history is being written.  
For  the 18 governors who are running for the history books, the task at hand in the remaining one year includes to complete key legacy projects; initiate legacy projects that you will not be able to complete during your tenure but which a successor will complete and the main credit still goes to you; reduce the number of your personal and political enemies to make your retirement life easier; and prepare a soft landing out of the Government House for yourself by grabbing a senatorial seat or angling for a ministerial seat. One of the matters uppermost in the minds of a Nigerian governor who has but a year to go in office is the issue of anointing a successor and ramming him through to the governor’s chair.
Then there is a second group, of first term governors who will seek re-election in 2015. The governors of Nasarawa, Borno, Yobe, Zamfara, Kaduna, Kwara, Gombe, Bayelsa, Ogun, Oyo and Imo are in this category, as is the acting governor of Taraba State. They all have two rivers to cross; the primaries and the main election. A governor is usually not threatened in his party’s primary elections. The few cases in Nigerian politics when a governor was denied a return ticket by his party include Dr. Clement Isong in 1983, Alhaji Mala Kachallah in 2003 and Chief Timipre Sylva in 2011. In all three cases, powerful figures at the national level snatched away the tickets from incumbent governors.
In the main election, the governors seeking second terms could be divided into PDP governors and opposition governors. There are two governors who do not belong to these two camps but none of them is standing for election in 2015. Usually, a PDP governor running for re-election is less fearful for his position because he assumes that Federal might will be deployed on his side. He can therefore concentrate on overcoming his local opponents who in most cases are no match for a sitting governor.
Now, situations have occurred in Nigeria where governors who belonged to the ruling party at the centre were defeated by a highly mobilised opposition. The three such episodes include the defeat of NPN’s Kwara State Governor Adamu Attah in 1983; Rabi’u Kwankwaso’s defeat in Kano in 2003 and Aliyu Akwe Doma’s defeat in Nasarawa in 2011. PDP governors were also ousted in Ondo, Osun, Ekiti and Edo after protracted election tribunal cases. In 2015 calculations, many PDP governors would be apprehensive that they are ruling over states with heavy APC sentiment. The governors of Kaduna and Gombe states as well as anointed PDP candidates in Katsina, Jigawa, Bauchi and Niger states all fall into this category.
Then there is a third group of governors who, though they are in their second and final terms in office, are not due to give up office next year because they were elected on different dates. In this category are the governors of Edo, Ondo and Kogi states while the governor of Anambra just began his first term. There are two more governors in a different category of their own, the ones who are due to face re-election earlier than 2015. Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti is due to face re-election next month while Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun faces re-election in August. As such, the temperature in the government houses of Ado Ekiti and Oshogbo is decidedly higher than the average temperature in Nigerian government houses.
All the while we were talking about governors. The temperature at the Presidential Villa must be even higher as they look at the circled date May 29. Normally in Nigerian politics, the president is safer from electoral dangers than a governor is but as 2015 approaches, Dr Goodluck Jonathan’s presidential chair appears to be more imperilled electorally than an average PDP governor’s. No doubt the affair of the Chibok girls, and the Boko Haram insurgency generally, have played a big part in sapping the president’s political standing in Nigeria and abroad but they are not the only factors. The coming together of the main opposition parties to form a united party and to present the ruling PDP with a real challenge for the first time since 1999 happened under Jonathan’s watch.
Jonathan the novice politician watched askance while Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, who winked knowingly in 2011 when Yoruba voters deserted ACN’s presidential candidate and voted en masse for Jonathan, now spearheaded the formation of a unified opposition party. Jonathan could have done something about it because Tinubu was the only person in Nigerian politics that could bring the Yoruba-dominated ACN and the far-North domiciled CPC under the same roof. He was also the only political force that could bring ANPP into the union, since its chieftains had frosty relations with CPC. For, despite all the Chibok uproar, Jonathan would have had little reason at this time to worry about 2015 if APC had not been formed. He would have been facing a divided opposition of CPC, ACN, ANPP and APGA and a very likely repeat of 2011. But not anymore.
 Not only did he watch the opposition consolidate under his nose but he also backed the disastrous Bamanga Tukur PDP leadership that created the environment for the defection of five PDP governors to join APC and the uncertain loyalties of two more PDP governors who were in bed with the New PDP.
What are President Jonathan’s options? It is possible for him to run in 2015 and win, especially if APC bungles the choice of its presidential ticket. On the other hand, there is the likelihood that he would run and lose. If he loses, he could either decide to leave quietly or he could do a Laurent Gbagbo and Joyce Banda, bring the roof crashing down. Things could also spiral out of control and the president’s desperate supporters could blow the roof without his consent. Then there is the third option, which is for Jonathan to refuse to contest and allow his party to figure out a way to win the election with another candidate. But Jonathan will not choose that option, from the look of things.  
It was Prime Minister Harold Wilson who said in 1964 that “a week is a long time in politics.” He meant British politics, which looks to us from here as akin to a group of monks at prayer. You can imagine what a week is in Nigerian politics, and we are talking here of one year.