Osinbajo: Art thou the one?

From the book of political tricks comes this one on how to ensure that President Buhari is succeeded by another Northern politician, stultifying the practice of rotating the presidency between the North and the South: Unleash veteran dogs of war on the political space to start a rivalry between Yoruba and Igbo presidential aspirants. “Give […]

From the book of political tricks comes this one on how to ensure that President Buhari is succeeded by another Northern politician, stultifying the practice of rotating the presidency between the North and the South: Unleash veteran dogs of war on the political space to start a rivalry between Yoruba and Igbo presidential aspirants. “Give us an Igbo president”, they would say — the same people who in the past couldn’t stand what they described as Chuba Okadigbo’s arrogance, even when Okadigbo ran as Buhari’s vice-presidential candidate. When a known Igbophobiac starts saying it’s time for an Igbo president, don’t think he has had a Damascene moment.

The trick of playing one nationality against the other is an old one. It is the equivalent of a Yoruba president trying to play the Kanuri against the Fulani or Hausa or other northern tribes. If these political engineers have any respect for their audience at all, they should invent a new trick. The convention is that it is the turn of the South to produce the president — any part of the South. Whatever happens, it is not likely that Southerners will allow seeds of discord sown among them to deprive them of supporting one of their own to succeed President Buhari.

An objective appraisal of the two main political parties (APC and PDP) shows that both are struggling with cohesion — APC much more so because it is the party in power. Some old hawks in PDP want to jettison the rotation convention and field Atiku Abubakar again. The former vice-president is seen as their best bet to reclaim the presidency. Their calculation is that if APC fields a Southerner, the North will vote PDP’s northern candidate, thereby extending the rule of northerners at the centre.

The underlying argument in this context is that most of the visible northern politicians don’t believe in party loyalty when regional advantages are concerned. Thus, cynics argue, an APC bigwig will support a PDP northern candidate against his own southern candidate to ensure that power remains in the North.

I personally have too many examples of principled northerners supporting the candidature of people outside their zone that I think the kind of reasoning outlined above is contrived to make the North look parochial for whatever reason.

What seems to make sense in the many permutations being flung in the public space, especially on social media, is the fact that the waters of religious amity have been so muddied in the last 10 years, particularly with the advent of the Boko Haram terrorists, that it is unlikely that Nigerians will tolerate a Muslim-Muslim ticket again as they did in 1993 when the winning SDP fielded Moshood Abiola and Babagana Kingibe.

APC Leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a Muslim, stands heads and shoulders above many possible candidates but he cannot pick a Christian running mate from the North and expect to win the presidential election. The Northeast and Northwest are vital. Tinubu will have to be paired with a Muslim northerner. If not, the Christian lobby will simply go into overdrive with its campaign against an ‘Islamisation agenda’ — and they will kill the ticket.

Therefore, talking political realism, what a master strategist like Tinubu may do is consider the fact that though he is eminently qualified to be president, the exigencies of the moment will not permit two people of the same faith to be president and vice-president on the same ticket. In which case, The Asiwaju of Lagos will don his cap of political engineering once again and endorse one of his erstwhile acolytes — one both he and Buhari can trust.

It is likely that the university don who worked as Attorney-General under Governor Tinubu and now serves as Buhari’s vice-president may be summoned to step up to the presidential plate.

Having worked with Buhari for two terms of four years each, Yemi Osinbajo will still have to surmount the doubts of those who think he has been more Buharist than Buhari himself or that he is a weak vice-president who agrees with everything his boss does. On the other side of the coin are those who are impressed by his unimpeachable loyalty to Buhari and his stoic taciturnity when he came under attack from dark forces within the presidency. That is why many people are taking a closer look at Osinbajo and wondering, art thou the one?

Of course, there are some ambitious gadflies in the flanks, chief among whom is Tunde Bakare, the pentecostal pastor who ran with Buhari in 2011. But some analysts think Kingsley Moghalu is a better proposition.

It appears that going forward, Nigerians will no longer tolerate a lopsided federal arrangement. A situation where the talents of our own Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (another presidential material) are being tapped by South Africa instead of Nigeria needs to change. The Southeast — one leg of the erstwhile tripod of Nigerian politics— has to have a seat at the table.

Any deal that doesn’t equitably share the top positions in the presidency among the six zones of the country cannot enjoy the kind of wide support necessary to achieve national cohesion and development. Thus, if the next president is from Southwest and the Vice-President is from Northwest/Northeast, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation must come from the Southeast while the South-South and Middle Belt also hold powerful and visible positions.

Call it a commonwealth government if you like; otherwise the recurring refrain will be, “To thy tents, O Natives”!