Projections into the 2015 presidential election (I)

Whether for the love of country or for an inordinate desire to return to complete an unfinished business, General Muhammadu Buhari has broken his promise twice by jumping back into the arena. For a man of principle, that leaves questions hanging. Ever since he was pulled off his ambition to govern Adamawa, Vice-President Atiku Abubakar […]

Whether for the love of country or for an inordinate desire to return to complete an unfinished business, General Muhammadu Buhari has broken his promise twice by jumping back into the arena. For a man of principle, that leaves questions hanging. Ever since he was pulled off his ambition to govern Adamawa, Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has convinced himself that he is better than sliced bread on the political scene. In fact, he ran ahead of Buhari in the opposition and his videos are poignant and trending on social media. That may resonate with the younger prospective tech-savvy voter. The big question is – would the APC survive the outcome of the convention that eventually picks its flag bearer judging by the contending interests and ego-tripping that is the undercurrents of its politics?
Atiku is a good team player, but he can also be a good spoilsport where things go contrary to his permutation. He is a political tactician with strong tap roots in politics, which uprooted tends to cause environmental tsunami as can be seen in his duel with his former boss, Olusegun Obasanjo. The General is a quiet man, but he is not a pushover. He is one grassroots politician whose silence is read accurately or mischievously by his supporters the way a deaf reads sign language. If no other serious candidate emerges, APC should be thinking of how to wriggle free from implosion after its convention.
The PDP does not have to worry about rancour within its ranks as far as the presidency is concerned. The power of incumbency is so strong that no member would dare kick against the goads; so President Jonathan remains an unopposed candidate in his home turf. Fixers within the party are experts at whipping errant members into line or kicking them into the pavement of irrelevance. Time is not in favour of any deviant to regroup and make an impact. This is as far as candidate permutation goes.
Even before it began, campaigns promise to be unimpressive. Ample and sickening time was spent by both parties debating the outcome of questionable opinion polls when majority of voters have no access to computers or smart phones. The entire brouhaha is akin to the vainglorious self-adulation of the agama lizard. Any presumed leading based on polls in Nigeria is a joke. Those who have access to computers and smart phones have no time to queue at polling booths making their online activism irrelevant. By the way, who are those organizing the polls and what are their intentions?
The short time frame has exposed the non-seriousness of the two big parties hoping to run our country for the next four years. The incontrovertible fact is that President Jonathan is not constitutionally precluded from running. His candidature may raise moral questions, but we do not practice politics of morals hence the setting up of a committee whose recommendation is known in advance at the eleventh hour. After six years in the saddle there is obviously not much to sell to a discerning electorate. His luck is that majority of the electorate are not discerning, they are pre-occupied with the ethno-religious leanings of aspirants over and above service and progress.
While the ruling party is comfortable with the status quo, it is a shame that in six years, the opposition has not sold an alternate plan to the electorate. It had busied itself with trifles – press statements on spilt-milk items. It made no attempt to showcase model governance in the states it controls as simulations of what could be at the centre where given the opportunity. Obviously, it has not read Lenin’s classic – Party Work in the Masses. The effect is obvious in loss of territory. How it hopes to rally from that to break the backbone of a party united in connivance within this short time frame would be a miracle.
For outsiders, our politics must be weird or curious; not knowing your candidates and where they stand on major issues four months to election is not a plus for a country of 170 million. But voters bother about the religious leanings of prospective candidates even though the constitution they are called to operate in the long run is secular.