The four horsemen of the PDP northern consensus

By Richard Ali After eight years of being out of power, the internal security failures of the Buhari administration and the inability of the AllProgressives Congress (APC) to coalesce a workable party structure has made the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) an option in the 2023 elections. The PDP now finds that it needs a compelling […]

By Richard Ali

After eight years of being out of power, the internal security failures of the Buhari administration and the inability of the AllProgressives Congress (APC) to coalesce a workable party structure has made the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) an option in the 2023 elections. The PDP now finds that it needs a compelling electoral offering that sets an agenda beyond simply being “not-APC” and sells this to a weary electorate. It must also balance massively powerful ethno-religious, business, international and similar blocs, which can make or break any national political party. The most recent attempt at this balancing act has been a consensus grouping, which aims at backing a single candidate from northern Nigeria in the contest for the PDP flag.

The northern Nigerian candidates around whom a consensus is sought are mostly heavyweight has-beens comprising Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President; Bukola Saraki, the former Senate President; and Aminu Tambuwal, former Speaker and incumbent governor of Sokoto State. Bringing up the quartet is Mohammed Hayatu-Deen, a banker who has not held any elective posts prior to now.

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The most formidable candidate is, of course, Atiku Abubakar, who has already run the country as Olusegun Obasanjo’s deputy from 1999 to 2007 and is now seeking to run it again as helmsman. Being a PDP operative for so long, apart from a brief stint at the APC, Atiku presents a national figure with numerous businesses and socio-political networks he has inherited and assiduously curated alongside a formidable war chest that has dispensed largesse in four failed bids for the presidency and counting. Atiku is also a recognisable brand to the regular Nigerian voter, largely because former President Obasanjo, more than anyone else apart from Nuhu Ribadu, has framed him as being a fantastically corrupt public official and this perception is unlikely to change. Further, in a political terrain where history is routinely pressed to service, Atiku’s failure to go all the way with his self-orchestrated 2003 PDP Convention coup against Olusegun Obasanjo is held against him; most pundits believe his moment of political greatness passed nearly two decades ago. Nigeria is a country where failed coup plotters are seldom forgiven and are always tainted with the patina of bad luck. Nonetheless, there are many who will bet on him.

Bukola Saraki, a banker before his foray into politics, presents an interesting northern Nigerian candidature around whom a consensus can be built at a time when “It’s the economy, stupid” rings true. The Nigerian economy is in shambles largely because of the Buhari administration’s pig-headed defence of the Naira without rationale, policy inconsistencies and routine flip flops from the central bank, and subpar control by the Ministry of Finance. Having been governor of Kwara State, Saraki has sub-national administrative bona fides useful in tempering the big picture view from Aso Rock. He is also young and has assiduously cultivated this cachet as a 57-year-old. Nonetheless, Saraki’s experience is at a bank owned by his late father in what smacks of nepotism especially when Saraki brutally dismantled his own father’s political machinery on which he rode to power in Kwara State. Saraki, ever-smiling, is largely seen in terms of an Oedipus complex, which is not helped by revelations from the EFCC that the Board of Société Générale Bank, chaired by his father, on which he sat, approved unsecured loans of N210,000,000 and N40,000,000 to the Kwara State PDP, as well as charges relating to a $35,000,000 transfer and much else in 2003. Saraki was protected by immunity at the time and could not be prosecuted. Nonetheless, as recently as July 2021, he was arrested by the EFCC on alleged theft and laundering of public funds using a network of cronies and proxy companies. He was an able Senate President but even in that period, there were contentions around incorrect assets declaration. Saraki holds British citizenship, dual to his Nigerian one. While not constitutionally barred from vying for office, a dual citizen sitting over the political, defence and security architecture of Nigeria as President, Commander-in-Chief, will likely be of concern to regular Nigerians. Further, in a consensus arrangement where trust is a premium, and loyalty is of the highest value, the other candidates in the consensus coalition may not quickly forget Saraki’s shenanigan of outwitting the APC and even President Buhari to “steal” the senate presidency contrary to party arrangement.

The current governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal, who emerged as speaker in 2011, is without a doubt an extremely intelligent person who will vie with Saraki, broad smile for broad smile, as a representative of the youth in a political clime that has been shaped drastically by youth unrest, from #OccupyNigeria to #EndSARS. As speaker, he cut a figure of principled dissidence when he dumped the PDP—under whose flag he now hopes to be president—for the governing APC, earning national sympathy when the IG of Police ill-advisedly withdrew his security for cross carpeting. An avid political survivor, Tambuwal has been a member of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), defecting to the  Democratic People’s Party (DPP) a few months to the 2007 general elections; on being denied a ticket there, he returned to the ANPP, before finally heading to the PDP’s stables on which platform he became Speaker. Tambuwal dumped the PDP just before the 2015 elections and was elected governor under the APC before defecting to the PDP, once again, in 2018. His success is evident in his continued relevance and ambition even though he has been dogged with corruption allegations including a 2013 multibillion naira car purchase scandal where fronts were used to buy 400 official vehicles for House of Representatives members; in 2017, he tangoed with the EFCC over the “pardoning” of aides involved in a N15 billion fraud case and, as recently as two weeks ago, Tambuwal was debunking the alleged diversion of N189 billion belonging to the Sokoto State government over a six-year period. These allegations were revealed in a leaked EFCC interim intelligence report from September 2021.

Mohammed Hayatu-Deen is quite difficult to assess as, having had no public sector experience, he has no record of official corruption, which provides a good benchmark to evaluate the consensus candidates. An economist known mostly for his having been the CEO of the defunct FSB International Bank (now Fidelity Bank), he is a technocrat who started out at the Northern Nigeria Development Company (NNDC). With a B.Sc. in Economics from Ahmadu Bello University, Hayatu-Deen has spent his entire career in the private sector as an investment banker. His stint at the FSB International Bank was a successful salvage operation of the formerly government-owned Federal Mortgage Bank, restructuring it from a post office saving bank into a foremost commercial bank. His manifesto relies strongly on these credentials.

Concluded on http://www.dailytrust.com.ng

Richard Ali is an Abuja-based lawyer and can be reached at [email protected]