Tricky art of choosing running mate

Atiku Abubakar’s choice of former Anambra State governor Peter Obi as his running mate was quick, as these things often go. Atiku chose Obi within five days of winning PDP’s ticket, which gives the impression that he had decided on it even before the convention. That is not a bad commentary for advanced planning, but […]

Atiku Abubakar’s choice of former Anambra State governor Peter Obi as his running mate was quick, as these things often go. Atiku chose Obi within five days of winning PDP’s ticket, which gives the impression that he had decided on it even before the convention. That is not a bad commentary for advanced planning, but it might have come at the cost of sober reflection and intense consultation.

Incumbents who win re-election tickets often face the easiest choices of running mates. President Buhari announced back in August that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo would be his running mate in 2019. That was clever, because Osinbajo has high regard across the country due to the way he conducted himself in the last three and a half years, especially when he was Acting President. In contrast, Buhari took a week to choose Osinbajo in 2014, the time he needed to ward off pressure from Bola Tinubu, who wanted to be the running mate despite the risks of a Muslim/Muslim ticket.

To go further back to 2007, Umaru Yar’adua took two days to nominate Dr. Goodluck Jonathan as his running mate. Or to put it more correctly, it took two days for then President Obasanjo to impose a running mate on him, having eliminated stronger contenders due, as we later learnt, to EFCC presenting dossiers on the other contenders. Obasanjo himself took only a few days after his victory at PDP’s Jos Convention in 1999 to choose Atiku as his running mate. It was tricky because Atiku was already the governor-elect of Adamawa. He later testified that Obasanjo chose him after asking him a strange question, “Can you take orders from me?”

In 2002 when Obasanjo was preparing to contest for reelection, his men committed a major blunder when, just before his declaration, they removed posters bearing “Obasanjo/Atiku” and replaced them with those proclaiming “Obasanjo 2003.” Obasanjo explained at the time, unconvincingly, that he could not possibly select a running mate when he had not yet won a re-election ticket. That small event greatly embarrassed and angered the powerful Vice President. It probably set the stage for their infamous quarrel over the next 16 years, which only ended last week, if we are to believe the reconciliation brokered by Sheikh Ahmed Gummi and Bishop Mathew Kukah.

Sometimes a candidate doesn’t have much of a choice. Soon after he won SDP’s ticket in 1993, Chief M.K.O. Abiola chose Babagana Kingibe as running mate because SDP’s 14 state governors insisted on it. On the other hand, his NRC rival Bashir Tofa exposed his flank when he chose Dr. Sylvester Ugoh as his running mate. SDP propagandists quickly said Ugoh was Governor of the Bank of Biafra when the currency it issued during the civil war was worthless. [It wasn’t Ugor’s fault, come to think of it].

Obasanjo’s failed 2002 attempt to ditch Atiku departed from the standard set by President Shehu Shagari. Before NPN renominated him in 1982, a full one year before the 1983 election, he made it clear that he would run again with Vice President Alex Ekwueme. Going back further to 1978 when Shagari won NPN’s ticket at its “nominating convention” in Lagos, he took about ten days, if I remember right, to chose Ekwueme. There was intense consultation with Eastern NPN leaders and they shortlisted three names, two of whom were much better known than Ekwueme at the time. One was Chief J.O.J. Okezie, Federal Commissioner for Agriculture in the Gowon regime. The other was Chief Jerome Udoji, whose name was indelibly tied with the greatest Father Christmas event in Nigeria’s history, the Udoji salary arrears of 1974.

Now, when Shagari chose Ekwueme over Okezie and Udoji, some newspaper writers said that he did not want to be overshadowed by a giant figure. This theme has continued to feature in Nigerian politics, at federal and state levels, since 1978. The desire not to be overshadowed looms large in the calculations of many candidates when choosing their running mates. It does not always apply, though. President Buhari’s stature is too big to be eclipsed by a running mate. Atiku Abubakar too, is a giant political figure in Nigeria and there is no one in PDP who can eclipse him as running mate.

Most probably therefore, Atiku chose Peter Obi for a different reason. What is that reason? The most obvious one is that South East and South South are currently PDP’s strongholds and a running mate is needed to solidify that support. But there is another way to look at it. If that region is already PDP’s stronghold, why not strike out by choosing a South Western running mate and try to bring that region into play, as American strategists put it? I say this because a candidate chooses a running mate either to balance his ticket or to accentuate it. In 1992 when Bill Clinton, moderate Democrat from Arkansas, chose Al Gore, also a moderate Democrat from neighbouring Tennessee as his running mate, a CNN analyst said Clinton saw his position on the political spectrum as so advantageous that he accentuated it, instead of balancing it.

Coming back home, I suspect that Atiku’s liberal personal posture, accentuated by his Yoruba wife, already appeals to many South Westerners. The main snag at present is that a Buhari second term is the shortest route for having another Yoruba President, so Atiku could have neutralized that feeling with a Yoruba running mate. Of course, the flip side of it is that he could alienate South Easterners, who think a promised single Atiku term is the shortest route to an Eastern president. That is where pollsters come in, if only we had some reliable ones in Nigeria. For example, even if Atiku’s choice of a Yoruba running mate angers Igbo voters, what can they do? Can they really support Buhari? This is something a pollster could find out. And also, are the Yoruba really concerned about producing a president in 2023, given the embarrassment of the Obasanjo presidency?

Ok, lets proceed from regional calculations to personal ones. Since Atiku obviously believes that a South Eastern running mate is more advantageous politically, was Peter Obi the best material available? Obi’s rich CV, which was posted on the social media, was roundly criticized for being padded with frivolities. The most important thing in the CV is that he was chairman of Fidelity Bank and two-term governor of Anambra State. The questions that were not answered by the CV were, in what ways does Obi either add to Atiku’s strengths or makes up for the candidate’s weaknesses?

The main issues in the upcoming campaign are likely to be integrity/anti-corruption, fairness to all sections, internal security and the economy, not necessarily in that order. APC’s candidate will most certainly grab that first one with both hands, plus some of the third one, being an Army General. That leaves the second and fourth issues for Atiku to grab and make as his main planks, if he can. The choice of a running mate is important here because while Atiku establishes himself as the champion of, say, fairness to all sections, he could get a running mate who conveys the image of economic competence. I am only saying all these to show the kind of calculations that should go to the choice of running mate. That is, if we believe that the opinion of voters really counts.

Governorship candidates of major parties all over the country are also struggling to choose running mates. Just like at the centre, all states have dividing lines which define choice of running mates for balancing reasons. Other factors that influence such choices include to please a godfather, to win over the runner-up in the primaries who has shown political strength, or to bring in a man who will bring money to the campaign. That is why picking a running mate is a tricky art.