As the New Year opens, TAIWO AMODU, examines the political gladiators that will seize the attention of Nigerians and determine the course of political events for the country in 2022.
The New Year is here! For an average Nigerian, the focus now will be on how to survive the socio-economic hardship that will tightly grip the country should the Federal Government proceed with its resolve to increase the pump price of petroleum products and electricity tariff, which organised labour unions have threatened to resist with industrial actions as they believe the government’s decision will subject Nigerians to more excruciating economic hardship.
But for politicians in the country, the focus is on the next general elections and how to lobby perceived enemies or crush recalcitrant foes. Sunday Tribune unveils the politicians in both the main opposition party and the ruling party that will seize the attention of Nigerians and determine the course of political events for 2022.
President Muhammadu Buhari
President Muhammadu Buhari is believed to possess the ace in 2022 and beyond because of the factor incumbency. His body language will go a long way in determining the direction of the political calculus and equation. Ditto his pronouncements on decisive political matters. Though largely taciturn, the president is said to be hard on issues once he has made up his mind.
Professor Yemi Osinbajo
Many have also identified the vice president, Professor Yemi Osinbajo as another potent force to look out for in the countdown to the election year. His allies, loyalists and supporters say his role is already cut out for him, going by his role in the Buhari administration in the last six tears, coupled with his credentials and pedigree.
Mai Mala Buni
The reticent Yobe State governor is the chairman of the Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) put in place by the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in June 2020 after the dissolution of its National Working Committee (NWC) under the leadership of former Edo State governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole.
Since he assumed office to run the APC national secretariat now christened Buhari House, the governor has received both commendations and criticisms from every part of the fractured ruling party, perhaps because since he came onboard, he has introduced a valid membership register and inaugurated a national reconciliation team for the party, while multiple crises that trailed the ward, local and state congresses organised by the party continue to widening its internal cracks.
To some observers, Buni’s leadership of the APC in the last one year has rattled the main opposition party in the country having poached three governors and a sizeable number of federal lawmakers, while to other watchers, the Yobe governor’s reign has further disjointed the ruling party house it was commissioned to put in order ahead of 2023.
But as it stands now, the Buni’s leadership is expected to conduct a national convention in February that will emplace substantive national officers for the APC ahead of its presidential primary that will produce its standard-bearer in the 2023 general election. Will the governor’s committee deliver a rancour-free convention and transparent election of national officers for the party that will be a reference point in the country? Or will his committee falter and merely pander to the whims and caprices of a power bloc in the party? Only time will tell.
Bola Tinubu
The former Lagos State governor and national leader of the ruling party has earned the appellation of a master strategist since his days as governor on the platform of the defunct Alliance for Democracy (AD). But while his other five colleagues in the AD lost their states to a rampaging Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2003, Tinubu survived the onslaught.
He thereafter launched a new platform, the Action Congress (AC) that metamorphosed into the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) with which he galvanised like minds in the South-West to regain lost grounds in the 2011 general elections.
The defunct ACN was one of the four opposition parties that in 2014 coalesced to form the APC, which has now become the Asiwaju’s apparent political albatross, as his dominance in the South-West has been challenged by his benefactors and proteges within the party.
But despite this, reports have continued to pinpoint Tinubu in the 2023 presidential race, much to the delight of many shadowy pressure groups that have since emerged to promote his presidential ambition even as he has equally dropped the hint that he would join the race for the exalted office.
Abubakar Malami
Abubakar Malami (SAN) is the Attorney General and Minister of Justice. Regarded as an influential member of the President Muhammadu Buhari cabinet, Malami’s remarks have been quite revealing and illuminating in the past three years on the Federal Government policy direction. A few examples will suffice: APC chieftains were in a quandary over the position to be taken, following the July, 2021 Supreme Court judgment in which the PDP candidate, Eyitayo Jegede challenged the Ondo State governor, Rotimi Akeredolu’s victory in the state 2020 governorship election.
Jegede (SAN), in his petition, had argued that Governor Buni, according to section 183 of the Nigerian constitution and article 17(4) of the APC constitution, could not function both as governor and acting chairman of the ruling party concurrently. In their judgment, Justice Mary Peter-Odili, Ejembi Eko and Ibrahim Saulawa maintained that Governor Buni violated the two constitutions by acting as the chairman of the ruling party and submitting Akeredolu’s name to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for election purposes, despite he (Buni) being an incumbent governor in the country.
While the vice-president, Professor Yemi Osinbajo (SAN), and the Minister of State for Labour, Festus Keyamo (SAN), pushed for Buni and other governors’ exit in the APC caretaker committee, Malami insisted that no law was violated.
More remarkably, before President Buhari wrote a formal letter to inform the National Assembly on why he declined his assent to the Electoral Act 2020 Amendment Bill, Malami, who was believed to be in league with the governors, had alerted the nation that direct primary would be too unwieldy and cumbersome for the nation’s security agencies, which was part of the reasons the president later stated in his letter to the Senate President for withholding his presidential assent.
There are speculations that Malami plans to seek the APC governorship ticket in his home, Kebbi State. Incidentally, incumbent Governor Atiku Abubakar Bagudu is the chairman of the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF). Will he compensate Malami with the governorship ticket? Another poser to be solved later in 2022.
The PGF that Bagudu heads, despite being the governor of Kebbi State, has no place in the APC Constitution, but determines who gets what, when and how in the party. The body was instrumental in the ouster of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, as the APC national chairman, the dissolution of the party’s NWC and the crowning of Governor Buni as the head of its interim leadership committee.
It is no news that the federal lawmakers have lost the battle to impose direct primary as the sole choice open to parties to pick their candidates as Governor Bagudu’s PGF in consonance with certain forces in the presidential villa were able to prevail on President Buhari to withhold his assent to the Electoral Act Amendment Bill.
Even as of press time, there are reports that virtually all the chairmanship aspirants have been seeking the endorsement of the PGF ahead of the party’s convention, while the forum too has started planning to install a former governor in the country as Buni’s successor in the ruling party. Will Bagudu and his colleagues succeed in installing their anointed choice as national chairman or lose to other contending power blocs? Will they decide who picks the APC presidential ticket? All shall be revealed as 2022 unfolds.
Iyorchia Ayu
Having emerged as the PDP national chairman, a former president of the Senate, Dr Iyorchia Ayu, has assured the party PDP stakeholders that his team would deliver transparent, free and fair primaries to pick candidates for the 2023 general election. As such, the opposition party’s presidential primary expected to hold this year remains the acid test for the Senator Ayu-led NWC even as there are cynical chieftains, who see the former senator as a stooge of former vice president and presidential contender, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. Will Ayu walk the talk of giving the party back to its ordinary faithful? Or will he surrender his authority to the PDP Governors’ Forum? Only time also will tell.
Bukola Saraki
Two-term former governor of Kwara State, former chairman of the forum of 36 states’ governors and former president of the Senate, Dr Bukola Saraki, has renewed his bid for PDP presidential ticket. Urbane, Saraki is seen as bridge builder and reconciliatory and capable of ending the current era of the Northern and the Southern divide. He, like the incumbent governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello, has been telling the rest of the country that the North Central deserves to be trusted with the highest political office in the country. But will Nigerians support his clamour?
Atiku Abubakar
The former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, was the PDP presidential candidate in the last general election. Feelers revealed pulsating beats and frenzy in the camp of Turaki Adamawa in the gradual buildup to PDP primary.
Aminu Tambuwal
Former Speaker of the House of Representatives, honouraable Aminu Tambuwal, is currently exercising his mandate as second-term governor of Sokoto State. He is the Chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum. But it is an open secret that Tambuwal, despite being from North-West, the same zone that produced President Buhari is preparing to contest the PDP presidential ticket. To the apostles of zoning of elective offices, such development is curious. It is recalled that the Governor Bala Mohammed 2019 Election Review Committee report recommended that the PDP 2023 presidential ticket be thrown open to all the zones in the country.
Nyesom Wike
The Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, is an influential member of the PDP Governors Forum. He was the one that unarguably installed Uche Secondus as the national chairman of the opposition party and saw to his exit at Wadata plaza. Wike has joined his counterpart in Sokoto State, Tambuwal, to flaunt the Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed Committee report, which did not preclude any geo-political zone from seeking the PDP presidential ticket in 2023.
There are also speculations that the Rivers governor will pair a northerner as his vice presidential candidate. But in whatever way this pans out, the PDP governor will definitely shape the political storm of 2022.
Senator Tanko Al-Makura
The ex-two-term governor of Nasarawa State and senator representing Nasarawa South is one of the current chairmanship aspirants. Apart from Senator Al-Makura, six other former governors in the country are in the contest: Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, Kashim Shettima, George Akume, Isa Yuguda, Abdul Aziz Yari and Danjuma Goje, former governors of Borno, Benue, Bauchi, Zamfara and Gombe States respectively. It promises to be a titanic battle because of the variegated tendencies in the APC
Gboyega Oyetola
The Osun State governorship election has been scheduled for July this year by INEC with the incumbent seeking a second term on the platform of the APC. Oyetola administration has earned the accolades of civil servants, artisans and top citizens in the South-West state, who are impressed with his fiscal discipline and achievements in office.
Like Tinubu, Oyetola is also set for an epic contest, not from the main opposition party, the PDP, but within the APC. In his own case, his immediate predecessor and Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola is the voice leading his “opposition” flanks within the APC, apparently in league with a former deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Honourable Lasun Yussuff and former Secretary to the State Government, Moshood Adeoti. The state governorship primary has been fixed for March. Will the process give the governor his second-term ticket or not?
Kayode Fayemi
The Ekiti State governor is the chairman of the forum of the 36 state governors, the Nigerian Governors Forum, the strategic office that confers on him the responsibility of taking the front seat in the interface among the governors, the presidency and the leadership of the National Assembly. The office apparently confers certain privileges on its occupant. A fresh governorship election will hold in June in Ekiti, which is a prelude to Fayemi’s exit as governor of Ekiti.
Already, the ruling APC state chapter is torn between the loyalists of Governor Fayemi estranged benefactor, Bola Tinubu and the governor’s sympathisers. A former Minister of State for Works under the Goodluck Jonathan administration, Prince Dayo Adeyeye, who is the coordinator of the South-West Agenda for Asiwaju (SWAGA) is leading the anti-Fayemi camp in Ekiti State.
Will Fayemi, who is rumoured to be nursing a presidential ambition, install his successor in Ekiti? Ahead of the 2023 presidential election, will he be given a bloodied nose at the home front? This and many more will be revealed this election campaign year.
Samuel Ortom
Governor Samuel Ortom is among the most voices in the opposition PDP. He played a strategic role in the politics that threw up Dr Ayu as the substantive national chairman of the party. A few other PDP juggernauts have been paying visits to him, ostensibly to lobby Ortom in their bid for the presidential ticket of PDP.
El-Rufai
Diminutive and cerebral Governor Nasir El-Rufai is another politician that might pull a surprise in the politics of the new dispensation. His views and position on critical issues in emerging trends in the political space could be central not just in the APC but in the presidential contest generally.
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