From today, it is exactly 62 days to the most consequential of the 2023 general election, the presidential contest. This election cycle presents tricky choices, but it is doubtful if there are voters to be wooed again, save for those to be swayed with cash. Religion, ethnicity and primordial sentiments have helped millions to make choices, moments the main political parties, concluded the nomination process. Expectedly, candidates of the Big 2, Bola Tinubu of APC and Abubakar Atiku of PDP emerged big. Yoruba will say, ajanaku o bi arara, omo ti erin ba bi, erin lohun jo (an elephant won’t birth a dwarf, the child of an elephant is big from birth.) The two platforms are domineering and their candidates became automatic favourites. The miracle candidate, running big, is Peter Obi of Labour. Until his emergence as the presidential candidate, LP was a minnow. Not running back to APGA after being frozen out of the PDP race was a masterstroke from Obi and his handlers. APGA would have shuttered the national reach needed not to be an also-ran.
The three leading candidates have different paths to victory, but Obi’s is widely deemed the least likely to happen. But credible presidential election historians aren’t closing books on him winning, only that it would be the miracle of the 2023 poll and a revolutionary shift in voting patterns and citizen participation in Nigeria.
Maybe a citizen revolution is truly upon the country’s political system, but there is a historical pattern that doesn’t favour the Labour Party. Since independence, no minor political party has ever won the presidency, but strangely also, all past presidents, including the incumbent, took office when the country wasn’t expecting them. Call their ascendancy a miracle and you won’t be far from understanding the Word of God in Romans 9:16 which says: “it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.”
Shehu Shagari, the first democratically-elected was eyeing the Senate when favour found him to rule Nigeria. Olusegun Obasanjo, the second democratically-elected, was a famous prisoner before God turned his mess to a message of “from prison to palace”. Umaru Yar’Adua was set to retire home after a lacklustre stewardship as Katsina governor before grace projected him into Obasanjo’s gaze, despite his excessive drawbacks, especially his poor health. The man who succeeded him, Goodluck Jonathan was a sad man, looking very gloomy on national television when announced as Yar’Adua’s deputy. He was content being Bayelsa governor.
In Ahmadu Ali’s biography released in 2018 and titled, “The many colours of a rainbow” the former national chairman of PDP had this to say about Jonathan becoming VP, “Jonathan was stunned. He was obviously not expecting this and had not remotely considered the possibility. He opened his mouth as if to say something but nothing came out. The president (Obasanjo) seeing his discomfiture added helpfully, ‘This decision was taken after a long process. We just want to know what your opinion is.’ Finally, Jonathan found his voice, although he was disconcerted by this development. He began tentatively, “if I had a choice, I would prefer to remain as governor.”
The man originally pencilled in for the slot was Peter Odili, but grace found the Bayelsan for a greater glory as a completely-unprepared president.
Even the incumbent, Muhammadu Buhari, said he was done trying after failing thrice. But providence found him at the fourth reluctant attempt. He wasn’t seeking, but was sought out, by God of grace, using others as mere vessels.
Next year’s poll may, however, change the “unwilling president” trajectory, except God is showing men again, He rules in their affairs. Two of the front row candidates are seeking to fulfil lifetime ambitions as confessed by them. Even Obi isn’t unwilling. In 2019, he lost being a heartbeat away from the top job as Atiku’s Vee Pee to the re-election desperation of the incumbent. There are signals that the incumbent is now seeking a kind of reparation for Atiku, for the 2019 loss, but Obi won’t be a partaker. Okowa may just be the beneficiary. Just like Pastor Tunde Bakare of 2011 and Pastor Yemi Osinbajo of 2015.
Aanu Adeoye, the West Africa Correspondent for Financial Times of London, cruelly described Abubakar as Nigeria’s nearly-man, who is eyeing victory in his sixth presidential run, in a piece he quoted the Adamawa politician as saying “it (running for president) is a life-long ambition, and as long as I’m alive and strong and healthy, I will continue pursuing it.” His APC counterpart has also consistently spoken of a lifetime passion to lead the most-populous black nation on the earth. While Obi’s presidential desire isn’t as naked, he isn’t also showing signs of wanting to concede the show to others. If elected, he would be making a “First” history in East. The only civilian Igbo before him, Nnamdi Azikiwe, wasn’t democratically-elected.
But somehow, the revolving door at Aso Rock has been answering to ambitions in strange ways. Since 1999, it has been rejecting the desperate. At the height of Buhari’s desperation, the door was firmly shut against him, despite his capacity for insurrection against democracy, which he actually ignited to national sorrow. In 2015, when he dropped a bit of the messiah-complex, grace found him. The then-incumbent, Jonathan, who got traditional rulers to submit their staffs on his shoulders in a show of efficacy of African power, got voted out of office.
There is also the story of a Nigerian for those seeking power in next election.
On December 14, 1991, there was governorship election across states in Nigeria between candidates of now-defunct Social Democratic Party and National Republican Convention. In a state, the governorship candidate of NRC had an auto accident, while campaigning. He was rushed abroad for treatment and recuperation. From hospital bed, he was elected governor.
When democracy returned in 1999, he also returned as governor on the platform of the All Nigeria People’s Party. He was the first and second democratically-elected governor of the state. Then in 2003, he was muscled out of office by a coalition that wanted to see his back at whatever cost. But his ambition was still burning.
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On November 22, 2015, he was coasting to another gubernatorial victory when the music suddenly stopped for him. He died before he could be officially named the governor of the state for the third time, despite building a huge lead over the incumbent he was seeking to depose.
He wanted three terms but God allowed only two, his ambition, regardless.
In April 2017, his son granted an interview to The Sun newspaper meant to set the records straight about the late politician.
“We didn’t grow up to believe in any spiritual attack. More so, I know that he died of bleeding peptic ulcer” he was quoted as saying.
Auto-crash couldn’t stop his history-making victory as the first executive governor of the state, but peptic ulcer stopped his comeback history.
Proverbs 16:1 says, “to humans belong the plans of the heart, but from the Lord comes the proper answer of the tongue” while Verse 9 says, “in their hearts, human plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.”
That man was Abubakar Audu. Does anyone still remember him?
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