EXCITING NEWS: TNG WhatsApp Channel is LIVE…
Subscribe for FREE to get LIVE NEWS UPDATE. Click here to subscribe!
By Evaristus Bassey
In the first Book of Kings, an event is recounted to portray the wisdom of King Solomon. Two prostitutes, living in the same apartment, gave birth to a male child each, two days apart. It happened that one of the prostitutes suffocated her child in her sleep, so she woke up and took the other woman’s child while the woman was asleep. The other woman woke up to a dead child as she tried to feed it. On looking more closely at the child, she realized it wasn’t hers. She then raised alarm and reported the matter to the king. At the royal court, both women laid claims to the living child, none giving in to the other, until King Solomon ordered for a sword so that the baby would be divided into two, for each woman to go home with one half. While one of the women begged the king not to kill the child but should give the child to the other woman, the one who was laying false claim insisted the child be dismembered. This led King Solomon to realize that the woman who wanted the child to live was the real mother and instructed that the child be handed over to her.
In applying the above biblical story to the political situation in Nigeria, the major presidential candidates of the north, His Excellency Atiku Abubakar and His Excellency Rabiu Kwankwaso can be likened to the woman who smothered her child in her sleep and was then laying claim to the other woman’s child. The north has had its turn at the presidency with Buhari’s eight years and yet is laying claim to the south’s turn through the major contenders just because they believe they can pull it through. Unfortunately, we do not really have a King Solomon to adjudicate.
There are many people who believe that the 2019 presidential elections were won by Atiku Abubakar but that he was prevailed upon by northern elders to soft pedal on the matter of claiming his mandate with a view to being given the seat on a platter through the 2023 elections. Atiku had to fight tooth and nail therefore to clinch the PDP nomination even though conventionally, since the north through Buhari was going to complete an unbroken 8-year tenure, the party should have picked someone from the south. There are many speculations concerning the role Governor Wike inadvertently played towards the emergence of Atiku. Some say Atiku advised that the ticket be zoned to the Southeast otherwise it should be fair game for anyone to contest but that Wike preferred that it be thrown open, believing that with the alliances he had built and with his war chest, he would clinch the nomination easily. If Atiku really did say so, he was probably giving an impossible condition so that the gates would be thrown open. From what we heard, Wike was quite ready. For while Atiku is alleged to have given ten thousand dollars per delegate, Wike allegedly gave fifteen thousand dollars to each delegate. Were not for the last-minute withdrawal of Gov. Tambuwal from the race, Wike would have clinched the PDP ticket.
There are many who would have frowned at the emergence of Wike who is from the South-South, after only eight years of Goodluck Jonathan’s descent from the seat of power. Some have used that to justify the emergence of Atiku Abubakar, since Wike used his war chest and clout to shut out other aspirants from the South especially the Southeast. It was this same line of argument that Senator Orji Uzor Kalu used in supporting a northerner to emerge as flag-bearer for the All Progressives Congress (APC), since the ticket wasn’t specifically zoned to the Southeast. In the case of APC, the Southeast zone hadn’t done much for the party to win in 2015; the region that was responsible for the emergence of Buhari as president in 2015 and largely in 2019 was the South-West. It would have taken much political gratuity which is not characteristic of Nigerian politicians, to zone the APC ticket to the Southeast. As long as it was the APC, the South-West looked set to clinch the ticket if it was zoned to the South. Even then, the cabal in APC projected Ahmed Lawan, a northerner as consensus candidate! It took Senator Tinubu’s political sagacity to make the northern governors led by Gov. El-Rufai, pull their weight behind a southern candidate, and when they did this, they ignored the sensibilities of most Nigerians by sidestepping Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, the candidate that would have won them the elections without much controversy. We have Farooq Kperoggi to thank for his campaign against Osinbajo, calling him a religious bigot and anti-muslim. There are speculations that northern governors chose Tinubu to pave way for Atiku Abubakar to win easily, so that power could be retained in the north. Now Tinubu, with his Mu-Mu ticke, his health and age and other baggage, has become a hard sell to a cross section of Nigerians because of the emergence of His Excellency Peter Gregory Obi.
The Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) on the other hand had no reason to not zone the ticket to the Southeast. The Southeast has been a major center of support to the party right from inception, and being that President Obasanjo from the Southwest had ruled, and President Goodluck Jonathan from the South-South had had a shot at the presidency, reasonable human beings should have restricted their choice of candidate to the Southeast. But trust Nigerian politicians to be greedy and unreasonable. Atiku manifested this greed by insisting to contest, and bringing all kinds of lame arguments to justify himself. There are many who speculate that Atiku’s declaration as president is guaranteed, as INEC is alleged to be part of the play book, but this is left to be seen.
In the above biblical story, the one sitting in place of King Solomon to give the ruling should be ordinary Nigerian citizens. But unfortunately, the citizenry is divided and has a scarcity of King Solomon’s wisdom. I do not blame northerners, especially ordinary Muslims for wanting to vote someone of their religion. It is their default orientation. The choice of Tinubu would have been easy for them but for the fact that there are doubts now that he is Muslim since on three different occasions, he could not recite a prayer which is recited everyday by practicing Muslims. Now instead of turning their support to Peter Obi, they would rather turn it towards either Atiku or Kwankwaso? My disappointment is with people in the south who are sticking to party loyalty to vote either Atiku or Kwankwaso when there is a very credible alternative in Peter Obi of the Labour Party. Those in the north jettison party affiliation when it doesn’t suit them, but those in the south stick to party affiliation even when it is against regional and national interests. The election of Atiku or Kwankwaso after eight years of President Buhari will not be in the national interest. Buhari polarized Nigerians so much and the panacea is not another northerner at this critical period, even if he is Christian. On the other hand, the election of Peter Gregory Obi of the Labour Party who happens to be from the Southeast, will heal many wounds and most importantly instill patriotism and hope into our teeming youths who are looking at 2023 elections as a major turning point for our country Nigeria. Nigeria needs to find a way to make rotational presidency constitutional if we want to remain truly as one nation unless some people just enjoy taunting and enslaving others.
The author is a Catholic priest.