By Evaristus Bassey
This article is about the choice of vice-presidential candidates that principals of major parties have made, and how a review of those choices could give us a glimpse of the decision making ability of the presidential candidates. We shall limit our focus on the three leading candidates: Peter Obi, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and His Excellency Atiku Abubakar. Kwankwaso’s NNPP is much like the 2011 appearance of Buhari’s Congress for Peoples’ Change, which though impactful, was a provincial effort. Kwankwaso’s NNPP may stand a chance to be rated in 2031 when power should shift once more to the north.
Let us begin with the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Atiku’s running mate, Gov Okowa, is a well-known south-south governor. I encountered him personally in the runup to the National Health Act when he was chairman of the Senate Committee for Health. He visited the Catholic Secretariat severally. He was quite dynamic, engaging, and levelheaded. He seemed to know when to stoop to conquer. His emergence as Atiku’s choice did not come as a surprise to some of us. The expectation that Atiku would pick Gov Wike wasn’t a realistic one, because from the onset, it was obvious that Wike would be too strong a character to be dealt with. Atiku may have wanted someone malleable, and someone with enough resources and willing to contribute heavily to the campaign, and he found his man in Okowa. Atiku may have learnt his lessons in 2019 when he overspent on the presidential campaign and ended up being trounced. Apparently, the joint ticket owner who is a well-resourced governor is carrying the great burden well. The ‘misfortune’ of Okowa is that being from the Aniocha part of the state, he is assessed through highly prejudicial eyes. Okowa has done a lot in many communities in Delta State especially his area which has never produced a governor since the foundation of Delta State but he is not well appreciated. In the presidential ticket he is seen as a mere spare tire, which is really the function of the Vice President anyway. The recent revelations about the billions taken as loans ostensibly for development, (whereas so much money had been released to Delta State by the Federal Government as revealed by Gov Wike) but allegedly contributed towards the presidential campaign, gives truth to the impression that the south-south is just there for self-enabled exploitation. Garnering resources and making inroads into the South-south and Southeast may have driven Atiku’s choice of Okowa. It however shows Atiku as someone always ready to exploit situations to his advantage and projecting his personal interests as national interest.
Shettima is Vice Presidential candidate to Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The only time I met Gov Shettima was in Abuja when Bishop Kukah held a meeting with some governors of the north concerning an initiative a Catholic Spaniard billionaire was going to make in schools in the north. Bishop Kukah invited me based on my position then in the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria. Shettima came off as down to earth. It is on record that he gave funds for the rebuilding of the churches destroyed by Boko Haram in Borno although he never allowed them make any improvements or expansion or redesigning. It just had to be the way it was before it was destroyed. The fact that he was governor when the Chibok girls were kidnapped has given much to speculation, especially when there was a directive that schools should transfer pupils to safer places. And that Kabiru Sokoto the Christmas day bomber was found in the Bornu State government lodge in Abuja, throws some shade over Shettima even though he is generally perceived as a good man even by the Christian community in Bornu. Tinubu’s choice of Shettima, a fellow Muslim, indicates his political astuteness but insensitivity towards Nigeria’s diversity. As it is, the external image about Nigeria is that it is a Muslim country. As a Nigerian I was shocked when I realized that some of the core northern states like Bauchi, Gombe, Borno, Adamawa had almost an equal number of Christians, if not more. It was just that the Muslims concentrated in the capitals and had demonstrated political astuteness early enough to take control of the institutions of government. When we had a meeting in Rome and we had representatives from Niger Republic, I was surprised they claimed the Christian population in Niger Republic was more than 40%, and yet the external image is that Niger is a purely Muslim country. These kinds of optics will increase exponentially if the Mu-Mu ticket succeeds, and many will be seeing Nigeria in the likes of Afghanistan, or Iran where Christians are a minority, whereas if a proper census was allowed in Nigeria by the powers that be, it might be discovered that the 60/40 projection they like making in favour of Islam might actually be the reverse. Tinubu’s choice of a Muslim vice-presidential candidate simply shows he would not care about diversity as much as securing the interests of the powerful; it wouldn’t matter to him how the vulnerable fare.
The choice of Datti Ahmed by Peter Obi is perhaps the best choice of the three presidential candidates. Datti complements Peter Obi in a way that none of the other vice-presidential candidates complements their principals. Obi-Datti is like getting two valuable items for the price of one. Datti is obviously not a pushover. Obi did not go for someone who will be telling him “Yes Sir” without “But Sir…” Datti is not embroiled in any known controversy and so is not coming into the ticket with any known baggage. The ticket looks truly joint, unlike the Atiku/Okowa ticket which looks more like a Master servant relationship or the Tinubu/Shettima ticket which projects a feeble principal with an ambitious and ‘dreaded’ deputy. Obi’s choice of Datti shows more his interest in the common good rather than his personal preservation, and Datti looks ready to step in at any moment it is required of him. If Nigeria were not saddled with ethnic and religious jingoists, no clear man or woman of conscience would see the duo of Obi and Datti and prefer to vote for other candidates seeing that Nigeria is really in the woods and needs not just rescue but great transformation.
And so we turn to the Lord of the universe and pray that may Saturday 25th February 2023 be a day that Nigeria breaks free from the shackles of those who have held her in bondage; and may the shame the name Nigeria carries all over the world and the disrespect her citizens suffer be reversed with the choice the majority of us make on that day. Amen.