I am sure something has been playing at the back of your mind as it has done mine. You must be wondering what really happened between President Muhammadu Buhari and the President-elect, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in the recently concluded electioneering period.
Buhari started off hostile to Tinubu’s presidential ambition but ended up “breaking the bank” to ensure he got named president-elect. Was it a swindle or fait accompli? First, let’s trace the chain of events back to January 5, 2022, and you’ll agree with me that Tinubu forced Buhari to support him.
Buhari granted an interview to Channels TV on the above day, where he announced that he had a preferred candidate to succeed him. Refusing to disclose who the person was, he said: “I wouldn’t say because he may be eliminated if I mention(him). I better keep it. It is a secret”. Up till May 31, 2022 when he had a closed-door meeting with the APC Governors along with the National Chairman of the party, Abdullahi Adamu, he maintained his desire to produce his preferred successor just as the governors nominated and produced theirs.
Buhari’s refusal to name the “chosen” one gave rise to speculations as to who it could possibly be. Chibuike Amaechi, his Transportation Minister for eight years and a major financier of his campaign in 2015, topped the list. Amaechi was a trusted Buhari ally who enthusiastically embraced his “railway to Maradi” illegality. He ended up being turbaned as “Dan Amanar Daura” by the Emir of Buhari’s hometown, Daura, Faruk Umar, on February 5, 2022.
The timing of the turbaning spoke volumes, as it was at the cusp of nomination of candidates for the 2023 elections. Tinubu had formally informed Buhari of his intention to run on January 10. While most public speculations were in Amaechi’s favour, very few people imagined that Tinubu or Vice President Yemi Osinbajo were within the radar of Buhari’s mind. In truth, Buhari wanted to hand over power to former President Goodluck Jonathan. Most political associates of Dame Patience Jonathan were reported to have decamped to the APC.
Some faceless Fulani “herdsmen and almajirai” procured the N100 million APC presidential nomination and expression of interest forms for the former President. Jonathan paid Buhari several visits in his office. On May 10, 2022, Jonathan shocked many incredulous Nigerians when he appeared to confirm the speculations that he was poised to contest again, this time on the APC platform. He paid a visit to the newly-elected National Chairman of the party, Adamu, in his office in Abuja. The photos and videos were everywhere.
Two factors dampened, then killed the project. The first was the insistence by Jonathan that he would only accept the offer if the president would guarantee him an automatic ticket. Buhari had supported the inclusion of three options for the selection of candidates in the amended Electoral Act to include direct primaries, indirect primaries or consensus. Consensus is just another word for “imposition”. Buhari had hoped to lobby party leaders to support his effort to pick Jonathan as his successor. He did not succeed.
The second reason Jonathan faded from the picture was that his core support base – South-East and South-South, were infuriated by the idea of the former president agreeing to trade the South’s turn to produce a two-term president under the rotational arrangement. People felt Jonathan was shameless if he would accept to run as a lackey of the North (especially the violent, expansionist, and land grabbing Fulani lobby) after the humiliation the Buharists had subjected him to in 2015.
When Buhari saw that getting the APC to adopt Jonathan to finish his remaining one term and hand over to the North could not sell, he shifted his preference to Ahmed Lawan, the President of the Senate. Lawan was a core Buharist.
He was a happy rubberstamp for him as the Head of the ninth National Assembly. Lawan was already returning to the Senate, but when Buhari’s green light came, he asked his erstwhile loyalist, Bashir Machina, to act as his placeholder for the APC’s senatorial ticket for Yobe North, while he joined the presidential race.
APC Chairman, Abdullahi Adamu, did his best to push Lawan through as Buhari’s sole choice, but the effort failed, also for two reasons. Number one was that Buhari was still maintaining his tight lips over his choice, even at that late hour (end of May 2022), perhaps hoping that when he opened them, everybody would fall in line. Politics never quite works like that, even here where everything goes. It is a game of interests. Party leaders would go along with a president’s choice if their interests are factored in, or if their interests and standing would be injured by their refusal to go along with the president. Secondly, Lawan was not popular among APC leaders. His presidential “ambition” was an overnight fancy that was only known to him when Buhari thought of it.
Buhari failed to produce his successor because of his natural ineptitude as a leader. If you check anything that Buhari managed to make something out of, it was because someone close to him who had executive capacity was minding its day-to-day implantation for him. We saw this with the late Major General Tunde Idiagbon during their military regime.
Osinbajo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, had executive capacity, but Buhari put him in charge of the economy in his first term – a classic case of a square peg in a round hole. When Osinbajo failed, Buhari snatched the portfolio from him and the economy started blowing in the wind.
In the second part, we will see where, why and how the fortunes started tilting in Tinubu’s favour, how Buhari tried to frustrate him, and why the president suddenly turned around and surrendered to Tinubu.
