Nigeria’s Presidential Election Aftermath

For what it is worth, congratulations to the President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his supporters, because the election umpire who has the power to declare candidates have done exactly that, despite the flaws of the election, and despite INEC not meeting up to the promises of credible elections promised Nigeria as far back as November 2022. Nigerians, especially the Youths, fought a hard battle but like true democrats, the people spoke with their choice in what international observers tagged not transparent. Democracy works best when we know the arguments about the visions we have for our country and can only be left for the people to decide.

So now that the presidential election has been decided somehow, the outcome leaves in its wake a lot of controversies, before, during and after the polls as declared by INEC. Prior to the election itself, there has been controversies during the primaries’ elections of the two major parties, All Progressive Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party. Both parties already agreed that the Presidential candidates will be from the Southern part of the country, especially after eight years of President Muhammadu Buhari who is from the Northern part of the country. The Northern Governors of the ruling party ensured that this was done, hence the primary that produced Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the candidate. But the presidential candidate then broke the party’s own unwritten convention to pick a Vice from the North, of different faith. He picked a Northern Muslim in Kashim Shettima as his running mate. The implications of that going forward, is that peoples of same faith will occupy the first four positions in the Nigerian State, at least until the Houses do the needful and to the detriment of religious harmony, in a country of over 100 million people of other faiths!

The President-elect, his Vice, the Senate President, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives may all be of the same belief if the convention to retain both Ahmed Lawan and Femi Gbajabiamila as Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives respectively.

The Peoples Democratic Party on the other hand, jettisoned the idea to rotate their presidency to the South, when Sokoto State Governor Aminu Tambuwal stepped down at the last minute to pave the way for another Northern candidate in Alhaji Atiku Abubarkar to emerge its presidential candidate. That created a massive division in the party because then it meant the presidential candidate and chairman of the party are from the same Northern part of the country. This situation also created the G5 phenomenal within the PDP, where five governors led by Nyesom Wike of Rivers State broke away from supporting Atiku Abubakar’s presidential campaign. The G5 governors have since scattered just before the presidential elections as each of them picked their preferred presidential candidate. Ortom of Benue picked Peter Obi of the Labour Party,

Makinde of Oyo and Wike of Rivers sided with the candidate of the ruling party, whilst both Ikpeazu of Abia and Ngwuanyi of Enugu hid behind Atiku Abubakar. These choices did not go without consequences as Ortom, Ngwuanyi and Ikpeazu all lost their Senatorial bids to other parties. The fate of Makinde of Oyo will be decided by Oyo electorates in the governorship

election of 11 March, whilst Wike’s political future remains cloudy.

Let’s not forget the third force in this presidential election, i.e., the Labour Party whose presidential candidate, Peter Gregory Obi resigned from PDP prior to the party’s primary and joined the less heard or known Labour Party, and clinched its presidential candidacy nomination. There were rumours that Nyesom Wike of Rivers State contributed negatively to Peter Obi leaving PDP and pitching his tent with the Labour Party. This move by Peter Obi appeared a God-sent to the teeming Youths who have been clamouring for change from the status quo, youths who want an alternative to the big two political parties of APC and PDP who have ruled Nigeria since 1999, but with little or not much development; endemic corruption; frightening insecurity; economic slowdown; epileptic power supply and debilitating disruption to education through strike actions of teachers and ASUU members.

At first, the two major parties dismissed Peter Obi and the Labour Party as an “insignificant four people tweeting in a room”. However, Peter Obi’s refreshing messages got the Youth buzzing, there were large rallies held across the country and the Obedient family was born, organic and spontaneous and energetic. Finally, the youth have found their vehicle to take their country back. Getting close to the election, the established parties began to take notice of these “four people tweeting in a room” and had to devise ways and means to counter this new hurricane that’s about to consume the old order to the dustbin of political history, hence the cash scarcity,the petrol queues, and the ruling party were blaming each other for all of these. Now it is safe to say that all of those were meant to divert attention away from the real issues of campaign.

Then came the election proper. The election umpire jettisoned its own election promises to conduct a free and fair election and transmit the polling unit results to the INEC server from the polling unit, using the newly introduced but highly expensive B-VAS equipment. There were skirmishes in a lot of polling stations, violence, and some deaths in the South South and Kano; destruction of ballot papers where voting already took place in Lagos, Rivers, Edo, and Delta. In the end, the INEC chairman went ahead to collate the election results at the State collation Centres and were then read out at the National Collation Centre Abuja, and the candidate of the ruling party, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, despite not meeting the constitutional requirement to have 25 % of the votes cast in the FCT, was declared the winner. This means that inadvertently, the INEC Chairman was telling whoever doesn’t like his declaration to go to court to seek redress! Indeed, the major parties have taken the path to Court.

Afet all said and done, the last Presidential election in Nigeria, especially the impact of the third force of Labour Party and Peter Obi, has changed the dynamics of Nigeria’s political system and electioneering for a long time to come. In fact, it could be said to have brought about participatory democracy in Nigeria. For the Obidients and Articulated that were adjudged to

have lost the election, it did not mean they were wrong in putting forward their vision, it only means they did not have enough people to advance their cause sufficiently..

Leadership governance, as the best alternative for Nigerian Youths and women alike, for a better tomorrow.

God bless you all. God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Otunba Adeoye Fadipe

Writing from United Kingdom