•How They Will Determine Their Fate
The only subject of discourse on the lips of many Nigerians right now is the next presidential election that will hold next month February 25th. There is palpable tension in the air. While many still have doubts as to whether the election will take place owing to security concerns, others are confident the election will take place. The federal government has assured Nigerians election will hold and a new president will emerge. The only thing that remains to be seen is who will be elected the next presoident of the federal republic of Nigeria? What are the chances of these top presidential gladiators heading into the election next month?
Some political pundits have taken a critical look at the chances of the top presidentil; candidates and concluded that a large chunk of their victory or otherwise will depend largely on the strengths and weaknesses of their choice of running mates. The four top contenders in this case are Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the APC and his running mate, Kashim Shettima, Atiku Abubakar, PDP and Ifeanyi Okowa, Peter Obi, Labour Party and Yusuf Datti- Baba Ahmed and Rabiu Kwankwaso, NNPP and Isaac Idahosa. The calculation of political analysts is that the strength and electoral value of these running mates will go a long way in determining how well their principals will do in the forthcoming election.
It will be recalled that nearly all the running mates had to contend with a lot of dut raised at their emergence as their party’s vice presidential flag bearers. But perhaps the one whose emergence has raised the most dust is that Kashim Shettima, Bola Tinubu’s running mate. For many reasons, some Nigerians insisted that to create equity and fairness, a Muslim-Muslim ticket which the Tinubu/Shettima ticket represents is totally unfair. It completely negates the call by many political stakeholders in the country, who are agitating for a Northern Christian presidential running mate. But all of that anger and agitation by some section of the country to get the APC to reverse its choice of Shettima as running mate appears to gone down now as the party, particularly the presidential flag bearer, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has taken time to explain over and over again why the choice of Shettima became imperative. He made it clear the choice was not made out of disrespect or disregard for the Christian community but out of pure elevtoral necessity. He simply needs a man that can sweep votes for him in the north east region and Shettima is that man!
While Tinubu opted for a Muslim-Muslim ticket, other presidential candidates like Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, LP, settled for what could be termed a balanced ticket.
Atiku, a Northern Muslim, picked Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State – a Christian, while Obi picked a Northern Muslim as his running mate. By next month when the presidential election takes place, the electorl strength of each of these running mates will not only come to the fore but will also determine greatly how well or how bad their principals will perform. City People takes a look at how much these top three running mates will impact on the outcome of the election.
BOLA TINUBU: KASHIM SHETTIMA’S STRENGTH:
From a political or zonal point of view, Shettima is a strong pick. The APC and Tinubu have done their calciulations well and he appears the perfect pick. Without a shadow of doubt, he is by far the strongest of all the running mates in contention. He was former governor of Borno State anmd he is erxtremely popular amongst his people. He also bequeathed to them the current governor, Zulum, who is also a loyalist not just to his mentor Shettima, but also to Tinubu. Though he has a lot of issues hanging on his neck like that of his alleged involvement with Boko Haram and the Chibok girls abduction, but he has been able to prove to cynics that he is not the kind of person that will support Boko Haram or any terrorist group.
And besides, in the last couple of months, he has proven to be a fantastic bargain politically. His oratory skills and ability to hold his audience spell bound whenever he speaks, has eandeared to a lot of people. But more importantly, looking at voting patterns in the country, it’s a given that he is going to deliver Borno. He will indeed deliver to Asiwaju the north east, a region Atiku would easily have swept away with his votes if Tinubu had not picked Shettima. Because of such considerations, Shettima strengthens Tinubu’s ticket because he has a lot of friends in the North who are politicians. Politics is all about your electoral value and what you bring to the table. Politics is about reaching out and negotiating with people, and he has all of that.
SHETTIMA’S WEAKNESS
If this was a country where elecvtions are determined by people’s perception of the man on the ballot box, then Shettima would’ve had serious problems. And he would’ve marred Tinubu’s presidential bid. For one, he is perceived asone of those northerners with a hidden agenda to Islamise the country because of his seemingly strong Islamic outlook. This was the conc ern many raised when he emerged as the APC running mate to Tinubu. Perhaps if a different Muslim northerner had been picked as Tinubu’s running mate, maybe the outcry against the Muslim-Muslim ticket would not have been that intense, but because it was Shettima, a lot of people kicked against it. So far, the party appears to have doused the tension created by their choice of Shettima, but we will see next month how that will pan out.
ATIKU ABUBAKAR: OKOWA’S STRENGTH
After all the initial dust raised by Wike against Atiku for pickng Okowa as his running mate had died down, the pair began to gradually settle down to work together. Many will still recall that Wike was incensed after a party committee had sat, deliberated and voted him as the running mate to Atiku. And this came just a few weeks after he lost the presidential ticket to Atiku. The expectation is that, Okowa, being the sitting governor of Delta state, will deliver Delta to Atiku because that is where he comes from and he will also attract South-South sympathy with that ticket. He is of the Igbo extraction and Atiku believes he can get a large chunk of the South –East electorate if Okwa is with him on the ballot.
OKOWA’S WEAKNESS
Owing to the friction in PDP over the running mate issue, and particularly the hue and cry made by Wike, to a large extent, the party is still unable to get their acts together. Okowa’s passive nature has helped matters either. Many expected that he would’ve been a bit more proaative in nature. For instance, when Wike revealed that President Buhari had paid all monies owed the Niger Delta States and that, indeed, that’s where he got the money to execute all the projects he has executed, Deltans took to the streets to demand from the governor what he did with their own money paid to them by the federal government. They alleged that rather than the Okowa government to embark on massive projects like Wike has done in his state, the Delta State government led by Ifeanyi Okowa has instead gone borrowing with no significant infrastructural development to show for it. Okowa has yet to come out publicly to address the issue. This, without doubt, has dented heavily the PDP’s chances of making a clean sweep of polls at the election. Civil servants in the state have demostrated openly and made it clear they will not vote for him mand Atiku.
PETER OBI: DATTI BABA-AHMED’S STRENGTH
It is still a puzzle how Peter Obi arrived at his choice of Datti Baba as his running mate. The one time Senator, a former House of Representatives member and an accomplished academic lacks the political sagacity to help Obi win the 2023 presidential election.
“He is a fantastic intellectual and is somebody who will make a good minister of education considering what he has done in his private practice and personal life. The only thing he is bringing to the table for Obi is the fact he is a northerner. And that is where it ends. He will help muscle a handful of votes here and there, perhaps in his part of Kaduna where he comers from, but no more than that.
WEAKNESS
“He is not a good pick for Vice President because, politically speaking, he comes from a state where he can’t deliver his local government to Peter Obi. Obi is not the strongest candidate in the race; as an underdog coming on the platform of an unknown party without structure, they needed to do a strong pick like Kwankwaso, who has a state like Kano. There is no way Datti woill be able to make any impact for Obi in a state that Governor Nasir El-Rufai has an iron grip on. This is the reason why many were disappointed when Labour Party and NNPP couldn’t reach a consensus. Politically speaking, it is clear to see that the ticket is not strong; the Datti Baba-Ahmed ticket is a weak one.
Another problem is that is barely visible. And even when he is seen, he is not heard. Peter Obi’s large image appears to have completely dwarfed him. He does not have the strong presence like a Shettima to impact positively on the performance of his principl.
Lets say it as it is, Datti Baba-Ahmed is a weak candidate, he will not be able to advnce the cause of the louid and vociferous Obidients!
-WALE LAWAL
(0837209290)
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