With the peculiar exception of the resurrection of the PDP, the Arewa 2019 barometer has been unresponsive to the presidential potentials being paraded by the handful of self-declared aspirants in recent times. Th e barometer is not to blame. Th e atmospherics of presidential politics in Nigeria, particularly in the North, have risen higher into the ozone layer of pragmatic processing of preferred aspirants for the second term entitlement to the Presidency. Th at means it is no longer a matter for a patently anti-Arewa military legionnaire to manipulate and dictate for the selfi sh agenda of reactivating his rusted third term agenda by unholy anointment of his choice of Arewa stooge.
It will never again be a blind sentimental selection of candidate that is politically doomed on arrival because there was no screening for competence and capability rating before adoption. Th e North just cannot continue being reduced to a tactical two-year tenure while the South usurps the remaining period by Machiavellian exploitation of acting presidency.
Th e fi rst anti-dote to the political poison plaguing Arewa’s presidential entitlement is an injection of stark realism into the body politic motivated principally toward retrieval of the dynamics of strategic decisions and agenda setting from the mountain tops to the down-toearth domains of the serially fooled, used and dumped talakawa. Enough of all the hero-worshipping and personality cultism that overtook Arewa’s vibrant culture of ideological politics and constructive engagement with the rest of Nigeria.
If anything has been learnt from the political misfortunes infl icted on the northern presidential entitlement since 2007, it is the heightened frustrations of the talakawa as well as the southern political constituency with the apparent stagnation and sterility of politics in the north. In the 2015 presidential outing, only the potent populism of General Buhari’s political bandwagon saved the North from relegation. Today that brand of populism has signifi cantly suff ered from a crippling combination of self-sustained disabilities and unforeseen challenges of governance with terminal consequences on its perceived potency and survivability.
For the fi rst time in a long time, Arewa is not cock-sure of tipping the scales of presidential elections to its advantage in 2019! But the real shocker is that the discredited demagogues of the stagnation and sterility stigmatizing Arewa politics remain undeterred in sinking the region deeper with their capsized ambitions.
Totally blinded by inordinate lust for the spoils of presidential offi ce and compelled by the ulterior motive of evading imminent foreclosure of their qualifi cation to contest, among other personal agenda, the arena of presidential aspirants in the north is enveloped in toxicity. With ex-VP Atiku on top of the heap where the likes of Sule Lamido, Kwankwaso, Saraki, David Mark, Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo, Nasir El-rufai Senator Ali Modu Sheriff , Kashim Shettima, Abdul’aziz Abubakar Yari , Alhaji Tanimu Turaki and Senator Bala Muhammed hang around the carcass of northern presidential candidature like scavengers, the North is actively romancing relegation and rejection come 2019 elections. If the North really wants to be given just one more chance to salvage presidential entitlement, reputation and reckoning in 2019, it must send unambiguous signals to the rest of Nigeria that it will not be Arewa politics as usual.
We cannot be pushing for the retired and tired old brigade (and brigadiers for that matter) and expect support even in many northern constituencies, when Nigerians are still reeling from the nightmare of acting presidency. We cannot be showcasing aspirants with questioned and questionable credibility and assume that fumes of dubious deodorant will not suff ocate the electorate and strangulate the prospector. We dare not place Arewa’s complicated and implicated candidature in the clumsy clasp of local champions limited by national anonymity and disabled with political polio and not end up in quarantine. Conspicuously absent from the roll of rowdy Arewa aspirants is immediate past Speaker of the House of Representatives, now Sokoto State Governor, Right Honourable Aminu Waziri Tambuwal – for good reason!
He defi nitely does not belong to that crowd of the controversial and contentious pretenders. In terms of height of national leadership attainment, achievement and acceptability he is wig and shoulders above them all in today’s Arewa and today’s Nigeria. By professional precedence there is no injunction sustainable against his advantageous comportment and capacity to navigate the challenging terrain of democratic governance, more so with his seamless dual dexterity as chief legislator-turned-chief executive.
Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal’s clear cut overriding national political clout and connectivity is therefore the greatest arsenal for powering a convincing rapprochement with the movers and shakers of political dynamics outside the North, which Arewa desperately requires for an assured second term entitlement. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal was the emergent presidential candidate of the APC who was obliged to withdraw his sealed progressive consensus candidature in the late hour in deference to General Muhammadu Buhari.
In the national interest he willingly withdrew where the others would have remained adamant. Above all, Right Honourable Aminu Waziri Tambuwal was the centre of gravity of the grand newbreed political alliance that redefi ned the partisan allegiances of the National Assembly and produced a patriotic independent coalition of the federal legislators across party and geo-political divides. His marvelous bonding with his South-eastern deputy and magnetic embrace of the south western caucus eff ectively transformed him into a defacto shadow president and put a bite into the bark of the legislature as the vigilant overseer of the executive in the Goodluck Jonathan era.
Th e Tambuwal Template for a truly united pan-Nigerian political movement powered by the new generation of Nigerian politicians with the vision and commitment to move Nigeria forward still retains its network and stratagem and is undoubtedly the most credible and acceptable alternative to the conspiracy of neo-military caucuses and money-bag mandarins laying siege on the progressive prospects of popular democracy in Nigeria. Arewa 2019 cannot get a more formidable platform to re-launch and regain its second term entitlement in the national interest. Madaki writes from Jos
