The 2027 presidential election may be less than two years away from now but the jostling has begun in earnest. Political actors have started meetings with a view to unseating the incumbent President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The recent meeting of politicians under the auspices of the coalition movement lends credence to this assertion. The coalition, if eventually concretised, may be reminiscent of the coalition of 2015 which culminated in the formation of the All Progressives Congress (APC) that eventually ousted the then incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan from power. However, the conditions precedent at the time and the ones now are not exactly the same for a number of reasons.
The 2015 coalition succeeded in their mission because they had former President Muhammadu Buhari as the presidential candidate. Buhari had a massive following in the North in millions having contested the presidential election for three consecutive times albeit unsuccessful before his eventual election in 2015. Without Buhari, no northern politician would have been able to oust Jonathan in 2015. Before Buhari’s eventual demystification by his abysmal performance for eight years as a president, no living Nigerian politician had the kind of massive and organic following that he had prior to his presidency.
In 2015, the western world particularly then U.S President Barack Obama and British prime minister wanted Jonathan out of power by all means for reasons best known to them. If Jonathan had resisted to relinquish power after the election, perhaps he might still be in jail now following the upheaval that would have ensued which could have resulted in bloodbath. The foreign powers were bent on giving him the Laurent Gbagbo treatment which was meted out to the then Cote D’Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo who was arrested, tried and imprisoned by the World Court.
The North wanted power by all means in 2015 following the death of president Umaru Yar’Adua in 2010. However, the agitation from the North wouldn’t have frightened Jonathan to relinquish power no matter the level of unrest after the election. The fear of the western power obviously subdued the then president. All these talks about Jonathan being a coward or a weak president were neither here nor there. Granted that Jonathan is a peaceful man who professed that his ambition was not worth the blood of any Nigerian, he did well by peacefully handing over power thereby saving millions of lives that would ordinarily be lost in the ensuing fracas that would have followed the outcome of the 2015 presidential election.
However, Tinubu’s situation is quite different from the one during Jonathan’s time. Tinubu is a grounded politician, far more politically savvy than Jonathan. Tinubu is from the South. He’s entitled to complete the two terms of eight years according to the Nigerian constitution just like his predecessor did.
Unlike Jonathan, Tinubu is from a major ethnic group in Nigeria. Jonathan, from the Ijaw ethnic group in Bayelsa state, is a minority among minorities. That he won the 2011 presidential election was as a result of efforts and solidarity of other major ethnic groups like the Igbo and Yoruba, and, of course, his own South-south geopolitical zone. That was not the case in 2015.
If Peter Obi resumes his presidential ambition, the ongoing coalition meeting will likely throw up the Atiku/Obi ticket in 2027. Peter Obi is the only living politician from Southern Nigeria that can help Atiku to realise his lifelong ambition. No other southern politician has such political clout or goodwill to pair a northern politician. However, the South is not ready to return the presidency to the North after Buhari’s eight years regardless of the incumbent’s performance.
Former President Jonathan is the only southern politician that is entitled to a term of four years in office. But, a recent comment credited to the former first lady, Patience Jonathan, pledging her full support for Tinubu’s reelection, it’s presumed that her husband, Jonathan, would not contest the 2027 presidential election. Should Peter Obi contest and win, he is likely to be there for eight years. Is the North ready to wait for a southern presidency till 2031? Should Atiku win the 2027 election, he will definitely seek reelection. His pledge of a one term presidency is a mere desperation gimmick. In both cases, neither Atiku nor Obi or even their joint ticket can defeat Tinubu in 2027.
Ifeanyi Maduako,
Owerri, Imo state