EMEKA NZE writes that Nigeria lost an opportunity of what could have been a watershed in political history of Nigeria when the major dramatis personae, Mr Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso and Mr Peter Obi, frittered an opportunity to forge an alliance between New Nigeria’s Peoples Party (NNPP) and Labour Party (LP)
LP, NNPP not new in Nigeria’s ballot
Although both parties have been long in Nigeria’s ballot, they both did not make any appreciable mark in elections since they were registered.
Apart from Dr Olusegun Mimiko who rode to the Ondo State Government House through LP, no much was known about the party till few weeks ago when the former PDP presidential aspirant Peter Obi joined the party after he was apparently ‘sidelined’ from the party.
Since he joined, the party has flourished, especially, amongst Nigerians on the social media.
The former governor of Kano state, Rabiu Kwankwaso, had earlier joined NNPP when he left the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). From the time he joined, the party blossomed and gained unprecedented popularity.
Kwankwaso, Obi as new entrants
So both men are new entrants in NNPP and LP but their defection to the two parties greatly changed their fortunes.
The expansion policy of the two parties began almost immediately and one of such was the proposed alliance, because both ex governors and Anambra and Kano states nursed ambitions to be president of the country.
Collapse of alliance
However, last week, the NNPP presidential candidate, Dr Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso and his Labour Party (LP) counterpart, Mr Peter Obi, foreclosed an opportunity to enact what could have been the greatest landmark in Nigeria’s present political dispensation by allowing the proposed alliance between the two parties to fritter away.
If that political marriage had succeeded, one of the two would have emerged the presidential candidate of whatever party they preferred to feature in the 2023 presidential ballot. The other would have become the vice presidential candidate.
Against public expectations and permutations, the alliance failed. By the estimation of many Nigerians, if it was forged, there would have been jitters in the camp of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the major opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who think it is their birthright to govern the country.
All that is now history; the alliance did not materialise and the LP and Mr Peter Obi, the same last week, settled for Dr Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed as his running mate.
Causes of failure
However, the factors that made the alliance unrealistic is now on record, especially, given what some Nigerians describe as “betrayal of public expectations which eagerly yearned to see the union nurtured to fruition.”
Livid political observers attribute what they called the “loss of the golden opportunity to public utterances credited to the two politicians, especially, the NNPP presidential candidate who instead of seeing it as national sacrifice to redeem the country from collapse made it an ego trip.
Significantly, Kwankwaso, in his public appearances relapsed into the same mistakes of the conventional politician who first factors self in all undertakings and then employed the divisive wind of religion and ethnicity which blow the country no good.
Kwankwaso’s and Southeast
To Kwankwaso, he could not afford to see himself deputising Obi who is much younger. He had also used the opportunity to cast all manner aspersions on the Southeast saying that they are at the lowest in political ladder and would not be voted by the north should Obi emerge the presidential candidate of the union.
During the inauguration of his party’s EXCO in Gombe state, the NNPP presidential candidate said:
He said: “I like the Igbo people, they are good and enterprising, but in the game of politics, they’re at the bottom of the ladder and uncertain of their calculations.
“Look at it carefully, they had lost out with the PDP and APC completely. The only choice they have now is merger with NNPP, which I took to them.
“Believe me, this is an opportunity they have; it is going to be a disaster if they bungle it. Once that happens, they will, again, start to cry of marginalisation and shifting blames to the Yoruba and Hausa/Fulani.
“South East must learn how to play politics. Look at South West; it is very strategic. Imagine Bola Tinubu at over 80 years. He is strategic to have agreed to wait for Buhari to go first.
“Really, we had talks with the LP for possible merger, but problems started with who is to be the flag bearer.
“The Igbo has not realised that their problem is politics that must be tackled politically.”
I’m his interview on Channels Television, the former governor of Kano state further painted the picture of the Igbo salvation lying with him and his NNPP when he said: “I think Labour party and all the supporters of Labour Party especially, my good friends, people of the Southeast, I have a reason, as Kwankwaso, I’m sympathetic to the southeast.
“I think the relationship between Labour Party and the NNPP will cool down a lot of things in the southeast as it stands today. That’s the only way the southeast can be relevant.
“We don’t want a situation where a particular section of this country will feel that it is being marginalised and already we have a lot of tension there and this tension is not good for the southeast, it is not good for the country.
“We have situation today in this country, where Mondays, so many businesses are being shot, so many people are being killed, so many lives are wasted and so on and so forth. That is why I take this opportunity to say that leaders at level should think positively so that this marriage can work.
“I believe it is in the interest of the Labour Party and the NNPP and even in the interest of this country because we have seen a situation where many people in the southeast believe they are being marginalised and it will even be worse if they are not involved in the 2023 project because LP, certainly, as it stands today cannot win elections.
“O’ yes it cannot win elections. The support is mainly in a particular zone. There is no even spread and the figures there cannot earn anybody presidential seat in this country.”
On whether he could be Obi’s running mate, he said, “So you see the major issues as it stands today is who becomes the president and who becomes the vice president. And I believe this is the time to advise, especially those who are positively behind the candidate of the Labour Party, that for me, I have seen an opportunity for the southeast to be relevant in the next dispensation. In PDP, they are completely out, so also in the APC.The only opportunity is now in the NNPP.
Kwankwaso also believed that the northern voter cannot vote any presidential candidate from the Southeast.
“If this marriage works with Obi as the president, the implication is that the candidate in the PDP will be the biggest beneficiary because the way the north operates politically in this country is not clear to many people.
“For example, the northern voters have got their own opinion. Northern voters hardly get influenced by any elite or anybody we can think of. If you look at the case of Muhammadu Buhari, the north decided it’s him, even when the elite don’t like him, they still don’t like him, but they made up their minds that anytime we have an election, he will have certain votes from the northern voters and these northern voters have made up their minds again on what to do, to vote for NNPP and nobody can change this.
“You see, the northern voter is worst hit by the maladministration in the country. Yet even under that circumstance, the northern voter believes that he is better with one united Nigeria and therefore most of the things happening, especially, in the southeast, people are not comfortable with that and as long as you have somebody there in any party, it will be very difficult for the northern voters to vote.
“That’s the situation now and those workers who are working against LP, Southeast, what they believe is if you put anybody under anybody on this side of the country, the northern voters will not vote and who will they vote, their own candidate from the north.”
NNPP’s national chair debunks claim
Piqued by his outburst against the Southeast, National Chairman of his party, Prof Rufai Alkali, quickly issued a statement to counter.
He said the “report falsely credited to the National leader and presidential candidate of the party, His Excellency, Senator Mohammed Rabiu Musa Kwakwanso on the South East, is said to have generated some ill feelings in some political circles in Nigeria, especially between the South East and the NNPP.
“However, as a party that is desirous to change the situation of the country, we believe that no Nigerian of any geopolitical zone, tribe, ethnic nationality, or religious persuasion is least on the rung of the ladder in the whole effort to bring the desired change in the country.
“The NNPP wishes to categorically state that the statement of its presidential candidate. Senator Kwankwaso at the occasion was situated out of contest, as the NNPP Presidential candidate has always emphasized that the Igbos were frontrunners in the fight for the nation’s struggle for independence, and had produced the first President of the country in the person of late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the first President of the Senate, Dr. Nwafor Orizu, former Vice President, late Dr. Alex Ekwueme, four former Presidents of the Senate from 1999 to date and other top political office holders.
“NNPP as a political party on the ballot in 2023 believes that it has what it takes like some other political parties to rejuvenate the present situation of the country and will not in any way disparage any zone or people of any political party.
“It is pertinent to state that the discussions with any political party or individual is an ongoing thing that would bring the desired change of a new Nigeria.
“However, the party or its presidential candidate would not in any way malign any zone or any individual as we believe that NNPP we desire the votes of all the zones and all electorate to govern Nigeria
“We want to state that NNPP will canvass votes from all geo-political zones to win the 2023 presidential election and would not in any way consider any zone less as we have supporters and candidates all over the country.”
Obi’s over reliance on 100 million voters
For Obi, his over dependence on the100 million Nigerians living in poverty expectedly going to cast their vote for him may not have augured well for the alliance. It is not incontrovertible that some of them may have their political leanings even when it is unjustifiable and accentuates their plight.
It is also the insistence of many Nigerians especially from the Southeast that after President Muhammadu Buhari’s eight years, it was natural for power to shift to the South and that Kwankwaso has no ground calling on Obi to be his running mate.
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