I personally see some garbled political misspeak, some illogical logic, some historical inaccuracies and a lot of Maradona-style Hand of God goal scores in efforts by APC national officers to explain the chaos that enveloped the party’s North East Zonal meeting at Gombe last Sunday. It was probably the party’s lowest moment in a decade, and the scramble to “clarify” matters by both North East National Vice Chairman Mustapha Salihu, who caused the rumpus in the first place, and by APC National Publicity Secretary Felix Morka ended up muddling matters a little bit more.
Morka said on Arise TV that nomination of a running mate is a post-primary event and it is too early to speculate on it. Trouble is, it is also too early to speculate on primaries event because the timetable is not yet out for the presidential primaries. Not only is it too early, but it is also wrong for party structures to endorse one aspirant before the primaries because other aspirants may spring up before the primaries and party officers, who will conduct the primary elections, are required to guarantee a level playing field to every aspirant, as they did in 2014, 2018 and 2022.
Oga Morka said primary election is not a joint ticket and only the presidential candidate is chosen there. Technically, he is right. Politically and historically, he is very wrong. In 1983, President Shehu Shagari ran for renomination with his Vice President, Alex Ekwueme. In 2003, President Obasanjo sought renomination with his Vice President, Atiku Abubakar. In 2011 and again in 2015, President Goodluck Jonathan sought renomination with his Vice President, Namadi Sambo. And in 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari sought renomination with his Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo.
Two things complicate matters for the APC leadership in trying to wriggle out of this quagmire. One is that President Tinubu has a record of dumping two deputy governors while he was Governor of Lagos. The second situation is that, the 2027 election looking like an uphill task for the Presidency, it is playing a game of dangling the Vice Presidency in front of three different groups in order to woo them from now to next year. These are, Northern Christians with a Muslim-Christian ticket; NNPP leader Rabi’u Kwankwaso who it hopes could bring in a million more votes from Kano; and two APC governors in the North West who are rumoured to be angling for the position.
Trouble is, each of the three prospects has big political dangers of its own. Nominating a Christian politician from the North Central zone could cost the Presidency millions of far northern votes. Kwankwaso might [or might not] bring a million more votes from Kano, but he could alienate much more than that number across the North, first by chasing out Kano’s current APC members, who will see him as a party “settler” displacing party “natives.” Not to mention his political temperament, which is 180 degrees different from Kashim Shettima’s.
And then, nominating a North Western APC governor amounts to throwing away the entire North East, with no assurance that it will bring in more North Western votes. This is because, of all geopolitical zones in the country, feeling of oneness is weakest in the populous North West, where the prevailing political sentiment is North and South, Muslim and Christian. As a native North Westerner myself, I do not sense that Sokoto/Kebbi/Zamfara have any greater political affinity with Kano, Katsina or Kaduna than with, say, Borno, Yobe, Gombe, Bauchi or Adamawa. There is more affinity with Niger, geographically a North Central state, because of old North Western State affinity.
If indeed the Presidency encouraged Party Chairman Abdullahi Ganduje and other officials to toe this path, it is playing dangerous political acrobatics. It can juggle and dribble in the run up to 2027 but should remember that 32 years ago when General Babangida dribbled too much, he ended up scoring an own goal.
