Less than four months, about 70million Nigerians will go to the polls to choose a new President of Africa’s biggest country. Last Monday, the electoral umpire, Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) lifted the lid on a campaign saucepan that has been heated up for close to one year, opening a new window for political parties to sell their candidates.
Though there are about 50 political parties with at least half of them featuring Presidential aspirants, the All Progressives Congress, (APC) and the People Democratic Party, (PDP) appear to control the most formidable structures in the country. Though three state governors of Sokoto, Kwara and Benue have decamped from the ruling APC, the party still controls majority of the 36 states apart from sustaining slight edge in the National Assembly, (NA).
Both Atiku and Buhari are contesting for votes in 120,000 polling units spread across 774 local governments.
Nigeria is home to Africa’s largest deposit of crude oil but her citizens remain poor and vulnerable living in the average of 100 dollars a day. The country has witnessed unabated violence, conflict and more significantly the advent of Islamic fundamentalism in the country’s North East that has claimed no fewer than 30,000 lives since 2009. The country’s currency, naira has maintained a steady contest with the dollar, but not until the crushing fall of 2015 from which the the stock market is yet to recover.
Corruption remains a culture though efforts by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC) has yielded about 2billion dollars raked in from stolen public funds. The past three years has also witnessed a decline in GDP inspite of population growth rate now at 3 percent. International agencies project that Nigeria’s population will be 200million in the next 10 years.
‘Nigeria faces enormous challenges. The next President must show greater understanding of the complex problems confronting the country”, Chief Oluseguun Ajibulu, President of South West Professionals, (SOWPROF) told Newdawn. Both the APC and PDP are laying claims to greater capacity to surmount the hurdle as the Presidential election draw near.
The ruling All Progressives Congress, (APC) launched a blitzkrieg of campaigns on Monday. For a start, the APC moved with the seizure of the cover page of most national dailies with its slogan “The Next Level.” Almost at the same time, the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP), Presidential hopeful, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar declared what he called his readiness to occupy the Aso Rock. He said his government will address security, unity and prosperity.
Atiku was said to have held a weeklong strategy meeting in the United Arab Emirate, (UAE) earlier in the month of October.
Buhari’s two-part document highlighted his achievements for the past four years promising to increase the tempo of the country’s political economy.
He spoke with an air of confidence. He enthused, “to succeed, moral integrity and conscience must continue to form the dominant character of our nation and its leadership. Corruption is an existential threat to Nigeria. Despite the gains we have made in closing the gates, we know that there is still much ground to be covered to stop systemic corruption. We are committed to deepening the work we started this past term” promising that the country’s assets would continue to be used to the upliftment of the country.
Buhari said the next four years will be remarkable. “The next four years will be quite significant for our country. Nigeria is faced with a choice to keep on building a new Nigeria or to go back to its tainted past, which favoured opportunistic few.”
The President said further “Our choices will surely shape us, defining clearly, our economic security and out future prosperity. Nigeria, more than ever before, needs a stable and people-focused government to move the development of our country forward” urging Nigerians to join his party.
Atiku said he would privatize the commanding height of the economy, citing the oil sector as one of his focal points. As VP between 1999 and 2007, he was in charge of the PDP’s privatisation scheme that saw the sales of public enterprises to individuals in circumstances that continue to raise dust and suspicion.
“We shall privatize all four outstanding government-owned refineries to competent off takers with mandates to provide agreed levels of refined output.”
He said he would issue new licenses for Greenfield investment in crude oil refining and allied activities.
On restructuring, Atiku said Issues bordering on minerals and mines, internal security including police, law and order, railways, communications, transport environment, land matters etc would be devolved to the concurrent list adding that “local governments shall become independent tiers.”
We shall create a special tribunal for crimes against women including domestic violence, physical or sexual abuse, rape.’
He said he would ensure a competitive and open economic system; reform public institutions; reduce infrastructure deficit; promote economic diversification and human capital development.
Both leaders have come under severe attacks from critics. The Senate President Olusola Saraki said Buhari was not committed to addressing the country’s socio-economic problems adding that the PDP would thoroughly defeat the APC in the coming elections.
Atiku has also come under the hammer. “You are a symbol of past failures and the politically corrupt in Nigeria. With all due respect , therefore On behalf of millions of Nigerians we remind you that you should shut up when we are discussing anti-corruption challenges and the way forward,” Churchill Okonkwo a public affairs commentator wrote.
Observers think the President Buhari is most likely hold to his traditional stronghold of the North West, while defeating Atiku in the North East, his ancestral home might prove difficult, though there are references to the fact that Buhari’s mother being Kanuri from the North East is likely to add to his baskets of electoral harvests.
The North West has the highest number of votes with 18, 900, 543 million registered voters, followed by the South West with 14, 298,356 million. The North East has 10,038,119. The South East ; 7,028,560, South-South 8,937,057 while North Central has 7,675,369 voters.
Beyond winning their homestead, it is believed that the APC VP, Prof ‘Yemi Osinbajo will make remarkable outing in the South West while the PDP running mate, Mr Peter Obi is expected to make inroads into the South-East for the PDP. But beyond wining their roots, other factors are germane the least of which is religion and tribe, the two candidates being Moslems and of Fulani ancestry.
Atiku has continued to sing the song of restructuring, but analysts see this as a double-edged sword. While restructuring may appeal to the South, it is anathema to many voters from the core-North. This means that Atiku’s slogan might win sympathy in the South but turn out to be counter-productive in some parts of the North. Atiku’s promises of reviving the economy have seen a string of distrust from the public. Some Nigerians see Atiku as the kingpin of capitalism. Some raise questions about the source of his wealth and the series of corruption allegations against him, the chief being the Halliburton scandal. He was said to have illegally transferred some 40million dollars illegally to his mistress through questionable procedures. Some also doubt Atiku’s sincerity when it comes to promises judging from the ruinous PDP era during which he was the number two figure.
Buhari also has his own burden. He has been accused of lacking capacity to govern the country and that his selection of people of his own ethnic stock into strategic positions raises moral and constitutional questions. Critics also point to the kid gloves approach to the fight against corruption. But there is an historical fact which both parties would wish to undermine: Defeating an incumbent political party in Nigeria at the Federal level has happened only once in the country’s half a century post-independence history. It occurred in 2015. A repeat of such a feat so soon can only be a miracle.
