The worst possible outcome of the 2023 presidential election would have been an Atiku Abubakar victory. That would have established such a bad and dangerous precedent, causing serious damage to Nigeria’s unity and worsening the country’s already problematic management of diversity.
Atiku ran for the PDP presidential ticket on the basis that only a northern candidate could win. It was not a subtle campaign but a full-throated one, in which Atiku and Aminu Tambuwal, as well as their associates such as Raymond Dokpesi, went on national TV to cite controversial population dynamics as the reason only a northerner could win the presidency.
The naiveté displayed by these men, who ordinarily should be considered seasoned political strategists because of the positions and offices they had occupied, was outstanding. It was a clear misreading of the Nigerian political system, or even worse, an exhibition of ignorance of the country’s political behaviour and demographics. But, apparently, the desperation to win the PDP’s presidential ticket and check the ambitious and cash-flushed Wike clouded their judgment, making them push a line of reasoning that was not only wrong but clearly against their own long-term interest.
This ‘only a northerner can win’ campaign was so steep that it also impacted the rival APC. I was a strategist for the campaign of a southern presidential aspirant in the APC, and one of our notable challenges was the growing narrative that only a person from the north could win the general election, especially if the PDP elected a northern Presidential candidate.
The argument seemed silly and easily dismissible considering Nigeria’s plural demographics, voting behaviour, and the presidential election results since 1999. But even in casual conversations, one could tell that the narrative was gaining ground, and soon there was chatter of a plot in the Villa to ensure that a northerner emerged as the APC presidential candidate, to make it an all-north final—Atiku in the PDP and the northerner to emerge in the APC.
I wrote an article at that time to repudiate this argument and to call out Atiku for his myopia. My point was that the framers of the 1999 constitution made it impossible for anyone to emerge as President without substantial investments and support from the other regions. That is why regional parties in the mould of Obafemi Awolowo’s UPN and Nnamdi Azikiwe’s NPP have not succeeded in the 4th Republic. To be a successful presidential candidate, one needs a broad coalition straddling both the North and South.
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I noted that such an insular mindset made Muhammadu Buhari a serial loser of presidential elections until he formed an extensive coalition of leading northern and southern politicians. I also pointed out that southern candidates, Goodluck Jonathan and Olusegun Obasanjo, had won the presidency handily in the past through such political alliances. In any case, I argued, assuming Atiku was right that the population of the north gave it such a superior advantage that political parties were compelled to field only northerners to ensure victory, did it mean that northerners would rule Nigeria in perpetuity?
Of course, the results of the 2023 presidential election confirmed my arguments and put a lie to this line of reasoning. Atiku’s PDP, expectedly, performed poorly in the South, losing its strongholds of the South-South and South-East to Peter Obi’s LP. Even in the North, he only won nine out of a possible 19 states, which was insufficient to put him ahead in the presidential race. But imagine he had come out on top despite his alienating campaign against southern demographics. That would have disrupted the gentleman’s arrangement for power to move from one zone to another and validated the argument that political parties don’t have to broaden their outlook to win.
As the opposition rallies towards the 2027 elections, it is necessary to draw attention to the PDP’s error of 2023. The narrow messaging of Atiku, Tambuwal and co cost the party its southern support base, making it impossible for the PDP to win. The emerging coalition must therefore be wary of the inclination of some politicians to mask personal ambition as the group’s own and thereby foist an image on it that is narrow, alienating and limiting.
That was the PDP’s fatal undoing in 2023, diminishing from a national party with a support base sufficiently spread across the country to Atiku’s personal electioneering vehicle that pandered to a limited demographic. The drivers of the new coalition must therefore insist that it remains broad-based, drawing strength from its plurality and diversity, like the APC did in 2013 when it was formed. Anything short of that would be Nunc Dimittis, a funeral for a stillborn, rather than the building of a people-owned political party capable of rescuing the country.
Ogunro is the director of research and strategy at the Future Now Initiative, an Abuja-based civil Society.
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