2023 presidency: North at the crossroads

Since he ventured into politics in 2003 when he contested the presidency under the All Nigeria People’s Party, ANPP, one of the parties that coalesced into the now ruling All Progressives Congress, APC in the run-up to the 2015 general elections, President Muhammadu Buhari has always projected himself as a ‘man of the masses.’

Going by the votes he has earned from the presidential contests he has been involved in from then till date, the masses or put appropriately, the ‘Kalakaua’s mostly in the Northwest and Northeast parts of the country loved him in return. They demonstrated this in the over 10 million votes they have given him in at least four of the five presidential contests he has been involved in since 2003.

In contrast, the President never won a senatorial district, much less a state in the Southern part of the country until 2015 when he was made the presidential candidate of the APC coalition. And just like he did during the recent Eid-el-Kabir celebration in Daura, his hometown in Katsina State, Buhari is always eager to prove that his popularity among the Northern masses has not waned whenever he finds himself in that part of the country.

The President had after prayers to mark the celebration at the Eid ground decided to abandon his fleet of luxurious cars and walk home surrounded by security operatives to acknowledge cheers from the fawning masses as shown in a video shared by his personal assistant on new media, Bashir Ahmad.

Obviously lapping on the ‘affection’ displayed for the President in the video, Mallam Garba Shehu, Ahmad’s colleague had told journalists that Buhari not only remained a strong factor in Nigerian politics but will influence the choice of who will succeed him in 2023.

He asked the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to forget about returning to power in 2023, as the masses will trust Buhari in the next general election cycle. “The president is entrenched politically. He is such a strong factor in the politics of this country and nobody can wish him away using tweets,” the presidential spokesperson said. He added that Nigerians will not risk destroying the structures put in place in terms of the economy and welfare of Nigeria’s 200 million people by allowing another political party to take control of the machinery in 2023.

“I think it is in the interest of the opposition particularly, to admit that the president matters a lot to the people of this country. He matters to the party and the unshakeable support he enjoys in Daura and this country cannot be wished away, whether you are using digital media or propaganda,”  said Shehu,  “We see PDP nursing the false hope of taking over power in 2023. The masses will never abandon President Buhari’s leadership. I’m sure in 2023, they’re waiting for him to show the way.”

The adulations at home continue for the President when he visited Umar Faruk, the Emir of Daura at his palace three days later. The Emir told the President that Nigerians are “lucky” to have Muhammadu Buhari as president at this point in time as things “would have been very difficult” if he was not at the helm of affairs. “I can assure you that men, women, children, marketers and artisans are always pleased to receive you and they will be praying for you.

“As a community, we have benefited a lot with the increased traffic of people and organisations coming to help us here. We know it’s because of you. May the good Lord always go before you and behind you, and remove all obstacles from your path,” said the Emir. “Nigeria is lucky to have you at this time. I am not saying it to please you, but if you had not been in power it would have been very difficult. I doubt if we will be here today,” he added.

Not many Nigerians now battling to feed themselves and their families amid pervasive insecurity in the country will agree with the Emir. And while Daura may have ‘reaped bountifully’ from Buhari’s presidency as acknowledged by the Emir, it has been woes for people in other parts of the North as admitted in a recent interview by the spokesperson of Northern Elders Forum, NEF, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed.

The former permanent secretary posited that rather than be a blessing, President Buhari and his ruling APC would have completely wrecked Nigeria by the time they leave office in 2023. He added that the Northern part of the country has paid a greater price for the incompetence of the President. “Even those of us from the North who voted for the present president twice have paid higher a price than anybody else,” said Baba-Ahmed. “We have paid a huge price for the incompetence of President Buhari’s administration,” he added.

His assertions cannot be faulted. President Buhari came to power in 2015 with the promise to tackle the problems of insecurity, corruption and the economy. With Boko Haram and its latter-day cousin, the Islamic State of West Africa, ISWAP still strong as ever, the farmer-herders conflict and banditry ravaging parts of the North, increased unemployment and continuous poor rating of Nigeria on the corruption index of Transparency International, many Nigerians believe that the President has failed to fully deliver on those promises.

But the President has also been accused of favouring his part of the country -the North- with appointments. But the region has also under Buhari witnessed increased insecurity with rampaging bandits on the prowl in many communities. Indeed, NEF had in December 2020 after insurgents in one of their orgies of violence beheaded over 67 farmers in Borno asked President Buhari to resign.

The group, in a statement by Baba-Ahmed, noted that the President had breached Section 14 (1), which made security and welfare the sole purpose of the government’s existence with its failure to stop the massacre of Nigerians in the Northern part of the country. “These killings and the reality they expose will make relocation of citizens and resumption of economic activities a lot more difficult to achieve even for leadership that attaches priority to them, and this administration does not. Elsewhere in many parts of the North, many farming communities have not been allowed by bandits and kidnappers to plant crops,” NEF said in the statement.

“Under this administration, life has lost its value, and more and more citizens are coming under the influence of criminals. We do not see any evidence of willingness on the part of President Buhari to honour his oath to provide security over Nigerians.

In civilised nations, leaders who fail so spectacularly to provide security will do the honourable thing and resign,” he added.

The security situation in the Northern part of the country has not improved as hardly a week can go by without reports of gross murder of scores of villagers in one community or the other in the Northwest, Northeast and the Northcentral parts of the country.

Members of the Northern Governors Forum had in April 2021 met with Buhari in the presidential villa to lament about the security challenges they are facing in their various states. Led by the Chairman, Simon Lalong of Plateau, the governors took turns to narrate their experiences in the hands of bandits, kidnappers and terrorists who are daily kidnapping, killing and maiming people in their various states.

Lalong told journalists after the meeting that the President assured him and his colleagues that he would act on the situation. But that promise has not resulted in succour for the people as bandits and terrorists continue to hold many communities by the jugular in the Northern part of the country.

As at the time of writing this story last week, over 300 students kidnapped from schools in Kebbi, Kaduna and Niger State are in the hands of bandits who are increasingly growing audacious in their operations and demands for ransoms to release their captives. The bandits recently demonstrated their increasing strength when they successfully brought down a military jet in Zamfara.

While the most strident cries against Buhari from the North has been about his failure to go hard on bandits and terrorists as he has done against agitators in the South, there are also people in the region who believed that the President has not been fair to them in terms of allocation of projects.

There have been complaints about the slow pace of work on the Kaduna – Kano Expressway and the late start of Kano to Kaduna railway, the Keffi – Akwanga Road among others under the Buhari administration. Former Ahmadu Bello University vice-chancellor, who is also the convener of NEF, Prof Ango Abdullahi, was one of those who campaigned for the Northern presidency and President Buhari ahead of the 2015 general elections.

Abdullahi and his group had hinged their support for Buhari over the alleged failure of the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP to honour the pledge to return the presidency to the North. “It was agreed that after General Obasanjo’s eight years, a candidate of Northern extraction would be president for another eight years. Unfortunately, Umaru Yar’Adua died after two years in office. So, it means in terms of numbers, the North would be expecting eight years in office, but this was cut short by the death of Yar’Adua.

“Therefore, we were expecting the party in 2011 to come out without any argument that the North should provide another candidate for president in whatever party, it doesn’t matter. When PDP refused to honour that pledge; that was why we came out and fought on the side of Buhari who we felt was the better candidate at that time,” the octogenarian former vice-chancellor said.

But in an interview last year, Abdullahi said Buhari had failed the North in all his promises and should not have even been elected for a second term in 2019. “With regards to insecurity, I think this is a belaboured issue because, at the time he came, the major security challenge was Boko Haram. Now, in addition to Boko Haram, you have bandits, you have kidnappers and all sort of issues that have to do with insecurity of people in their homes and wherever else they are operating,” said Abdullahi.

“We have analysed all these challenges and we felt that he did not deserve a second term and this was why we advised Nigerians not to return him. This is because he has not demonstrated that he can handle the various challenges that are on daily basis getting worse. Our position in 2019 attracted all sorts of accusations and we are seeing the result of our failure to understand that Buhari is not the answer to our problems as it stood in 2019 and even now,” he added.

With the 2023 election approaching, politicians in the North have been divided on the issue of whether it can be rightly asserted that the North has had its turn in the Presidency with Buhari’s eight years’ stay in Aso Rock.

With its electoral strength, the support of the North is necessary for victory in a presidential election in Nigeria. Some Northern Governors, including Nasir El-Rufai, Abdullahi Ganduje, Aminu Masari, Abdullahi Sule and Babagana Zulum of Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Nasarawa and Borno respectively have declared their support for zoning of the presidential ticket of the party to the Southern part of the country at various times.

Zulum, while reacting to the demand of the Southern Governors’ Forum that the presidency should be zoned to the South in 2023 said, “I have said it times without number that I am of the view that the Presidency should go to the South in the year 2023 because the unity of our country is very important. Secondly, inclusivity is very important. Thirdly, I am in the APC. Six or seven years ago, APC had zoned the Presidency to northern Nigeria based on the agreement that, in 2023, the Presidency should go to the South.” But there are also governors affirming that the APC has no zoning arrangement.

Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State who is eyeing a run for the Presidency under the ruling party in 2023 recently told journalists that anyone from any zone was free to contest for Presidency in the next general elections.

“There is nothing like zoning in our party. In 2015, there was no zoning; many aspirants, including former governor Rochas Okorocha, contested. In 2019, there was no zoning; people in APC were not courageous enough to contest with President Muhammadu Buhari,”  said Bello who asserted that he will contest the presidency in 2023.

The NEF had also rejected the Southern Governors’ Forum demand for the Presidency. NEF had accused the southern governors of blackmail: “We are running a democratic government and decisions over where the next president comes from are basically decisions that will be made by voters exercising their rights to choose which candidate best serves their interest,” said NEF.

The Forum also asked the southern governors to influence their parties to zone the Presidency to southern states and then work to convince voters from all parts of the country to vote for that candidate. Also, the Coalition of Northern Groups, CNG had accused southern governors of ganging up against the North ahead of 2023.

“The governors’ resolutions on 2023 exposed a deliberate attempt to impose a contentious system of rotational presidency aimed at achieving dubious political goals to weaken the North. This conspiracy is actively perpetrated with the connivance of some northerners and accommodated by the personal ambition of a few of those that present themselves as northern political leaders,” CNG said in a statement by its spokesperson, Abdul-Azeez Sulaiman.

Analysts who spoke to The Nigerian Xpress last week said the decision on whether to support a Southern candidate in 2023 may be influenced by some of the ongoing events in the country.

While Buhari has not met the expectations of the majority of the Northern people, the people in the region see strident calls for restructuring and agitations for secession in the South as a way of weakening the position of their side of the country. Prominent Northerners have especially described agitations for secession in the Southwest and Southeast as a plot to force the presidency to the South by politicians from the region.

“This will certainly influence the vote of the North in 2023,” he said. “The fear is that a President from the South can come and give in to these demands.”

Speaking in this vein, Baba-Ahmed said the South cannot prevent the North from presenting a presidential candidate in 2023. “What is a Southern candidate going to do for the North? What is the fate of the North in the hands of a candidate who emerges from the Southern part of the country using intimidation or threat?”

“We have paid a huge price for the incompetence of President Buhari’s administration, and if the Southern part of the country says we don’t want any Northerner to continue after 2023, we ask, “Doesn’t an election decide who will become a president?”

“We have a legitimate interest in who becomes president, but most importantly, whoever becomes president must not become president because their ethnic group says it’s their turn. There is also the fear that the two major parties, in the bid to enhance their prospects of winning in 2023 may both present somebody from the North as their candidate despite the resolution of the Southern governors. PDP leaders have already rejected the idea of zoning.

Some leaders of APC also believe that with Buhari not being on the ballot in 2023, it may be difficult for a Southern candidate to defeat a Northern candidate that will be presented by the PDP. However, some other members believe that President Buhari can enhance the chances of any of such candidates if he decided to campaign for him.

But ultimately, the party will also make its calculations and look for options that will help it to retain power, Farouk Adamu Aliyu, a former minority leader in the House of Representatives and a chieftain of APC told this newspaper recently: “To me, let it (presidency) go to South. But there is the party – whatever the party decides because the party is going to look at many things – electability, where the opposition will pick its own candidate -because that is also key and one of the things that the party will also look at.

“So, irrespective of what my feelings are, the party will also have to retain power and it will make political calculations; not necessarily perception calculations.”