| NIGERIA is scheduled to hold general elections in February 2023 and the walls of the capital Abuja already bear posters of northern politicians who are running to be chairperson of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) when the party holds its convention on 26 February.
Given the template explained below, this means the party intends to choose a southern politician to succeed 79-year-old President Muhammadu Buhari whose final term will end next year. Two prospective candidates who fit this description are Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and his mentor Bola Tinubu, who helped Buhari to win the presidency in 2015 and 2019. However, the party goes where Buhari wants and he will attempt to decide his own successor. He could instead follow the steps of ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo by adopting a less prominent state governor. Finally, there is credible speculation that the president is considering handing power back to Goodluck Jonathan in a defection plot. In this note we describe how a presidential candidate will likely emerge in the ruling party. Template and key figures |
The APC is currently applying a local principle called zoning, which states that a party must allow power to oscillate between the north and south every eight years. This means if a party wants to field a southern candidate for president of the country, it must choose a northern politician as party chair and switch this framework every eight years. Another principle here is that a presidential candidate and their running mate must not both be Christian or Muslim. Since the country’s north is mostly Muslim and the south is mostly Christian, the convention is to put forward a northern Muslim and a southern Christian as running mates. See the image below.
Bola TinubuTinubu’s candidacy in that context is improbable because he is a Muslim from the south. The APC would have to pick a Christian northerner as his running mate and this would alienate the party’s largely Muslim base in the north where Islam heavily influences politics. There are also controversies about Tinubu’s real age, health and source of wealth. Further, the election data indicates that his ability to influence poll outcomes in his southwestern stronghold has waned since he first mobilised the region for Buhari in 2015. The APC’s share of votes in the 2019 presidential election fell in nearly all states in the southwest relative to the 2015 election. That weakens his bargaining power in the party presently as he asks its northern establishment to back him in return for helping Buhari in the past. Yemi OsinbajoMeanwhile, Vice President Osinbajo’s prospects are also dimmed by his weak political base and his frosty relationship with Buhari’s camp. Aged 64, Osinbajo has mostly leaned on Tinubu throughout his political career and it was in fact Tinubu who picked him to be Buhari’s running mate. Now, Osinbajo is isolated having run into a conflict with Buhari’s inner circle based on actions that he took as acting president while Buhari was unavailable due to illness in his first term. For example, Osinbajo sacked the head of the State Security Service in August 2018 after the secret police blocked parliament. The secret police had been working with Buhari’s allies on a plot to remove the then-Senate president. Kayode FayemiIn 1999, Nigeria returned to civilian rule with a People’s Democratic Party (PDP) government that was headed by Olusegun Obasanjo, who grudgingly chose one of the PDP state governors as his successor after a failed third term bid. Buhari and his allies could now emulate that precedent by choosing a successor among the APC state governors. One of them is 56-year old Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti state whose gubernatorial term ends this year – just in time for a presidential election campaign. State governors are a powerful bloc in their political party largely because they control the local flow of public funds from government to party structures, and so the ruling party will likely select a state governor who is popular among their peers either as its presidential or vice-presidential candidate. Goodluck JonathanFinally, recent events support ongoing speculation that Buhari is inclined to hand power back to the PDP’s Goodluck Jonathan following a remarkably graceful transition between both men in 2015. Jonathan did not participate in the PDP’s convention in October 2021 as the party leaders tried to talk him out of a proposed defection to the APC, and recent meetings between him and Buhari have fanned rumours of a comeback. There is significant nostalgia for Jonathan given the worsened health of the country right now, and pairing him with a northern Muslim could be a strong offering on the ballot in 2023. |
Adedayo Ademuwagun a Consultant with Songhai Advisory, an African-owned and managed firm delivering local knowledge supporting transformative and sustainable strategic decision-making
