NEWS ANALYSIS: Tinubu, Atiku, Kwankwaso, Obi: The mouthwatering 2023 presidential contest

The All Progressives Congress (APC) finally settled for a Southern presidential candidate in Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the party’s just concluded convention in Abuja on Wednesday. This was after the initial attempt to subvert the zoning arrangement of the party by no less a personality than the National Chairman, Senator Adamu Abdullahi, through scheming, subterfuge and name dropping. It is alleged that some within the ruling party, in cahoots with a tiny cabal in the Presidency, were averse to having the presidential candidate of the party coming from any other part of the country but the north.

In their wisdom, this group felt the only way to make this happen was through consensus arrangement, which is akin to imposition, dropping the name of Mr. President. Of course, it didn’t fly. The hero here are the northern governors, who kept to their initial stand that for equity and national cohesion, the ruling party must present a Southern candidate for the 2023 presidential election after the eight years of President Muhammadu Buhari in the saddle.

Tinubu’s emergence is noteworthy. He faced tremendous forces that were arrayed to truncate his ambition and mission. The former Lagos State governor and Jagaban of Borgu has shown once again that he is a phenomenon in the country’s political landscape.

His emergence has also thrown up a mouthwatering presidential contest in 2023. Tinubu will slug it out with the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, the candidate of Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP).

All the four are formidable opponents and incidentally, they are representing the three major blocs in the country; North, Southwest and Southeast, which, in itself, is raising the fear of possible ethnic voting pattern.

Tinubu and Atiku are the candidates to beat. They are political juggernauts and have their tentacles spread across the country. They are from the Yar’Adua political family, which was inherited by Atiku, who has contested virtually every presidential election in the country, save in 1999, which is the only one he contested and won as governor of Adamawa State.

Atiku, like Tinubu has enough war chest at his disposal, which makes him a formidable opponent. However, will he suffer from the clamour that after eight years of Buhari’s Presidency, power should shift to the South?

Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, a former governor of Kano State, emerged the presidential candidate of NNPP, where he was the sole contestant. He had earlier taken over the party with his supporters after dumping the PDP. Kwankwaso, who is also a former defence minister, said he left the PDP because of the failure of its leadership and lack of internal democracy.

Thereafter, he and his political allies took over NNPP, with which he launched his presidential ambition.

“Everybody wants a new Nigeria, because nobody is happy with the status quo. I believe this country requires a positive change,” he said.

Kwankwaso is a grassroots politician, with large following, especially in the north. However, his political base is not limited to the north. In 2019, he came to Lagos and the mammoth crowd that attended his rally showed his political reach.

In 2015, Kwankwaso contested the presidential primary of the then newly formed APC with Buhari and came second, with 974 votes, beating Atiku to third with 954 votes.

The Labour Party’s Peter Obi is the rave of the moment. The former Anambra State governor has been labelled the ‘social media king’.

He, like Kwankwaso, dumped the PDP when he realised that his presidential ambition was under threat. He has been able to galvanize the youth, who see themselves in him. Obi is being marketed as the candidate to retire the old order. He is the springboard to acquire the leadership of the country by the younger ones, so they claim. The internet is swarming with his profile and records of his tenure as governor. His quotable quotes are shared thousands of times. People are being urged to get their PVCs ready.

Is a revolution coming in 2023? Time will tell but it’s hard to beat the old order.

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