After weeks and months of probing into the oddity that was the 2023 presidential election in Nigeria, a few things stand out from our discourses. The most telling is that the much talked about Nigerian President of South East extraction was dealt a devastating blow by the outcome of the exercise.
How did we get to this unpleasant bend? It all began with the chicanery that took place before and during the presidential primaries of the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). It should be noted, before we elaborate on the primaries, that the Igbo presidency project was never a fluke. It was one agitation whose central message was to get Nigerians to realize that the most healing balm the Igbo need to feel truly Nigerian after the unpleasant experiences and backlashes emanating from the Biafran adventure was to have one of their own attain the position of the country’s First Citizen.
Until Muhammadu Buhari and Bola Tinubu injected ethnicity and nepotism into the Presidency, the exalted office and its spoils were for every part of the country. In other words, the benefit of the office was for one and all. The Igbo, therefore, never wanted the office for their own gain. They just needed to break the glass ceiling that has been constraining them.
At no time was the attainment of that objective more compelling than during the 2023 presidential race. The year presented an opportunity for power shift to the South and the only zone out of the three that never had a shot at the presidency was the South East. It was, therefore, taken for granted, almost, that the rest of Nigeria would readily rally round the South East to ensure that it attains the height of the presidency.
But as we hinted earlier, the problem began with the internal contradictions within the PDP. The party, in 2023, had a behemoth to deal with. Atiku Abubakar, a former Vice President, had almost come to see the presidency as a parting gift. It has become a height he must attain before joining his ancestors. Based on this entitlement mentality of Atiku, so much was done by the leadership of the party to ensure that he picked the party’s ticket for the presidential election. This was in utter disregard for the fact that power was supposed to shift to the South after eight years of northern presidency.
The scenario was one that should have emboldened the Igbo in the party to stand up to be counted. It was expected that they would queue behind one another to ensure that the party ceded the presidency to their geopolitical zone. But many of them fought shy. Those who should have spoken up when it mattered went into their shell. Those who managed to speak out sounded defeatist. They did not believe that the Igbo presidential project was going to materialize. It was on the basis of this hopeless disposition that the party’s delegates of South East extraction never bothered to vote for one of their own during the presidential primaries. They shared their votes between Atiku, the entitlement candidate, and Nyesom Wike, the braggart misfit.
Having watched how the PDP, the party in which the South East had a stronghold, shoved the zone aside, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) got emboldened the more to ensure that southeasterners remained fringe players in the party. The South East was not in the picture in the party’s quest for the Presidency. The scenario presented the zone with a no-choice situation. Neither the PDP nor the APC was an option.
This situation gave rise to the third force that threw up Mr. Peter Obi. He was a breath of fresh air; a new breed that differed radically from what the old order represented. Upon emergence as the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, it looked at first like Peter Obi had come to fill the gap that was created by the refusal of the two leading parties to give the South East a chance. But that initial perception never held water. Obi, in no time, emerged as the champion of the race. He was set to dethrone the old order with his unique campaign messages. For once, since the advent of the Fourth Republic, Nigerians were presented with a blueprint on how the country could be rescued from its state of debilitation. Obi’s message had a national appeal. It resonated with every segment of the country. But the youth population was particularly enthralled by it all. They saw in Obi’s message a new and bright hope for Nigeria. That was why they earnestly yearned for him.
But after the hard-fought election, revisionists ensured that the new and bright day represented by Obi never came. They stuck to the old order. They were not going to allow an Obi radicalize Nigeria and its youth population. The possibility of that scared them.
Nigeria, no doubt, lost a chance to get out of the woods through the Peter Obi presidency. But the South East was the worse for it. Institutional forces ensured that the zone remained where it has been. It was for this reason that it was willfully denied the presidency in a most brazen manner.
But what transpired in 2023 has a larger implication for Nigeria. It tells us in a most definitive way that the presidency of the country is open to all zones at all times. In other words, 2023 sounded the death knell for zoning of the presidency. Atiku Abubakar of the PDP may have lost the election but he ran the race with his whole being. He meant to succeed Buhari. He could have succeeded. If he had had his way as he almost did, it would not have mattered to anyone that his kinsman, Buhari, just vacated the office after eight years in the saddle.
The declaration of Tinubu, a southwesterner, as President was as bad. It has given rise to a situation where many now feel that the South West and North West have an agenda of domination. We have a situation where the South West is sitting on the presidential throne for the second time when the South East has come nowhere close to the seat. This aberration is what Nigeria is grappling with at moment.
The oddity, indeed, has gone full cycle. It has crept into every facet of our national life. That is why we are being entertained by the charade from the Supreme Court. Having made a mess of itself in the course of the presidential election petitions, the court has come to a laughable bend where every election petition brought against the governors are all lacking in merit. Is this really possible? What an absurdity. It is, indeed regrettable that the election year of 2023, rather than point the way, took Nigeria farther afield into the dungeon of hopelessness.