The race for Nigeria’s 2027 presidential election may have started. Already, there are subterranean moves and meetings here and there by different political party stalwarts. In no distant time, the outcome of some of these clandestine political gatherings will become manifest.
As expected, one candidate who has not hidden his deft moves to run for the 2027 presidential election is the former Nigerian Vice-President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. He has run for the presidency six times – he lost three presidential primaries and also lost as a presidential candidate in three elections. He was on the ballot as a presidential candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in 2007. He was also the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2019 and 2023 general elections.
For me, the 2019 election was the last chance Atiku had to move into the Presidential Villa in Abuja. In 2023, he manoeuvred his way to clinch the ticket of the PDP again even when the ticket should have gone to the South. He got former governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State to be his running mate. Okowa, alongside his fellow southern governors, had vowed to support and actually fight for the emergence of a southerner as the President of Nigeria in 2023. He hosted a meeting of these southern governors in 2021 in Asaba, the Delta State capital, where this resolution took place. Unfortunately for Okowa and his principal, the mood of the time was that the presidency should go to the South. Groups like Afenifere, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the Pan-Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum and even some northern governors lent their weight to this clamour.
But Atiku felt he could thwart the overwhelming wish of these Nigerians. He opposed the zoning principle, which has been in practice since 1999, saying it’s not in the 1999 Nigerian Constitution.
Although the rotation principle is not in the Nigerian Constitution, it is said to be in the constitution of both the PDP and the All Progressives Congress (APC). A few years ago, the former chairman and national secretary of the PDP, Alhaji Abubakar Kawu Baraje, said that zoning was clearly stated in the PDP’s constitution. The idea behind it is to give a sense of belonging to all members of the party and for all-inclusiveness. Even before the inclusion in the party’s constitution, it used to be an oral tradition of the party, which was highly respected.
The clear understanding of this tradition is that power should rotate between the North and the South. At the advent of this fourth republic in 1999, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, from the South-West, became the President of Nigeria. Atiku, who is from the North, was his deputy. After eight years, Obasanjo handed over the baton to Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua, a northerner. Unfortunately, Yar’Adua could not complete the turn of the North as he died in 2010, paving the way for his deputy, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, to take over. Jonathan completed Yar’Adua’s tenure and went ahead to win another four years in office. In 2015, northern political gladiators, including Atiku, muscled him out. Muhammadu Buhari took the turn of the North again and ruled for eight years. He handed over to President Bola Tinubu, a South-Westerner, who is still in his first term in office.
What this means is that the South is yet to complete its two terms of eight years. But Atiku is already making subterranean moves to upstage this zonal arrangement. He has been visiting top figures in the North under the guise of paying them Sallah homage. Recently, he paid this Sallah homage to former military President, General Ibrahim Babangida (retd), and former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar (retd), in Minna, Niger State. During the visits, Atiku had private discussions with the two retired generals.
Barely three days after visiting Babangida and Abdulsalami, the former Vice-President paid another ‘Sallah homage’ to former President Buhari in his country home, Daura, in Katsina State. He also paid a condolence visit to the family of the former Kaduna State Governor, the late Lawan Kaita, and also visited the palaces of the Emirs of Daura and Katsina, Dr. Umar Farouk Umar and Dr. Abdulmumini Kabir Usman. Former Governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal, former Secretary to the Katsina State Government, Dr. Mustapha Muhammad Inuwa, and former national secretary of the PDP, Senator Ibrahim Umar Tsauri, were part of his entourage.
Soon after hosting Atiku, Buhari also hosted former Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai, in his residence in Daura. The motive behind el-Rufai’s visit is not very clear. But it is apparent that he has fallen out with the ruling party both in Kaduna and at the centre. Recall that the Senate failed to approve his ministerial appointment. He is not happy about this and may have joined in the plot to oust Tinubu, a man he stoutly supported in 2023. He is also at loggerheads with his successor, Uba Sani. Recently, he dragged the Kaduna State House of Assembly to court for alleging that he siphoned N432bn when he was governor. The other day, he met with the presidential candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) in the 2023 election, Dr. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, in Abuja. He had earlier visited the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in March. Many Nigerians are wondering what el-Rufai, Atiku and some other northern politicians are up to.
Former Senator Shehu Sani hit the nail on the head when he said that Atiku’s ‘Sallah homage’ to past Nigerian Presidents from the North was part of the plot to unseat Tinubu in 2027. According to Sani, who represented Kaduna Central in the eighth Senate, the regrouping of northern political forces for the next general election will kiss the dust.
“The Daura homage of the disgruntled and the obsessed will fail. Our people in the North should reject these faces and their plots. They have nothing to offer,” he declared.
Regrettably, Atiku’s desperation to become President has turned him into a chameleon. He speaks from both sides of the mouth, jumps in and out of different political parties and engages in plots to scuttle the standing tradition of his party just to achieve his selfish political ambition. His emergence as the presidential candidate of the PDP in the 2023 election brought serious divisions to his party. Such a man is not fit to be our President.
At the PDP National Stakeholders Conference in 2010, Atiku insisted that power must go to the North. This was because the power rotation arrangement favoured his region then. He warned the leadership of the PDP to respect the already existing zoning arrangement of the party. He was also said to have staged a public walkout together with some northern PDP leaders at the party’s National Convention in 2015 when former President Jonathan indicated interest in going for a second term in office. That was why the Southern and Middle Belt Alliance (SaMBA) reminded him that his turnaround on zoning contradicted his previous postures as a statesman who had always demanded equity, fairness and justice in the country.
So, it is wishful thinking for Atiku and his supporters to think that he could win the presidency in 2027. Recently, speculations were rife that he would support Mr. Peter Obi of the Labour Party for the presidency. Hardly had this news hit the stands when Atiku issued some form of a disclaimer. According to him, he would continue to contest for the presidency as long as he is alive and healthy. “Even the former US President Abraham Lincoln contested seven times before finally winning,” he reportedly said.
Atiku is 77 years and will be 81 during the next presidential election in 2027. He said he would not contest if the PDP decided to zone the presidential ticket to the South, or South-East specifically; that he contested the 2023 presidential ticket because it was thrown open to all members of the party. But he did not tell us who engineered the idea to throw the contest open to all members of the party. Who is fooling whom?
This is why there is every need to make rotational presidency a constitutional matter. In my intervention on this page last week, I stressed this fact. Titled “Rotational single-term presidency best for Nigeria,” I argued that this would give people a sense of belonging and equity and bring an end to the cry of marginalization that has been resonating in some parts of the country.
I noted, “President Tinubu is an apostle of restructuring. Now that he is in the driving seat in Nigeria, he should not relent on his promise to inject equity and unity in the jugular vein of our national life. Just as he changed the national anthem from ‘Arise o compatriots’ to ‘Nigeria we hail thee’, many Nigerians expect that he should put machinery in motion to change the political structure that has yielded divisions in our polity.”
Until this restructuring is done, we will still continue with rotating the presidency between the North and the South. And as far as 2027 is concerned, it is still the turn of the South to occupy the seat of power in Abuja. No amount of nocturnal meetings will change that.