Let us face it, the two major political parties have failed. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) built the foundation of this failure and the All Progressives Congress (APC) is building a skyscraper of failure on top of the foundation. PDP allowed Boko Haram to take over the North East and foisted their flags on about 17 Local Government Areas in Borno State, while APC allowed bandits, terrorists, kidnappers, insurgents, militants, separatists and unknown gunmen take over the whole country and are stealing oil, massacring people in mosques, churches, markets and indeed everywhere. Jail breaks are frequent and the President can no longer even protect himself as his convoy comes under attack. Bandits collect taxes from the citizens even from the President’s State. In APC’s government, almost every Governor is crying out loud for self-defence.
PDP is corrupt, both as a ruling party and as an opposition party. So corrupt that when it voluntarily sets up its own internal INEC to organise election into the office of its Vice-Presidential ticket, it openly rigged the election in favour of a candidate that scored 3 votes against the candidate that scored 14 votes, in a 17- man Electoral Committee. I shudder at the prospect of a party like this ever having the opportunity to appoint the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Nigeria and having to ever conduct election again in Nigeria. PDP does not even respect landslide victory in its determination to rig elections. Can you now respect the memory of President Umaru Yar Adua, who was elected President, through the unrepentant PDP rigging machine, and voiced out openly that the PDP’s organised elections were flawed? Their regime became popular with the slogan, share the money. APC has become the mouthpiece of corruption. Presidential candidates churned out N100m each, an amount equivalent to about 7 years of the President’s salary, as nomination fees. The members even paid for a former President of PDP and their CBN Governor to contest for their Presidential ticket. Eventually, about N500m was thrown away by some members supporting some aspirants who eventuality failed, refused or neglected to run. Too much money to throw away when the University has been shut down for months due to lack of money. Are you surprised then that one officer, the Accountant-General of the Federation, under the nose of the APC, is alleged to have misappropriated and carted away about N180b in a country that pretends to be paying trillions of subsidy for a non-existent refined petroleum oil?
It is no longer news that Nigerians are tired of these parties, what is news is that the members of these political parties are tired of their parties too. When Governor Samuel Ortom, PDP Governor of Benue State, was asked whether he will support the Presidential candidate of the PDP in the 2023 presidential election, he instantly became a prayer warrior that needed to consult God before knowing whether he will support his presidential candidate. He alluded to the great rigging of the election of Governor Wike of which the loser won, and the winner (Wike) lost. About 20 APC Senators are tired of their Party and have been threatening to jump to other parties. They alluded to the integrity-challenged process of their primary elections. What is more symptomatic of the failure of these two political parties than that the two presidential candidates of the two political parties, despite the great challenges we are facing now in Nigeria, jetted out of the country to enjoy or treat themselves, immediately after their victories in their Party presidential primaries. PDP candidate could not even attend the campaign of his party for the Ekiti gubernatorial election which resulted in PDP coming third. He is in Dubai. The APC candidate is in France. Nigeria has suffered.
It appears that the idea of a third force is becoming increasingly louder and louder everyday. Two of the major Political forces that are emerging from the ashes of a decaying political system are the Labour Party and the New Nigerian Peoples Party. The arrow heads of these two political parties are Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwakwanso. Peter Obi is from the South-East of Nigeria, while Rabiu Kwakwanso is from the North-West of the country. The current President of APC extraction is a muslim from the North-West, who is about to complete his second term of 8 years in office. He has not being a very good advert recently for himself and his Geo-Political Zone in all indices. His Zone and State have been worst hit in insecurity and banditry than any other in Nigeria. He even confessed, after visiting Kuje prison, to inspect a jailbreak, right under his nose, that he is disappointed with his regime. Nigerians, especially from the North-West, are crying for a change. They are no longer consumed with the obsession that the President must come from their place. They have had two since 1999 and their lives were not changed for the better. As a matter of fact, it was the resolve of the 14 Governors of the North, majority coming from the North-West, that made it possible for the presidential ticket of the APC to shift South. Also, it is the same sentiment that made Tambuwal, a presidential aspirant of PDP from North-West, to lose the bid to emerge in his party as the presidential candidate. Even in the North, North-West is not considered for the 2023 presidential election because it is believed they have had their own turn. This arithmetic deals terrible blow to Rabiu Kwakwanso, who is a Muslim from the North-West as the incumbent President. Added to the principle of rotation and power shift for which the two political parties subscribed to in their Constitutions, NNPP is really running against the tide. If equity and justice is respected and cherished and the power rotated accordingly, South-East is the only Geo-Political Zone in the South that has not had a shot at the Presidency. This leaves Peter Obi lucky, being the most qualified presidential material from the Zone.
The viability of the political parties is in issue. APC and PDP are viable but vitiated. The mood of the nation is towards a viable and uplifted political party. NNPP is barely 3 months old and is hardly recognised in Kano State. Labour Party is the party of all the workers in Nigeria that has existed before 2007. It has produced Legislators, both at the Federal and State levels. It has produced Local Government Chairmen and a Governor. The only office it has not produced is that of the President. Again the little known NNPP becomes disadvantaged in this regard, while the LP becomes the beneficiary of the possibility of being the arrow head of an emerging third force.
In a multi-religious society like ours, where the populations of Muslims and Christians are evenly spread, no one can rule out religious sentiments in the presidential choice of 2023. We are about to finish from the 8 years of a Muslim leader. It may not be uncommon for Christians and some Muslims to believe that it will give Christians a greater sense of belonging, which will in turn bring about increased peace in Nigeria, if they support a Southern Christian to succeed President Buhari. Obi again fits into this equation amongst the two candidates coming up from the South. Kwakwanso is a northern Muslim, who will make Nigeria experience same formula for 16 years if he is chosen in a nation where people are not comfortable with achieving a third term through other means. A kwakwanso is actually a third term for a North-West Northern Muslim. Nigeria needs a first term President to give us a first class re-orientation of the country. The fact that APC is even considering a Muslim-Muslim ticket, after the regime of a Muslim President, shows how much disdain they have for Nigerian Christians, especially Northern Christians, and the Federal Character principle which abhors the domination of one religion over another.
However, the most important consideration in this coming election will not be the State of origin, tribe or religious qualifications of each candidate, it will be the capacity to deliver democracy dividends to the people. Who has shown himself the least corrupt, the most energetic and most knowledgeable about Nigeria problems, ready from day one to provide solutions. The more youthful the candidate is, the more appealing he is to the youths of the country. President Ibrahim Babangida ruled out Atiku and Tinubu in this race for want of commensurate energy to deal with the numerous problems buffeting Nigeria. They are unviable. Peter Obi has demonstrated the capacity to bring about democratically engineered disruptive change. He upset the political equation in Anambra State in 2007, when he ran for Governor under a relatively unknown Political Party then, All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), to defeat PDP. As usual, PDP rigged his election and announced another candidate as winner. Obi did not raise unknown gunmen to attack Federal installations in the quest for the revalidation of his mandate, he went to court and defeated the PDP and recaptured his mandate, thereby becoming the first to introduce staggered elections in Nigeria. He was impeached for not sharing Anambra State money with some members of the State House of Assembly. He did not start assassinating the members of the State Assembly, he went to court and recovered his mandate. The Court held that Obi did not misconduct himself and cannot be impeached by the State Assembly. Refusing to give “shishi” of State money to looters is not a misconduct, it is indeed applaudable. Obi was impeached for daring to spend about N85m to complete the Anambra State House, out of about N400m budgeted for the purpose by the Legislature. He refused to share the balance. He was to leave about N75b for Anambra State after his regime, which he met in debts when he came in. He entrenched APGA so much in Anambra through good governance that Anambra fell in love with the party so much that Obi himself could not uproot the party when he left the party for the sake of rescuing Nigeria. Obi maintained security in Anambra State that made Anambra State become the hub of business in Nigeria then. He refused to be allocated lands in Anambra State as a thanksgiving offer from a grateful state, while other presidential candidates from the West and North are the Chief Landlords of their States and even abroad. Nigeria needs a disruptive change now for its survival. Whoever aligns himself to the old order is part of Nigeria’s problem. God honours obedience more than sacrifice. If we learn to be Obi-dient to the rule of law, justice and our conscience, we may just be on our way to national rebirth and redemption.