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Unarguably, the exit of former President Muhammadu Buhari has created a vacuum that will be very hard to fill. It has created a political void. Many Nigerians have eulogized him for his many achievements as military head of state, from December 31, 1983, to August 27, 1985, and democratic President from 2015 to 2023. Only a few Nigerians were able to give his shortcomings as a leader. That is how it should be. A balanced view of someone’s life should be able to reflect the good and the bad sides, as no one is perfect.
Irrespective of what people said about him, the ex-military General was both great in life and in death. He meant well for Nigeria even though he was highly misunderstood. He contested presidential election four times. He lost on three occasions, and won at the fourth attempt. His love for a disciplined and ordered society was so high that he instituted the war against indiscipline (WAI) in his first coming as a military leader. He told us that “Nigeria is the only country we have and that we shall salvage it together.” In his second coming as a born-again democrat, he told us that he “belongs to everybody and belongs to nobody.” This claim in itself is contradictory.
He promised to tackle corruption, fix the economy and end insecurity. He did his modest best. Unfortunately, those monsters are still with us. And there is no sign that they are abating soon. Some people could not distinguish Buhari, the military leader, and Buhari, the democratic leader. They lump the two together. Mixing the two creates its own paradoxes, ambiguities and complexities in understanding the Mai Gaskiya. Like most great people, Buhari is seen and defined from different perspectives akin to the proverbial six blind men and the elephant.
His exit was mourned by all Nigerians. His funeral in Daura, Katsina State, was attended by a mammoth crowd including the low and the mighty. The talakawas, the poor, he fought for and defended, were not left out. They trooped out in their numbers to mourn their hero. Trust all our politicians; they added the needed colour and excitement to the national mourning and burial with their lavish praises of the great man and his legacies. And some overdid it with gusto and some level of insincerity, in keeping with our high sense of political correctness.
For everyone, including our political leaders, they should be concerned with how they will be judged and what will be their legacies at the end of the day. Will they be praised or condemned? Let our politicians think of what they should do to Nigeria and Nigerians and not what they should do to themselves, their families and cronies. Our leaders should worry about the security and welfare of the people, the major reason for the existence of government. They must ensure that Nigerians have food, jobs, shelter, water, electricity, functional health system good transportation system and good schools.
Our governance system must be people-centric. Our ‘Nigeria First’ policy must be people-centred. The growing insecurity in the land and rising poverty and hunger across the country are pointers to poor leadership and bad governance. Now that Buhari, who had cult following in the North, is gone, which party will inherit his Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and the 10 million votes they had posted in past presidential polls? The next scramble in the next couple of days, weeks and months will be who controls Buhari’s CPC and which political bloc will they join before the 2027 elections.
With Buhari’s exit, the road to 2027 will be bumpy and full of potholes. Will Buhari’s CPC align with the new opposition ADC coalition or the ruling APC? After Buhari, the leading political heavyweights to contend with as we move towards the 2027 election cycle include former Vice President and PDP presidential candidate in 2023 poll, Atiku Abubakar, former governor of Kano State, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, former Kaduna State governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai and a few others.
Will Buhari’s 10 million voters go to one political bloc and dump their votes? The answer is both yes and no depending on what happens in the political horizon between now and 2027. In politics, a day or even an hour means a lot. Now that Atiku Abaubakar has formally dumped his former party, the PDP, and fully aligned with the ADC, the political map is surely set to be redrawn. Forget those being dismissive about the dumping of the PDP by the Turaki.
In the next few days, more and more politicians will dump the PDP. Even the Labour Party (LP) will soon be affected by the same political tsunami. There is going to be political realignments, mass defections and cross defections ahead of 2027 election season. With his dumping of PDP, it appears that Atiku Abubakar is fast moving to fill the vacuum left by Buhari’s demise.
How he manages other political heavyweights from the North will determine if he is the new leader of the North or shall we look for another. El-Rufai is another shrewd politician from the North to watch. He is capable of changing the equation if he is not fully carried along. If the North can come together and speak with one voice, they will along with other zones decide the shape of the 2027 election cycle. How soon will Peter Obi and supporters dump the LP and fully join the coalition will be determined in the next few days. How the ruling APC will react to the new developments in the polity will also unravel in the days ahead.
Will all this lead to the death of PDP and LP? The answer is not yet certain. All I can say is that with the mass defections left and right, things will no longer be the same with the PDP and the LP. With Atiku and supporters leaving the former political behemoth, which is apparently on life support now, the party will either die permanently or remain a fringe political party.
It was a party that boasted to be the biggest party on the continent and said it would rule Nigeria for 60 years. Some of its stalwarts shamelessly made it 100years. For LP, Obi’s exit will mark its death. Before Obi’s emergence as its flag bearer in the 2023 election, the LP was a fringe party with no much electoral value. It acted as a special purpose vehicle with which some politicians vie for power. The party has refused to grow beyond being that special vehicle to climb to power. The contestation of who owns the party between the NLC and politicians has not helped matters. The politics of 2027 will be interesting and intriguing as well.
