TINUBU’S PROXY ELECTIONEERING

Time will tell whether the President’s campaign strategy will secure him victory, writes BOLAJI ADEBIYI

At last, the crowds are gathering, signalling that politics is about to heat up. Welcome to the electioneering season. Politicians have been politicking, many of them beginning almost immediately after President Bola Tinubu was inaugurated on 29 May 2023. Something akin to permanent politics has emerged, with all manner of support groups springing up, their battle cry: Tinubu beyond 2027.

Well, 2027 is around the corner. A clearer sign is not merely that it is less than three months away; Wednesday’s inauguration of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu/All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council signals the intense electioneering ahead of the 16 January presidential poll.   

The council had interesting features: a deft blend of internal and external interests that, a few weeks ago, threatened to erupt into a conflagration. It turned out to be a presidential nod to Minister Nyesom Wike’s Rainbow Coalition, a political contraption some APC governors loathe, with shaky bases at home. It included opposition governors Ademola Adeleke of Osun State (Accord Party) and Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra State (All Progressives Grand Alliance), as well as Wike (Peoples Democratic Party). They are to take charge of their states as coordinators of the president’s campaign.

The president used the inauguration to outline his electioneering, saying the campaign would operate at the regional, state, local government, and ward levels, with zonal coordinators and governors leading the charge while he remains at his desk, running the affairs of state. This campaign model was proposed by Imo State Governor Hope Uzodinma, who is the secretary of the Council and the director-general of the Renewed Hope Agenda Ambassadors, a pre-campaign mobilisation group. The president will attend a few campaign rallies, while his coordinators take his messages of hope to the 36 states and the FCT, 744 LGAs, and 8,809 wards across the country.

“I hear you. I fully agree with your decision. Nigeria needs more attention now than ever before. The responsibility of this office does not pause,” President Tinubu told the impressive gathering in the expansive Banquet Hall of the State House, Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Opposition elements have, as expected, criticised this electioneering model, dismissing it as a veiled excuse for the President’s inability to face the rigours of an expectedly intense campaign, given public apprehension about his reform policies, which have inflicted pain on the people. They point to the President’s reputation as a fierce campaigner who deploys every resource to achieve his political objectives.

At first glance, the idea of a candidate sitting idle somewhere while others run around town explaining his manifesto and programmes to the electorate may seem unusual. Indeed, it is. The nation’s electoral history is replete with candidates mounting the rostrum at public rallies, telling the multitude what they intend to do for them if elected to office. President Tinubu is a master of this. He was energetic at the podium when APC’s Muhammadu Buhari defeated PDP’s President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015 to take power. He was also at his best in 2019, helping President Buhari retain his seat. His titanic battle to take power in 2023 succeeded because the war effort centred on him.

While this model’s critique is understandable, the historic success of conventional electioneering cannot preclude innovation. After all, electioneering aims to communicate effectively with the electorate. The candidate has the prerogative to determine the most effective strategy to reach and persuade voters. In any case, Tinubu’s approach is not entirely novel. It draws on the thinking of his mentor, the late Shehu Yar’Adua, leader of the defunct Patriotic Front.

Yar’Adua believed in collective leadership, contending that his followership was the aggregation of his associates’ influence. Hence, when an opposing politician challenged him to a popularity walk on the street, he responded that the challenge was not for him but for his associates, who, as leaders in their own right, wielded the influence accorded to him. Although he could not ultimately lead the country, his younger brother, Umaru, did so in 2007, on the same principle. 

Elected President in 2007, Umaru Yar’Adua loathed addressing large crowds at rallies. “It is a waste of my time,” he told his strategy team. According to him, a few people decide who gets the vote. Those people are rarely at those large rallies. “The multitude at those large gatherings go back home to take instructions from those influential people they call their leaders. So, why don’t I just go to the decision-makers who will instruct those people at the rally?”     

However, his strategists argued that, because politics is about sight and sound, the rallies were good for optics and could have a psychological impact on the electorate. The compromise: Yar’Adua spent at least one night in each state, addressing rallies during the day and meeting stakeholders at night. It worked for him, and he won.

President Tinubu appears to have modified this strategy, opting to attend rallies at a few strategic locations while his associates take charge in their areas of influence. Beyond rallies, the President has access to other electioneering channels, including focus groups, town halls, and door-to-door canvassing.

Those criticising his unusual electioneering model fail to recognise its similarity to US presidential campaign trends over the years. Frontline presidential candidates do not campaign in all 52 states of the federation. In fact, they do not expend much energy in their strongholds, concentrating on swing states regarded as battlegrounds. In 2016, for instance, the candidates campaigned in only 23 states. The record worsened in 2024, as the challenging Republican President Donald Trump and incumbent Vice President Kamala Harris appeared in only 17 states, concentrating their efforts on the seven battleground states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, as well as Nebraska and Maine Districts.

Does this mean the US presidential candidates did not run campaigns in the other states? Certainly not. They had offices and campaign staff on the ground who did the canvassing for them. However, 246 of the 262 presidential campaign events in 2024 took place in the seven battleground states. This signals prioritisation. This appears to be President Tinubu’s preference. Time will tell whether he has adopted the right electioneering strategy.

Adebiyi, a Fellow of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, writes from Abuja