2023 CAMPAIGN WATCH

Samuel  Ajayi       

E-mail: yemielegance@gmail.com    

Mobile: 08033083367

Atiku, Tinubu Kick-Start Political Mud-Wrestling

Between the presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and his counterpart in the opposition People’s Democratic Party, PDP, the fireworks have started in full force and supporters of the presidential candidate of the Labour Party,  Peter Obi, are having a very good laugh. 

Just last week, Tinubu mocked Atiku that he would not be governing the country from faraway Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, UAE. While speaking with the members of the popular Tijjaniyyah sect in Kano,   Tinubu said he would give one hundred per cent of his time to running Nigeria. 

“I will give Nigerians 100 per cent of my time, not 50 per cent in Dubai and 50 per cent in Nigeria. I would concentrate attention and energy on confronting and surmounting Nigeria’s pressing challenges.” 

The thinking in political circles is that Atiku has a lot of business concerns in Dubai and that is why he shuttles between the Middle East country and Nigeria. 

But the Atiku/Okowa Presidential Campaign Council won’t allow such salvo to go without a response. Kola Ologbondiyan, former National Publicity Secretary of the PDP and one of the spokespersons of the campaign council, said Tinubu has a record of not keeping promises, hence the people of Kano should not take him seriously. 

“The people of Kano have not forgotten all the fake promises made to Nigerians by the APC, where Asiwaju is the national leader, including bringing the naira to the same value with the US dollar, building one refinery each for the first four years of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, giving loans to undergraduate students and paying N5000 to aged men and women,” Ologbondiyan said. 

He added that the Atiku campaign team was surprised that Tinubu is only making token promises without detailing how they would be achieved. 

“He wants to boost agriculture and link international markets with commodities without addressing the troubling issue of insecurity, which is primal on Atiku Abubakar’s list. Nigerians must be cautious of beguilers and rent-seekers that are now showboating as managerial experts. The question which Tinubu needs to answer is why did he not make his sweet-coated solutions to our national challenges to President Muhammadu Buhari in the last seven years? Is Tinubu saying he deliberately railroaded President Buhari to failure for his personal interest?” He asked rhetorically.

For Tinubu, the battle ahead is enormous. After the furore that greeted the composition of his campaign council, Tinubu has been trying frantically to get his campaign back on track. Last week, he launched his manifesto which he tagged ‘Renewed Hope’.  Some of his critics have claimed that it was nothing more than a dusted version of the late business magnate, MKO Abiola, ‘Hope 93’ campaign, but his team has insisted that the document captures what Tinubu plans to do to lift the nation out of the doldrums if elected President.

 Beyond this however, Tinubu’s greatest albatross is the dismal performance of the current government which he himself has repeatedly claimed he helped to power. How will he be able to convince Nigerians to give another APC government a chance to run the affairs of the country for another possible eight years,  with growing  insecurity, an economy in comatose, a frighteningly fragile union? The challenge is how the Tinubu campaign team would be able to run a successful campaign and at the same time distance itself from the disaster the Buhari regime has been. For instance, the economic situation is worsening every day and many Nigerians are leaving the country in droves.  It will be a herculean task. 

Even within the party, there is a silent discontent over the composition of the campaign team; with some party leaders, including the National Chairman of the Party and former Nasarawa State governor, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, saying the list was practically unacceptable. 

Though Tinubu has made some concessions, the problem created by the list necessitated the postponement of the launching of the campaign twice.

So, while more salvos between Tinubu and Atiku are expected during the campaigns, such seem to be the least headache of the Tinubu team.

Okowa, Oborevwori Facing Battles on Two Fronts

The current governor of Delta State and vice-presidential candidate of the opposition People’s Democratic Party, PDP, Ifeanyi Okowa, surely has two major tasks ahead of the 2023 general election. He would want his party to return to power at the centre for the first time since 2015 and also would want his anointed candidate for the governorship seat of the state and current Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Sheriff Oborevwori, to win the governorship election next year. 

From the time Oborevwori emerged the candidate, it was a great battle to retain the ticket. Just two weeks ago, the Supreme Court caused him a huge sigh of relief when it affirmed that he was the duly nominated candidate of the party for the election.  The aspirant that contested the ticket with Oborevwori, David Edevbie, had approached the courts that the embattled Speaker was not qualified to contest the ticket going by discrepancies in the documents he tendered concerning his date of birth and educational qualifications. 

Edevbie had claimed that whereas Oborevwori had, in an affidavit he deposed to, claimed that he was born in 1963; he however tendered a West African Examinations Council, WAEC, certificate that was issued to someone that was born in 1979. 

However, the apex court said that in in view of “sundry allegations of fraud, false representation and forgery of documents” raised against Oborevwori by Edevbie, the appellant ought to have commenced his action through a Writ of Summons that would have allowed the trial court to adjudge the matter through oral and documentary evidence. The Supreme Court then opined that Edevbie’s allegations against Oborevwori could not be resolved through affidavit evidence or Originating Summons.

 If Oborevwori thought that  final relief had come, he was wrong. Just as he and his supporters were celebrating the verdict of the Supreme Court, another stalwart of the party in the state, Aghwarianovwe Ikie, filed another suit before a Federal High Court in Abuja seeking to nullify the nomination of Oborevwori.

 Ikie in a writ of summons marked FHC/ ABJ/CS/1857/2022 and filed on October 13, 2022 with the PDP, Oborevwori and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC as first, second and third defendants respectively, asked the court to among other things declare that some portions of the information filed by Oborevwori for the PDP primary election were false. Same grounds upon which Edevbie wanted the courts to throw out Oborevwori’s nomination as the PDP governorship candidate for Delta State. 

Now, how this latest case will pan out remains to be seen. Even if Oborevwori survives the latest legal onslaught, waiting for him at the March 11, 2023 governorship election is current Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege, who is not also a political pushover in the state. 

A political analyst in the state, who did not want his name in print told THISDAY that Omo-Agege is going to win the election and said this is the position of most people in the state. “The dynamics of the state as of now, the state has been a PDP stronghold but things have changed because of the way the governor has managed the PDP in the state. A lot of big-wigs like Goddey Orubebe, a former Minister of Niger Delta and founding member of the party in the state have left and those remaining might actually work against the party.   Even the former governor, James Ibori, is not really happy. David Edevbie is Ibori’s candidate. The bulk of votes usually come from Ijaw which is Delta South. Their leaders too are not happy. Even the Urhobo area too is grousing about the governor.

The above could be taken as sentiments of a partisan watcher of events from the state and might actually not fully reflect political realities in the state. But even at that, it is obvious that Okowa has a battle in his hands to install Oborevwori as his successor while the greater battle is emerging as the country’s next Vice President.

He seems to have his job cut out.

Jandor:  Victim of Wike’s Politics of Spite and Pettiness

Recently, the fiery governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, took his open anti-party activities to a ridiculous level when he announced his endorsement of the re-election bid of the Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu. 

Wike was in Lagos to attend the National Women’s conference organised by the Committee of Wives of Lagos State Officials, COWOLSO. “If Sanwo-Olu is not doing well, even if he belongs to my party, I won’t come. For me, if you are in my party and you are not doing well, you won’t see me. If you are not in my party and you are doing well, you will see me. I will not regret to say I am in support of you (Sanwo-Olu).” Wike said. 

He also announced a donation of N300m to the group when he said: “On behalf of the women in Rivers State, my wife, who has extended her greetings, I support this with a sum of N300 million so that you can continue this laudable project.” 

As expected, the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, expressed displeasure over Wike’s open anti-party activities. The state Publicity Secretary of the party, Hakeem Amode, in a statement, said it would have been surprised if Wike had attended any event with a speaking role without his “usual rant of a drowning man who will clutch to a straw.” 

“I only wonder how Governor Wike, who didn’t support Jandor and at the same time, couldn’t stop him from picking the party’s ticket in Lagos, despite his supposed might within the PDP, would apportion to himself the decision of generality of Lagosians in the forthcoming election. 

Speaking further, Amode acknowledged Wike’s giant strides in Rivers State and the developmental projects he undertook. But added that Wike should have asked how many times Sanwo-Olu has invited anyone to come and commission projects in Lagos the way Wike invited him to Rivers State to commission projects. 

Amode added that the PDP would render Sanwo-Olu jobless by May 29 next year adding that “only God, who has seen Jandor and Lagos PDP this far, and the generality of Lagosians,  can determine his fate at the polls in 2023, not your endorsement.”

It is strange that Wike has extended his battle against PDP and its presidential candidate, Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, to the governorship candidate of the party in Lagos State, Abdulazeez Adediran, popularly known as Jandor. Ironically, Wike led a couple of other PDP governors to Lagos earlier in the year to welcome Jandor to the party in an elaborate ceremony at the Tafawa Balewa Square. Jandor, who was formerly a member of the ruling APC in the state, had fallen out with the leadership of the party in the state and decamped from the party to the PDP. He was to later pick the governorship ticket of the party. 

Wike’s attendance of an event organised by opposition political figures and his utterances would not be the first time he would indirectly dare his party to charge him with anti-party activities. It would be recalled that the same Wike had, at one time, invited Sanwo-Olu to commission projects in his state, Rivers. He has also invited other opposition figures to the state like current Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila. He also hosted opposition governors like Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State and immediate-past governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi.