Tinubu’s Tortuous Road to Victory

Despite the formidable opposition against his presidential ambition within the All Progressives Congress, the former governor of Lagos State, Senator Bola Tinubu, has emerged as the President-elect. Ejiofor Alike, however, reports that the ruling party was actually rejected by the majority of Nigerians at the presidential poll but the failure of the opposition parties to form an APC-like strong coalition and present one candidate gave victory to the party who scored only 36 per cent or 8.7 million votes out of the 24 million valid votes cast by Nigerians

The hot race to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari ended at exactly 4.10 am last Wednesday when the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu declared the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Bola Tinubu as the winner of the 2023 presidential election held on February 25.

The former Lagos State governor polled a total votes of  8,794,726 to defeat his closest rival and the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar who scored 6,984,520 votes, while Peter Obi of the Labour party who polled 6,101,533 votes.

The presidential candidate of the New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP), Rabiu Kwankwaso came a distant fourth with a total of 1,496,687 votes.

Yakubu said the number of registered voters for the election was 93,469,008, while 25,286,616 voters were accredited

He put the total valid votes at 24,025,940, while total rejected votes were 939,278.

The INEC chairman said the total number of votes cast was 24,965,218.

Tinubu’s journey to become the 16th leader of Nigeria since independence in 1960 was rough and tortuous. Even before Tinubu declared interest in the presidential race, his rumoured presidential ambition had already created cracks in the APC and fuelled protracted intra-party rivalry.

Being largely instrumental to the victory of President Buhari in 2015, the former Lagos State governor had apparently expected an easy ride to the seat of power. But certain forces within the party were determined to block his chances by aligning with a section of the presidency to make sure that his loyalists did not occupy influential positions.

Even when he succeeded in installing a former Governor of Edo State, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole as the successor to the then National Chairman of the party, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, the forces opposed to him did not allow the former labour leader to complete his tenure.

In an apparent plot to further nail his ambition, his non-ally and Governor of Yobe State, Mr. Mai Mala Buni was appointed to head the national caretaker committee of the party.

After Buni and his committee were forced out of office by the efforts of Tinubu’s loyalists, the anti-Tinubu forces still abandoned all the major chairmanship aspirants of the party because of their alleged direct links with Tinubu and anointed his non-political associate and former Governor of Nasarawa State, Senator Abdullahi Adamu as the consensus National Chairman of the party.

President Buhari was also said to be non-committal to his ambition when he visited the President in January 2022 to inform him of his ‘lifelong’ ambition. According to reports, the president neither threw his weight behind him nor asked him to drop his ambition.

Speaking on what transpired between him and the president at the closed-door meeting, Tinubu said: “He (Buhari) is a Democrat. He didn’t ask me to stop. He didn’t ask me not to attempt and pursue my ambition; it is a lifelong ambition.”

Buhari’s reaction was seen as clear evidence of his lack of commitment to Tinubu’s aspiration.

Before Tinubu unveiled his ambition, Buhari had during a nationwide interview, said he was holding his preferred choice close to his chest, because, according to him, “they may kill him if I choose my successor public.”

When the perceived plots to frustrate his ambition thickened a few days to the June 2022 APC presidential primary, he made disparaging remarks against Buhari in Abeokuta, Ogun State where he claimed that he made Buhari the president.

Despite the threat by the National Chairman of APC, Adamu to sanction him, he remained undaunted.

The last-minute attempt by Adamu and other forces to make the Senate President, Dr Ahmad Lawan the consensus presidential candidate of the party was also frustrated by Tinubu’s loyalists.

 When he defied all odds and successfully emerged as the party’s presidential candidate, the perceived plots against him persisted.

Instead of deploying the state apparatus to lead his campaign, Buhari had initially told Nigerians to vote for the candidates of their choice, a development which did not go down well with the Tinubu camp.

APC became its own opposition because of intra-party rivalry fuelled by Tinubu’s presidential ambition.

In what was viewed as another direct attack on the president, Tinubu told his supporters in Abeokuta, Ogun State capital that the fuel scarcity and naira redesign project of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) were contrived to sabotage his victory at the presidential election.

He was believed to be behind the decision of some APC governors to challenge the CBN policy at the Supreme Court.

Despite all the plots against him, Tinubu emerged victorious at the presidential poll.

However, the results have been vehemently rejected following allegations of massive irregularities witnessed during the elections.

An analysis of the results would also reveal that Nigerians actually rejected the ruling party at the presidential poll by giving it minority votes of 36 per cent or 8.7 million votes out of the total valid votes of 24 million. In other words, 64 per cent of the voters voted against the APC.

By scoring only 8.7 million votes against the 15.3 million polled by the three main opposition parties – the PDP, Labour Party and the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), the ruling party suffered a humiliating defeat in the hands of the three rival parties.

While the APC and the PDP won in 12 states each, the Labour Party won in 11 states, and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The NNPP won in one state. So, the opposition parties won in 24 states and the FCT, while the ruling party won in only 12 states. The results of the elections showed that the large majority of Nigerians passed a vote of no confidence on the ruling party.

However, the opposition parties unwittingly gave victory to the APC by failing to form a strong coalition to present only one candidate to challenge the ruling party.

The APC was able to sack the PDP in 2015 because the leaders of many political parties sacrificed their personal ambitions and collapsed their structures into one party.

Analysts believe that if the opposition parties had presented one candidate, they would have sent APC out of the Presidential Villa.

The APC has apparently acknowledged the impressive performance of the opposition parties by setting up a reconciliation committee to reach out to the major presidential aspirants, as confirmed in a statement issued last Wednesday by the Ondo State Governor, Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu.

However, it is doubtful if this effort will assuage the feelings of the aggrieved parties and calm frayed nerves in the face of the alleged massive irregularities that allegedly characterised the elections.