The 2023 Nigerian Presidential Elections

The Preamble

In my own personal opinion, Muhammadu Buhari’s first term as president was average. Nothing spectacular, and also nothing terribly wrong.

But during his second term, Nigerians saw premium shege. The naira was pegged at the official rate, making the market rate almost double the official rate. This, amongst other things led to rising inflation.

The North West, where Buhari is from, exploded into violence, with bandits ravaging most of the countryside. They even carried out an attack on the Kaduna-Abuja train, and carried out a jail break at Kuje Prison, in Abuja.

There was also the ENDSARS protest and its bloody conclusion, with protesters getting gunned down at the Lekki tollgate.

By 2022, Nigerians couldn’t wait for Buhari to leave and hand over to someone else in 2023.

Buhari, who is usually taciturn towards the Nigerian press, decided to grant an interview to Channels Television to discuss his legacy.

Towards the tail end of the interview, the interviewer asked Buhari about his succession plans — whether he had a preferred candidate to succeed him as president.

Buhari said he had a preferred candidate, but he wouldn’t want to name him so that he won’t be eliminated.

This statement sent shockwaves across the political spectrum.

Naturally, there were a lot of people angling to succeed Buhari as president within and outside his party.

Chief among them was Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the former governor of Lagos State.

Tinubu was the founder and leader of the ACN party that merged with Buhari’s CPC, to create the APC. This merger was a political union between the Western part of the country and the Muslim North.

It was this alliance that catapulted Buhari to victory in 2015 after his previous multiple failed attempts to become president.

It was an unspoken pact (or maybe spoken behind closed doors), that after Buhari, representing the North, had served as president, he would allow someone from the ACN/West to take over from him.

Being the leader of the ACN, Tinubu expected that person to be him.

So, on hearing that Buhari had a preferred candidate, Tinubu checked his dm and saw no message from Buhari calling him a preferred candidate.

This could only mean that Buhari’s preferred candidate was someone else, and Tinubu wouldn’t let that fly.

A week after Buhari made this statement, Tinubu ran all the way to Aso Rock to inform Buhari of his intention to run for the post of president.

This was the opening salvo in the race to succeed Buhari as president of Nigeria.

The PDP Implodes

The major opposition party, the PDP was previously in power from 1999 to 2015. The successes of the PDP made Vincent Ogbulafor, a PDP chieftain, remark that the PDP would rule Nigeria for the next 60 years.

He made this statement in 2008. In 7 years, the PDP was booted out of power by the APC.

The PDP was not prepared to be the opposition, and you could tell by the lacklustre opposition from the PDP during the period of the APC’s rule.

The PDP hardly challenged or criticised government policy. The party coasted along just like everyday Nigerians.

There were even rumours that some members of the PDP in Lagos were on the payroll of Tinubu in Lagos.

In preparation for the 2023 election, the PDP decided to tear itself asunder.

Kwankwaso Leaves

Kwankwaso was the former Governor of Kano state, and he had a large following in the state. With Kano being the major city in the North, he felt this entitled him to some bit of respect in the PDP.

The PDP proceeded to disrespect him.

Kwankwaso nominated Mohammed Jamu to be the North West zonal vice chairman of the PDP.

However, his candidate was frustrated by the normal shenanigans of Nigerian politicking.

Word on the streets was that Aminu Tambuwal, the governor of Sokoto State, had aspirations to become president, along with Kwankwaso. He felt that if Kwankwaso had control of the party apparatus in the North West, that would give him an edge.

So, he did his best to ensure that Kwankwaso’s candidate didn’t get the position.

When it all played out and Kwankwaso’s candidate failed to clinch the position, Kwankwaso pulled back from the PDP.

He expected that in a spirit of reconciliation, the PDP would come to him to apologise for the shenanigans that took place. But apparently, the PDP ignored him.

Annoyed, he decided to take his ball and go home. On March 29, 2022, he announced that he had decided to leave the PDP for the NNPP. The NNPP was a preexisting small party with little electoral relevance. By decamping to the NNPP, Kwankwaso would be in a party where he could call the shots.

I guess he felt that it was better to be a lion in the jungle than a dog in the city.

Atiku’s Political Odyssey

In the PDP, Atiku Abubakar was the front-running candidate for the presidency. Atiku was the former vice president of Nigeria under Obasanjo from 1999 to 2008.

Since then, he has been on a political odyssey in his quest to be the president of Nigeria. Contesting in every election from 2008 till date. In the 2008 election, he decamped to the ACN and contested as its candidate against Buhari and Yaradua.

He came a distant third.

In the 2011 election, he contested in the PDP presidential primaries but lost against Goodluck Jonathan, who was the incumbent president.

He decamped along with a host of others to the newly formed APC in preparation for the 2015 elections to unseat Jonathan. He contested in the APC primaries against Buhari and lost.

He went back to the PDP in 2017, where he won the primaries and was the flagbearer of the party in the 2019 elections against Buhari.

This election was the first time that Atiku was contesting as the candidate of a major party - the PDP. Like most Nigerian elections, the result was determined by tribal and religious permutations.

While Atiku was a Northerner, there was no way he would win in the North against the golden boy of the North - Buhari. So, Buhari got most of the votes from the North, and the West, while Atiku got his votes from the South East, some parts of the North Central, and the South South.

Atiku lost again.

The 2023 election was a golden opportunity for Atiku. If he was the flagbearer of the PDP, he would be contesting the election against someone who wasn’t Buhari. As a Northerner, Atiku could count on the North voting massively for him. Especially if the APC fielded someone from the South.

Adding the Northern votes to the votes Atiku got in the 2019 elections would make Atiku finally achieve his dream of becoming Nigeria’s president.

But first, he would have to win the PDP primaries.

Started from the Bottom

A major obstacle to Atiku in the PDP was Nyesom Wike, the governor of the oil rich Rivers State.

Wike started his political career as the local government chairman of the Obio-Akpor local government — the second richest local government in Nigeria. At the time, Ifeanyi Amaechi contested in the PDP primaries, he won but his name was substituted for Celestine Omehia, who went on to win the governorship election.

Amaechi went to court, and Wike was said to have allied with him and financially supported his legal battle. At the end, the courts declared Amaechi the governor of the state. Reasoning that it is the party, not the candidate, that wins the elections. As such, since Amaechi was the valid candidate of the PDP, he was the winner of the election.

Wike was appointed the Chief of Staff in Amaechi’s government. However, when Amaechi decamped to the APC in the buildup to the 2015 elections, Wike remained in the PDP, creating a political rift between the two erstwhile allies.

Despite “fighting” with his oga, Wike went on to become the governor of Rivers State. He used his position as the governor of the oil-rich state to garner influence within the PDP, becoming its major financier.

He also attempted to build bridges across the Niger. For instance, he supported Aminu Tambuwal, the governor of Sokoto State, in the PDP presidential primaries of 2019.

To strengthen his bid for the position, Wike orchestrated the removal of Uche Secondus as the chairman of the PDP. Secondus was from the South, and Wike was of the opinion that having the PDP chairman from the South would work against the nomination of a presidential candidate from the South.

Secondus was replaced by Iyorchia Ayu, a Middle Belter from Benue State.

Obidients Rising

In the 2019 elections, Atiku picked Peter Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, as his running mate. I didn’t know much about Peter Obi at this time. I just knew him as the former governor of Anambra State.

My first in-depth exposure to him was at the vice presidential debate where he squared off against Yemi Osinbanjo, who was Buhari’s vice president at the time. Osinbanjo is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, and a very intelligent man.

But at the debate, in my opinion, Peter Obi performed better than Osinbanjo. This made me recognise Obi as an equally intelligent man. Or at least, someone who is quite gifted rhetorically.

It seems I was not the only one. A lot of people recognised Obi as a talented man, and early in 2022, people clamoured for him to throw his hat into the presidential race. With someone even jokingly threatening to sue him if he does not contest for the presidency.

The ENDSARS protest was a political reawakening for Nigerian youths, especially those on Twitter, which was the epicentre of the protest. A lot of these disaffected youths turned to Peter Obi as the “saviour” to rescue Nigeria from the clutches of the evil powers that be.

Peter Obi has an “incorruptible” reputation, and he knew that he stood no chance against the money bags like Atiku and Nyesom Wike(the Governor of Rivers State), at the PDP primary elections.

So, a few days to the PDP primaries, Peter Obi decamped from the PDP to the Labor Party. A smaller party where, like Kwankwaso, it would be easier for him to get the presidential ticket.

The Anointed Candidate?

In the APC, a slew of candidates joined the presidential race one after the other. Hoping that they would be the anointed candidate of Muhammadu Buhari.

Buhari on the other hand, was mum about his anointed candidate. Rather, while speaking to the governors of the APC, he entreated them to let him choose his successor, the same way he allowed them to choose theirs. He didn’t say who his preferred candidate was though.

The Lion of Ubima

On April 9, Rotimi Amaechi declared his intention to run for president. Rotimi Amaechi was the minister for Transportation in Buhari’s cabinet. He oversaw the construction of massive interstate railway lines across the country. This basically revived the comatose railway transportation in Nigeria.

Looking back, the railways would be the biggest legacy of the Muhammadu Buhari administration, if they’re not abandoned in typical Nigerian fashion.

As I stated earlier, Amaechi was the former governor of Rivers State during Goodluck Jonathan’s presidency. He had some differences with Goodluck Jonathan, and used his position as the chairman of the Nigerian Governor’s Forum in his feud with Jonathan.

Ultimately, he decamped, along with 6 other PDP governors (called the G-7), to form the APC with the ACN and the CPC.

Starboy

During Buhari’s first term in office, he had a good working relationship with his vice president, Professor Yemi Osinbajo SAN. Whenever Buhari left the country for medical issues, he usually handed over to the vice president as the constitution recommends.

In 2018, Buhari was out of the country for an extended period, about 5 months, leaving the vice president in charge of the country. During this period, from my own point of view, the VP performed well as the acting president of the country.

I recall that this was one of the periods where the official and market rate diverged. And somehow, the vice president unified the exchange rates. He also sacked the director of the DSS — Buhari’s powerful cousin Lawal Daura. This was due to operatives of the DSS blockading the National Assembly, preventing lawmakers from accessing it, in a bid to effect the removal of Bukola Saraki as the Senate President.

However, word on the streets is that during a prayer session which included Osinbajo, the ministering pastor prayed that Osinbajo would become the president of the country. The implication of this was that Buhari, who was rumoured to be outside the country due to illness, would die and Osinbajo would succeed him.

One of Buhari’s allies witnessed this and reported it to Buhari when he inevitably arrived from his medical tourism.

Buhari then proceeded to strip Osinbajo of a lot of responsibilities. And ever since then, Buhari rarely handed over to the Vice President when he went out of the country.

Regardless, this period gave the vice president a taste of real power and as such sowed the seeds of his ambition to become president after Buhari.

On April 11, 2022, Yemi Osinbajo declared his intention to succeed Buhari.

Word on the streets was that when the APC was formed, Tinubu wanted to become Buhari’s running mate, but Buhari wasn’t comfortable with that because that would be a Muslim-Muslim ticket.

So, Tinubu was said to have proposed Yemi Osinbajo instead. Osinbajo is a pastor of the popular Redeemed Christian Church of God. So, his candidacy would help to ameliorate some of Buhari’s fundamentalist Islamist reputation.

It may have come as a shock to Tinubu that someone from his own ACN party would turn around to contest the presidential position against him.

But that wasn’t the only person from his ACN party to throw his hat into the ring.

Let us Fight

There were rumours that the governor of the Central Bank, Godwin Emefiele, wanted to throw his hat into the ring.

As Governor of the Central Bank, Emefiele engaged in massive money printing through the CBN’s Ways and Means. This was a loan from the CBN to the Federal Government that was not supposed to be more than five percent of the previous year’s earnings.

The CBN ignored this and loaned 30 trillion naira to the Federal Government, leading to rising inflation.

Emefiele also pegged the country’s official exchange rate at 448 naira while the market rate diverged almost a 100% to 736 naira. You don’t need to be a genius to realise that the politically connected would use this discrepancy to roundtrip the naira by getting dollars from the CBN at the official rate and selling at the market rate.

To resolve the discrepancy between both exchange rates, the Central Bank did comical things like cutting down the trees where bureau de change operators did their business and challenging Abokifx to a fight.

Abokifx is a website for people to check the black market exchange rate of the naira. Emefiele accused Abokifx of manipulating Nigeria’s exchange rate. He mentioned that the owner of Abokifx was going around trying to raise a hassle on the internet because his website was banned and his bank accounts frozen. He said that if Abokifx wanted it, Emefiele was ready to settle everything in a brawl, in front of the CBN.

There is no doubt that Emefiele had a good working relationship with Buhari, seeing as the Central Bank did every bidding of the federal government.

Regardless, it was scandalous that the governor of the Central Bank was considering contesting for the position of president. The governor of the Central Bank is supposed to be non-partisan

Emefiele never explicitly declared that he wanted to contest the election. Rather, some groups bought the form for him. Ultimately, he bowed to pressure and ended up not contesting in the primaries.

Emi Lokan

On May 4, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, the governor of Ekiti State, also declared his intention to run for president. Like Osinbajo, he was a member of the ACN faction of the APC.

Another ACN stalwart who threw his hat into the ring was Ibikunle Amosun, former governor of Ogun State.

It must have come as a shock to Tinubu that his own “boys” from the ACN decided to pour sand in his garri by contesting against him in the party primaries. It would mean that there would be multiple candidates from the South West contesting the primaries, thereby splitting the block votes that Tinubu hoped to get from the region.

Tinubu cut his losses and focused on campaigning vigorously in the North of the country. Courting people like El Rufai of Kaduna and Umar Ganduje of Kano State.

This period also saw other APC members declare their intention.

On May 9, Ahmad Lawan, the Senate President at the time, declared his intention to run in the APC primaries. Godswill Akpabio, a former governor of Akwa Ibom and a serving senator also announced that he would be running in the primaries.

On June 3, perhaps in exasperation, Tinubu threw a dig at Buhari while speaking to APC delegates in Abeokuta.

He said, while speaking in his native Yoruba, that Buhari wouldn’t have become president without him. He mentioned how Buhari contested three times and failed to win the presidential election. He taunted Buhari by saying that he even cried on Television when he announced he would give up his presidential aspiration.

Alluding to the formation of the APC, he mentioned how he gave Buhari succour and said he would make Buhari president, but Buhari has to take the matter of the Yoruba seriously. And now that North had finished ruling, it was the turn of the Yoruba to rule, and amongst the Yoruba, he was foremost. It is his turn (emi lokan).

This was a political bombshell. It goes against Robert Greene’s first rule of power - never outshine the master. But of course, Tinubu didn’t see Buhari as his master.

Regardless, Buhari could throw a spanner into the works of Tinubu’s presidential aspirations by choosing someone who wasn’t Tinubu as his anointed candidate.

Buhari’s Reply?

On June 6, there was confusion when the APC national chairman, Abdullahi Adamu, revealed Buhari’s anointed candidate. The general consensus was that since Buhari was from the North, whoever he anointed had to be someone from the South. This was what contenders like Amaechi and Osinbajo were banking on.

To everyone’s surprise, Adamu said that Buhari’s anointed candidate was Ahmad Lawan - the Senate President who was from the North. I’m very sure that Southern presidential contenders like Osinbajo and Amaechi collectively facepalmed at this point.

Twelve Northern governors rejected this position and issued a statement saying that they would only support a candidate from the South, not one from the North, seeing as the outgoing president was from the North.

Seeing where the wind was blowing, Buhari threw Adamu under the Bus. He denied ever choosing Lawan as his anointed candidate. Rather, he reiterated that he would support whosoever emerges at the APC Primaries

The P-Day

The PDP would have their presidential primaries on May 28, while the APC would conduct its primaries on June 8.

PDP Primaries

The PDP primaries started with Atiku Abubakar giving his speech to the delegates and ended with Wike.

Wike’s speech was interesting because, unlike other candidates, he didn’t appeal to higher ideals like good governance or his qualifications. Rather, he spoke in clear realpolitikal terms. Saying that he’s a prizefighter and is the party’s best bet to wrest power from the APC. He also mentioned that he would support whoever emerged as the winner of the primaries.

After all was said and done, it was time for the delegates to cast their votes.

However, there was a twist. Aminu Tambuwal, who had earlier given his speech, came back to the podium. He said he was withdrawing from the race and urged his supporters to back Atiku Abubakar.

This was quite decisive. The final tally of the votes was 371 votes for Atiku Abubakar, with Wike closely following with 237 votes. Coming a distant third was Bukola Saraki, a former Senate President, with 70 votes.

It’s very likely that Wike might have won or been neck in neck with Atiku Abubakar. But with Tambuwal stepping down, Atiku reaped the rewards and was set to be the presidential candidate of the PDP once again.

Peter Obi had defected about a week before the PDP presidential primaries to the Labor Party. The Labor Party held its primaries on May 30. All the presidential candidates at the primaries stepped down for Peter Obi to run as the flag bearer of the Labor Party.

Rabiu Kwankwaso, to no one’s surprise, also emerged as the candidate of the NNPP.

APC Primaries

The APC primaries started with Tinubu reading a prepared speech. I guess his handlers were worried that his emotions could take over again, and he could go into another risky outburst.

After his speech things went on as normal, with the other candidates giving their speech. Then there was a twist as Senator Godswill Akpabio, the former governor of Akwa Ibom State, announced that he was going to step down for Tinubu.

He was followed by Ibikunle Amosun, who also announced that he would step down for Tinubu. This began a cascade as a slew of other candidates stepped down for Tinubu. The only major candidates who didn’t were Amaechi and Yemi Osinbajo.

At the end of the voting, Tinubu won by a landslide with 1,271 votes. Amaechi came a distant second with 316 votes, while Yemi Osinbajo ended up with 235 votes.

It’s either the various ACN aspirants closed ranks close to the election date, or it was all a gambit to make Tinubu appear weak and then at the dying minute, he would reveal his cards.

The Presidential Election was going to be a four way race between the APC, the PDP and its splinter members - the Labor Party and the NNPP.