During the campaign and preparations towards the conduct of the Presidential election to terminate 13 years of military rule in 1979, erudite Professor of Mechanical Engineering and political activist, Professor Ayodele Awojobi did an assessment of the then five presidential candidates of the leading five political parties.
The parties then were,National Party of Nigeria,NPN,led by Alhaji Shehu Shagari, Unity Party of Nigeria,UPN, led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo,former Premier of the defunct Western Region and War time Finance Minister, Dr Nnamdi Azikwe, first President of Nigeria and leader of Nigeria Peoples Party,NPP , Alhaji Aminu Kano of the Peoples Redemption Party,PRP and Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim of the Great Nigeria Peoples Party, GNPP.
Of all the parties and contenders then only Ibrahim left the NPP he co-founded to start the GNPP which eventually won election in Borno and Gongola states now in the North Eastern geo-political zone.
It was obvious then that one of the reasons for his leaving NPP was the drafting of Zik into the race by the latter’s supporters.
In his assessment, Awojobi described Shagari as not capable as serving beyond a Minister of Religious Affairs while he described Aminu Kano as a leader who will make a policy today and campaign against it the following day forgetting that he initiated the policy.
As for Waziri, he described him as a joker while he rated Awolowo as an emblem of unshakeable resolve.
As for Azikiwe, Awojobi described Nigerias first ceremonial President, as somebody who has not grown out of being consistently inconsistent.
He was obviously referring to Zik’s legendary flirtatious politics.
It will be recalled that as Zik did during his romance with both AG and Northern Peoples Congress,NPC headed by late Sardauna Ahmadu Bello during build- up to the 1959 pre independence elections when none of the three leading parties- the AG,NPC and Ziks NCNC had enough seats in parliament to form government.
At the end of the day,Zik left a bewildered Awolowo and his AG team in Asaba and crossed the River Niger to form alliance with Sardauna’s NPC.
Unfortunately, the alliance collapsed prior to 1964 federal elections as NPC threw NCNC under the bus.
Again,during the second republic, Ziks NPC was noted for several romance with both UPN,GNPP and NPN.
Ziks accord with NPN in 1979 after Shagari emerged President also later collapsed in 1981 when NPN discovered lately it had no reason for an Accord under a Presidential system of government.
The Progressives Party Alliance,PPA to which Ziks NPP,UPN ,PRP and Waziri’s GNPP formed to oust Shagari’s ruderless government also floundered in 1983 as both Zik and Awo failed to step down for each other.
This made the NPN came out with its ‘moonslide’ victory after the massively rigged 1983 election which eventually was another an excuse for the military to oust the second republic on December 31,1983.
Today, as we enter the crucial stage of the seventh presidential contest after the dawn of the fourth republic, contest for who will get the coveted price of sheer political inconsistency, as Awojobi described Zik, will be between Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president and easily the veteran of presidential contest and Peter Obi, a former Anambra governor who like Atiku contested last Presidential election in 2023.
Apart from brief political interlude on Nigeria’s democratic practise between 1991 and 1993 when self -styled military President Ibrahim Babangida truncated the Third republic and threw under the bus last set of committed politicians in his series of bans to promote “newbreed’ politicians- who have since reshaped political behaviour with their opportunistic and selfish crave for power at all cost.
Their crave for power has left no line of demarcation between today’s political parties as the only difference between them were their names and the unstable characters who led them.
Today, the difference between our political parties is akin to difference between six and half a penny.
This is so, because leaders like Atiku who by stroke of luck had the vice presidential seat thrusted in his lap by Olusegun Obasanjo,then Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party,PDP, who merely wanted to compensate post- humously his late friend,Major General Musa Yar’Adua who died in Sani Abacha’s captivity.
Atiku was Yar’Adua’s political associate.
Since then, Atiku has left PDP thrice in 2007, 2011 and 2015 and returned thrice to contest same Presidency which he craved for so much since he joined the then Peoples Front,PF cum Social Democratic Party,SDP.
He has also traversed both the Action Congress, Action of Nigeria,ACN ,All Progressives Congress APC and returned to same PDP all within five electoral calendars.
At the end of the day,he left PDP, a party he co- formed in 1999 for the third time in 2021.
Then he promised never to leave again. Today,it is another story as he has left to form ADC with his likes.
His leaving the PDP did not happen until he threw the party into deep internal conflict all on account of his ambition to bent the rule on power rotation in 2023 just to satusfy his ambition to rule the country.
He finally berthed in the African Democratic Congress,ADC,a party for which he donated his 2023 campaign headquarters to use as secretariat.
It is predictable and incontestable that he will contest for presidency in 2027 as he stands shoulder above Peter Obi,another polling rolling stone to pick the presidential ticket.
If he does,this will be his fourth attempt at emerging the nation’s President..all between five different political parties.
Atikus political rigmarolling is ably being challenged by Obi-a two term governor of Anambra who swore to high heavens before late Odumegwu Ojukwu, the Biafra warlord, that he will never leave the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, which the later formed to reposition Ndigbo in national politics.
Today,only Governor Charles Soludo remains in APGA as Anambra Governor.
The possibility of Soludo also crossing to APC after his tenure in 2030 is not also far- fetched as he has already declared support of his party to work for President Bola Tinubu’s second term.
Hardly had Ojukwu joined his ancestors that Obi dumped the party after leaving office in 2015 and joined the then ruling PDP.
In 2019,he stormed out of PDP having been sidelined by Atiku in preference for former Delta Governor Okowa, as his running mate.
Obi landed in Labour Party itching for leadership and with his youthful Obidient movement cause a major stir in political arraignment. The youthful fervor of the then Endsars protest catapulted Obi as he came third in 2023 presidential contest.
Had Obi swallowed his pride and teamed up with Atiku,he would have been Nigeria’s Vice President today.
But since politics is a game of numbers not emotion, Obi soon lost the vibrant youthful followership in LP, due partly to inability to weld the contentious and disparaged tendencies in the LP together and provide focused leadership.
With the passage of time, it was obvious that Obi could not hold the house which has become fractured together and off he left the sinking ship.
It is surprising and quite intriguing that within few months of his association with ADC, Obi has found it difficult to rest his mind as it was becoming clearer by the day that his aim of picking the ADC ticket may be a mirage for as long as Atiku wanted to be President.
Obis flirtatious romance with ADC notwithstanding, he still left his soul in the LP which with the passage of time has become a mere shadow of itself.
What then is left for Obi who must settle for nothing other than the Presidency.
His later day romance with Rabiu Kwakwanso who had same messianic followership Obi had in the east in Kano State is already in troubled waters.
Kwakwanso himself has traversed the major political parties in the country between 1999 and 2023 when he contested on the platform of the NNPP for Presidency and came third.
He was also Governor under PDP between 2007 and 2011.
Like most self- styled Northern leaders, it is either they are made presidential candidate or nothing.
To be fair, only Atiku Abubakar besides Muhammadu Kura of the defunct UPN who served as running mate to late Chief Obafemi Awolowo in 1983 presidential election accepted to serve as running mate to Obasanjo in 1999.
But then, Kura was a product of the accord between the Kaduna Mafia and the late sage.
Kwakwansos body language to suggestion to contest as running mate to Obi is typical of a blue-eyed Hausa-Fulani who never accepted to play second fiddle to any politician of Southern extraction.
In separate interviews,he pointed out the impossibility of running
under a Christain South Easterner as a political suicide of sort.
His comment was enough signal to Obi that his political wandering might just have started.
Kwakwanso himself, a political orphan in the south, is already eyeing either of using politically stranded Governor Seyi Makinde or Seriake Dickson whose baby the Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC looks a better bride to him.
Yet, the laters resignation from New Nigeria Peoples Party NNPP weekend with his Kwakwansiya movement also portends a force though limited.
Kwakwansos hold on Kano’s 3.6million votes with whatever votes Dickson could get in Bayelsa and other South South states could hurt Tinubu’s edge in both states whose six governors have ported to APC.
However, the growing influence of Wike in the South South could diminish whatever following Dickson may have.
As for Governor Mohammed Adamu of Bauchi, his decision in the next three days will determine seriousness of Turakis faction of PDP to reconcille with the legally recognised Nyesom Wike s group.
Will the two contending forces sink their differences and safe what is left of their party in their two states?.
How will the ruling APC reconcile the contending forces striving for the soul of the party in Adamawa,Rivers and Kano State with the exist of laters Deputy Governor?
Practise of politics is interesting when different groups stay on their lane to struggle for power and not when politicians abandon principle to belong to the winning side.
The nine governors who left the PDP and NNPP for the APC portray opportunistic and selfish behaviour of today’s politicians who lacks honour and focus.
They have proved to be inconsistent as inconsistent could be.
This behaviour in our latent body politics is the root cause of our underdevelopment as a people.
The nation waits!
