Barely a few hours to the commencement of the All Progressive Congress’s long awaited convention, where the party intends to pick its presidential candidate in the 2023 general election and blood pressures are on the rise as participants and their supporters wait in bated breath at the outcome.
The outcome of the convention and whoever eventually emerges the party’s flagbearer in the forthcoming general elections will make or mar not just the party and some contestants to the exalted seat, but the whole election and the country in general. This explains why the ruling party’s impending convention has become so much of a national interest with many believing the outcome will shape the path and determine the future of the country.
This election is of particular interest given the recent happenings in the country and accusations of marginalisation by some parts of the country leading to calls for the presidency to be zoned to the southeastern part of Nigeria, who feel that they haven’t had a shot at the highest political office in the land since after the 1966 coup and civil war.
Still the clamour for the top job by other parts of the South, including the North, whom many feel has had its eight years in the Buhari government; and is now the turn of the South going by the rotational arrangement as enshrined in the constitution has made the whole process messy and rather confusing.
Only recently, the main opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, had picked Atiku Abubakar, a northerner as its flagbearer with total disregard for the call for zoning. This has angered many Nigerians who are now waiting anxiously to see who emerges as the candidate for the ruling All Progressive Congress, APC. Fortunately, the ruling party is not short of contestants from all stripes; as there are interested persons from the southwest, southeast, southsouth and the north, all of whom feel some sense of entitlement to the position.
Reports say, however, that the president, Muhamadu Buhari, maybe interested in picking his own successor, but even this has been debunked by the President’s media aides.
Buhari’s media aide, Shehu Garba via a monitored Hausa BBC service where he debunked reports that his principal has endorsed the South in the APC presidential primaries.
It will be recalled that Buhari had urged all APC presidential candidates to choose one person to represent the party in the 2023 presidential election.
All candidates were present at the meeting, including National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who recently made some remarks about the incumbent president.
However, in an interview with BBC Hausa, presidential spokesman Malam Garba Shehu denied reports by some Nigerian media outlets that the president was backing the South.
Prior to the meeting, it was speculated that President Buhari would announce his support ahead of the APC’s run-off election next week.
But Garba Shehu did not rule out the possibility, saying that if the president consults with the right people then it is possible to do what happened during the recent APC presidential election, in which Buhari backed Abdullahi Adamu in limited time.
This development is coming after some northern groups had tagged northern governors traitors after endorsing the south on Saturday to produce the APC presidential flag-bearer.
Meanwhile, between the top two contending persons in the southwest, former governor of Lagos state, Bola Tinubu and the current vice president, Yemi Osinbajo, feelers are that the latter seems to be getting more support from groups in the southwest with some even drawing some semblance between him and late Chief Obafemi .Awolowo.
A founding member of the APC, Mr. Preye Aganaba described professor Osinbajo as the best presidential aspirant among other contenders, referring to him as a beacon of hope for discipline and selflessness in public service.
His former boss, Bola Tinubu, who described his quest for the exalted position as his’ lifelong’ ambition, will stop at nothing to ensure he achieves his dream; going by his recent utterance that he was prepared to fight ‘dirty’.
The APC convention and its result will no doubt put to rest a lot of the insinuations and permutations making the rounds and will give a better perspective of where the country is heading to. Also, the outcome will dash many dreams and hopes of many contestants. It remains to be seen how each contestant will be affected by the outcome.