After months of high-wire politicking, alignment and counter-alignment, National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, and former governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, yesterday, won the party’s 2023 presidential ticket in style.
He polled 1,271 delegates’ votes, which is more than the 831 combined total of his 13 other opponents at the two-day primaries held at Eagle Square, Abuja.
His closest rival, the former Transportation Minister, Mr Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, garnered 316 votes; Vice President Yemi Osinbajo polled 235 votes; and Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, got 152 votes.
Vanguard had earlier repeatedly reported that the contest would be a three-horse race featuring Tinubu, Amaechi and Osinbajo.
Although the party said it had 2,322 delegates, only 2,203 were physically on the ground and accredited for the exercise. Of the figure, 13 votes were invalid.
Co-chair of the Election Management Committee, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, announced the results.
Details of votes polled by other aspirants are Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State, 47 votes; Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State, 38; Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State, 37 votes; Senator Sani Yerima, four votes; Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, one vote; and Chief Emeka Nwajiuba, one vote.
The other aspirants — Pastor Tunde Bakare, Senator Rochas Okorocha, Tein Jack-Rich, and Chief Mokelu Ikeobasi had zero votes each.
Chairman of the Election Management Committee, Governor Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, who was the chief returning officer, returned Tinubu as validly-elected to fly the party’s presidential flag in next year’s general election.
With his victory, Tinubu has been handed APC’s political arsenal to face Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP; and Mr Peter Obi of the Labour Party, LP, among other opponents in the 2023 presidential poll.
How APC Govs influenced Tinubu’s emergence
Vanguard had in the lead up to the March 26 national convention of the party, reported how the APC governors struck a deal with President Muhammadu Buhari by trading off the national chairmanship position for that of the Presidency.
At the time, the governors were negotiating that one of them be supported by the president to emerge as the standard-bearer of the party.
However, as the Special Convention and Presidential Primary of the APC, drew closer, it became apparent that the president wanted to have a lot of input into who succeeds him. He had begged the governors to allow to him pick his successor.
While negotiations were ongoing, the northern governors’ forum in the APC resolved that power must shift to the South, essentially trying to force the president to support a Southern aspirant, following speculations that the president wanted Senate President Ahmad Lawan.
Efforts by the National Chairman of the party, Senator Abdullahi Adamu to impose Lawan on stakeholders as the adopted consensus aspirant were, however, resisted especially by the Northern Governors who were later joined by their Southern counterparts within the party.
For about five days before the primary, the governors engaged in a series of stakeholder meetings. The Northern governors met with political stakeholders from the region and then later met with President Buhari to demand a power shift to the South.
They, thereafter, stormed the national secretariat of the party on Monday night to meet with the Adamu-led National Working Committee NWC. But after about an hour of waiting and Adamu was nowhere to be found, they filed out to the Presidential Villa area where the national chairman lives.
The governors were said to have conveyed their position to their representatives in the NWC and Abdullahi Adamu himself. They also guided their delegates on the need to vote for Tinubu.
At the convention, delegates of virtually all the governors, except four, voted for Tinubu. The four governors include Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State who participated in the primary; with his delegates voting for him; a North Central and South Western state governors and Yahaya Bello of Kogi State, who also participated in the primary
Factors, horse trading that gave Tinubu victory
Indeed, Tinubu’s margin of victory is large but it did not come easy. It was a product of 30 years of political association with stakeholders across the country; weeks of energy-sapping negotiations to get opponents to lay down their weapons; and several days of wooing entrenched interests in the party to his side.
Some of the battles he fought include getting APC power brokers in the North to back power shift to the South; wooing delegates across the country including “unfriendly” states; stopping moves to use consensus to decide the candidate; and eventually the conduct of the primaries.
Said to enjoy the backing of many presidential aspirants who bought the APC N100 million expression of interest and nomination forms, sources said Tinubu got political and traditional leaders in the South-West to prevail on aspirants from the zone to step down for him.
The series of meetings and negotiations continued even at the convention ground. It led to four of the seven South-West aspirants and three aspirants from the other zones to back down.
The yeoman’s job was done by 13 Northern APC governors, some Southern governors and members of the National Working Committee, who first fought against moves to make Senate President Lawan the consensus candidate; and later delivered their states’ votes for Tinubu at the convention.
On Monday, the eve of the primaries, the National Chairman, Adamu, told members of the NWC that Lawan had become the consensus candidate for the primaries on Tuesday. Members of the NWC kicked against the move and insisted that other aspirants must take part in the primaries. The news filtered to 13 of the 14 APC governors in the North, who stormed Aso Villa to meet with President Buhari and insisted on a power shift to the South.
Thereafter, President Buhari, the governors, and members of the NWC disowned Senator Adamu over Lawan and the stance paved the way for all the 23 aspirants to contest Tuesday’s primaries.
Signs of Tinubu’s victory
Signs that Tinubu would win the contest emerged early when many delegates from many states wore Tinubu-branded clothes and sang praises of the former Lagos governor all through the event.
Things became clearer when aspirant after aspirant started stepping down for Tinubu. In all, seven aspirants did so cutting across South-West, South-East, South-South, and North-West
Those, who stepped down for Tinubu were Governors Kayode Fayemi (Ekiti) and Mohammed Badaru Abubakar (Jigawa); Senator Godswill Akpabio; Professor Roberts Ajayi Borroffice; former House Speaker Dimeji Bankole; Senator Ibikunle Amosun; and Mrs Uju Ken Ohanenye.
Pastor Nicolas Felix stepped down for Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, and nobody stepped down for Amaechi.
Tinubu has a connection, network, and structure to deliver — Ado Doguwa
House of Representatives Majority Leader, Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, said “the emergence of Bola Tinubu did not come to him as a surprise because “he has invested too much in the political space of this country. This is someone whose name is known all over Nigeria. He has the network, the connection of the people; he has all it takes to deliver. We and the great people of Kano did not find his emergence a surprise, we expected much more.
“The emergence of Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the Presidential flag bearer of the APC, to me, is scientific because there are two major factors you cannot take away from our political space. We have two Buharis in the nation: The Buhari of the North, and the Buhari of the Southern part of the country in terms of their unprecedented popularity, connection, and what it takes to deliver. Bola Ahmed Tinubu is the Buhari of the South. We have our own Buhari. if you have the Buhari of the North and Buhari of the South (Tinubu) on the same page, that is success all over.
“So we expected that our delegate would be reasonable enough to pay back to this person whose dues he had paid extraordinarily. “
Asked if he was surprised at the stepping down of some aspirants for Bola Tinubu, he said: “Obviously not. It didn’t come to me as a surprise because I was to some extent part of the top-level engagement. Dr Fayemi, I never expected him to step down based on the position taken by Northern governors.
What was even a surprise to me was that the VP did not step down. Everybody knows that the South would be allowed to become the Presidential flag bearer. Governors of the northern part of the country did not only agree to concede power to the South but also galvanised their support and solidarity for Bola Tinubu. It was not a secret but Vice President Yemi Osinbajo would have played along.
Asked why Tinubu didn’t step down for Osinbajo, he said: “You don’t expect the tail to wag the dog, it is the dog that wags its tail.”
We must banish PDP — Tinubu
An elated Tinubu said it was time the APC banished the PDP, who he accused of constantly dragging the nation back. In his acceptance speech, he thanked President Muhammadu Buhari, Vice President Osinbajo, Senate President Lawan and Speaker of the House of Representatives, National Chairman of the APC, and Senator Abdullahi Adamu, among others for their efforts.
To Senate President Lawan, he said: “To you, the legislature, the Senate President, Senator Ahmad Lawan, I would have been a little upset because you competed with me but that is over now since you can easily lick your wounds. It doesn’t take away from thanking you for the past cooperation and cool-headedness to build our country. You have helped in steering the ship of the nation and with your colleagues in the Senate history is written and will be kind to you.”
He continued: “To the chairman of our party, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, it appeared some weeks back that some newspapers and many people were ready to write the obituary of this party. We pulled ourselves together like a cat with nine lives. We thatched the roof, steadied the pillars and became master builders. You came on and worked hard with the collaboration of others and here we are. Shame on those who were already building the coffin of APC, shame on them, our party is alive.
“They said we won’t be able to do the convention but here we are. The first convention was to choose the executives. The governors pulled themselves together, we did break our backs and we are here, very happy and confident and courageous to tell you that the cat that lies down quietly is not a pretension of death but gathering its energy to devour its enemies.
Now we are here, we will roar. We will do it. We will tell the Poverty Development Party, which they call PDP, 16 years of failures, and wastefulness. They will be buried and made to leave the way for us. We will repair our country. “We are Progressives, we are nation builders. We are not destroyers. We are confident that this nation is back on track.”
Tinubu also spoke about the growing wave of killings in the country, saying: “We are not the barbaric, blind human beings they think we are. They are setting us against one another. When you were born, you didn’t hear from the womb whether you would be a male or female, Christian or Muslim. You were born to your parents and you adopted their religions and continued.
“The Bible taught us to love your neighbour as you love yourself. It did not say kill your neighbour. It is in the two holy books; goodness for goodness. Learn to accept mistakes, not from gunshots or the destruction of lives and property because the life you take you cannot bring back, and they hate you spill cannot cure your hunger. We must build a new society and learn to think of a new way of life.”
He commanded all his fellow aspirants for the stiff and strong opposition they offered which he said made the party better and himself humble.
Tinubu particularly lauded all the seven aspirants who stepped down for him saying it was a very difficult decision that they made.
“The competition is now over. Those who did not support me, you have nothing to fear. I hold no grudges. Let us join hands to beat the PDP and beat back their retrogressive understanding of Nigeria. They had 16 years, they depleted our resources and left us with hunger. Let us dig their graves by defeating them in the next election because they are the agents of poverty, terror, violence and lying,” he stated