Who is Buhari's 2023 President ?
Is Pastor Tunde Bakare the mystery candidate of President Buhari?
The 2023 election promises to be intense going by the persons showing interest to rule the nation by that year and by their conduct. The big parties, All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are throwing their weight around. PDP must capture power in 2023 or stop existing as a political party, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and presidential hopeful told the PDP Board of Trustees (BOT). Atiku is 76, age will not be on his side if this time around he does not clinch the presidency, meaning he must give everything to win this 2023 election.
Within the PDP, it does seem Atiku has no serious competitor. But Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State and Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State have signified their intention to challenge Atiku Abubakar. Also, Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State is fighting with all strength and Mr Peter Obi is showing good cranial capacity. Governor Wike told PDP delegates in Gombe State that what is necessary for the party is not fine rhetoric but a strategic plan to recover power from the ruling party. He asked the delegates to repeat "Wike" after him if they wanted power back. They did, whether half-heartedly or for real. But what does Wike mean by capturing power from APC? Nyesom Wike is a very tough person as governor of an oil-rich Rivers State. Was Wike referring to some underhand activities to take power from the APC? Perhaps not but a statement like that certainly shows that the campaign and the election for 2023 will be intense. It might be another do-or-die election.
Wike may not win the approval of the party's BOT but Wike can eventually become the running mate to Atiku for whom everything is being organized to clinch the nomination. Even as Atiku's running mate, Nyesom Wike will be tough and can lend Atiku his toughness to make the elections intense and competitive.
Most likely, the growing popularity of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) in the Southeast might affect negatively the acceptance of Governor Wike in that region but as usual, the offer of a vice president ticket to Wike may encourage his acceptance among the Igbo - better to have a VP than nothing. On the other hand, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is another major candidate who has declared that his ambition to be president is lifelong which connotes that it must be and won't be compromised. Tinubu has by implication told his party and the nation, 'let no one talk me out of this'. It is believed that Tinubu had many times in the past stepped down from his ambition to let others be. The uncompromising stand of Bola Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar is manifested in the way they have been moving across the country in spite of the fact that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has not flagged off the campaign. It's like nobody is ready to wait for INEC, the issue is too hot to wait for the electoral umpire.
Bola Tinubu is very rich, a wealth that has given him some mileage and influence but has also made enemies for him. How did Tinubu acquire his wealth? Many are asking. How much was he worth when he left Mobil Oil for politics? Tinubu has denied any allegations of tinkering with the treasury of Lagos State but his enemies have alleged that he virtually owns everything in Lagos and that nobody can own a pin in the rich state without his knowledge. Tinubu is a master of Nigerian politics, however, it is defined. He told an audience that included a Yoruba traditional ruler recently that he was prepared to fight dirty because " when you fight with the pig you must be prepared to be dirty", quoting a philosopher he claimed to have read. This signals that the 2023 election will be very dirty. Tinubu's political crystal ball has shown him that and when he says it, Nigerians must listen.
On his part, President Muhammadu Buhari did not mince words that he has a candidate he wants to replace him, an open declaration many politicians will not make. But Buhari is not a politician but a military strategist. It is being said that Buhari will make his move at an unsuspected time and in an unusual way. Again Buhari beat everybody to it when suddenly Senator Abdullahi Adamu, former Nasarawa State governor, became the consensus candidate as APC chairman at the party's convention. President Buhari had before that convention summoned all the chairmanship aspirants of APC and told them to respect the party's zoning formula saying in effect that the presidency must go to the south. But the choice of Adamu was totally unexpected, many thought Senator Tanko Al Makura, another Nasarawa State former governor, will be the choice, considering his affiliation with Buhari’s Congress for Progressives Change (CPC) on whose platform he became governor of Nasarawa State.
In the same way, speculation has been rife about who would be the president's anointed presidential candidate for APC in 2023. What is most certain is that it cannot be a northerner as the party's zoning policy has gone to the south. Many names are been bandied about. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has been mentioned. He and Buhari have been running the nation for seven years now. Osinbajo is from the southwest but it has been mentioned that Osinbajo cannot be the choice of the president because of the many skirmishes between them, some of which had attracted the intervention of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Chief Bisi Akande, both of them leading lights of the APC.
Tinubu has clout in and out of the APC but observers have ruled him out as a possible choice of the president. People are saying the north cannot trust him because he will not be amenable to the designs of the northern powerbrokers. Tinubu is a very deft politician who has a mind of his own and knows how to win political battles. He is also very generous with money, factors that made him most appealing to Nigerians who appear hungry and to the elites who go into politics for their own stomachs. A politician told this reporter recently that it is money and not ideas that dictate Nigerian politics since the fourth republic commenced in 1999. Bola Tinubu is brilliant even though efforts are made to deny his claim to his certificates but his performance in Lagos State speaks volumes on his behalf. Only Bola Tinubu has the clout in APC to give Atiku Abubakar of the PDP a run for his money.
Since he signified his intention to run, Bola Tinubu has been traversing the length and breadth of the country. Yet, he does not seem to enjoy the confidence of President Buhari. Their fight didn't just start in 2015. Buhari rejected Tinubu's scheme to be his running mate, preferring that Tinubu give him three names from which he would pick one. In the run-up to the 2011 presidential elections, Bola Tinubu strove to replace Tunde Bakare, a Lagos-based fiery cleric as Muhammadu Buhari's running mate. Buhari rejected the overtures and stated that only Tunde Bakare could step down for Tinubu if he wants. Also, Bakare rejected all the entreaties including the offer of a house in high brow Ikoyi, Lagos, a Rolls Royce Phantom, and an unspecified huge sum of cash. When the deal fell apart, Tinubu withdrew his party and patronage after which Buhari and Bakare lost the election.
Now Pastor Tunde Bakare stepped down from his association with APC when the party won the elections of 2015 and Buhari became president but maintains a cordial relationship with him. Back then General Buhari had told Pastor Bakare in 2011 that he was confident that if anything happened to him, a euphemism for if he died, Bakare will continue with his policies. Many think it was this that made Tunde Bakare step down his fiery criticism of government even when it was obvious to many ordinary Nigerians that the administration has lost steam and had become nepotistic and the nation was drifting into stormy waters. Though Bakare's pulpit became dormant, he was seeing the president from time to time and discussing with him and giving him policy suggestions. At a point, Pastor Bakare cried out that President Buhari refused to implement his suggestions on the phased restructuring of Nigeria as the way out of Nigeria's multiple problems. Pastor Bakare resumed a mild criticism of President Buhari but maintained his close contact, a privilege that very few Nigerians have.
But suddenly and surprisingly, Tunde Bakare showed up at APC's recent convention to pick the party officers where Senator Abdullahi Adamu was picked as national chairman by consensus as ordained by President Buhari. Pastor Bakare was not at the closed-door meeting Buhari had with all the chairmanship aspirants of the party. Bakare's sudden appearance has left tongues wagging again. At a recent zoom meeting where the Pastor unveiled his manifesto which he called 'Project 16' to Nigerians in diaspora and at home, Bakare was asked if he was the president's ordained candidate, he said only Muhammadu Buhari can answer that question but that "we will only know at the convention as we knew at the last convention where Senator Abdullahi Adamu was presented as the president's ordained candidate". Tunde Bakare thereby suggested that the party's presidential candidate will emerge by consensus. Though Bakare has always maintained that it is his divine mandate to run, he had never told anyone on his platform, but always rejected running on APC's platform. He believes men and women who surround Buhari are not as clean as the president. But now he is in the embrace of the party. A week before the APC convention, he sang a popular Yoruba song while preaching in his church "awa nlo ..." meaning we are going and got the church to pray against his perceived enemies who were criticizing him and also pray for a replacement for him in the church who will not destroy his ministry.
Pastor Bakare's body language, his support for President Buhari which was more vigorous than before, and Buhari's own body language suggest that both of them might have met shortly before the convention and that the president might have prevailed on him to attend. Still, Pastor Bakare has come under severe criticism lately. There’s been harsh criticism by a section of the Igbo, especially on the harmless preaching of Bakare where he broke a curse that was allegedly placed on Igbos by Nigeria's first and only prime minister Tafawa Balewa. A section of Igbo elites took to the internet making a mountain out of a molehill. The message was preached 30 years ago and Bakare only recently mentioned what he did to a gathering of Christians. Another group lied against Bakare that he received $5 million from Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to sow the seed of hatred between the north and Igbo so that Igbo’s quest for the presidency might fail. Suddenly Bakare became a man who must be attacked. And that again is a pointer that these critics are aware that Tunde Bakare may just be the darling of President Buhari who will emerge as the consensus candidate of APC.
If Pastor Bakare emerges as an APC consensus candidate, expect Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to jump out of APC and join another party. Also, it will be a difficult journey for Tunde Bakare because it won't be easy for him to contest with Atiku Abubakar in the north due to ethnic and religious considerations in Nigeria's politics. All said, 2023 is a year to watch.
Tunde Akande is a journalist and Pastor. He earned a Masters’s degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos
 | A guest post by
|