2023 Elections, Presidential Candidates and the Morning After
By Ozumi Abdul
The 2023 polls, particularly the presidential election, are primus inter pares. Successive polls Nigeria has had in recent times, cannot rival this latest episode. The ones to come in the future may hardly supplant it.
The election, regardless of some challenges that threatened its credibility, may just become a springboard. One that will help grow our fledgling and nascent democracy.
Among the highpoints of last Saturday’s poll is the political sagacity of the youths. In their millions, Nigerian youths besieged various polling units across the country.
Their intent: to rechart the course of development, growth and prosperity for the Nigerian State. How: through recruiting the best hand for the Nigerian presidential job.
For many of them, Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, is their Messiah, who will cleanse the country’s Augean stable.
One that will halt Nigeria’s steady retrogression. In recent times, Nigerian youths’ involvement in the electoral process and ultimately voting on election days, has been dismal.
But in the first round of the 2023 polls, the narrative changed. Meanwhile, the 2023 polls exposed the vulnerability and weakness of many of our politicians.
For the first time in many years, political juggernauts were demystified by ‘rookie’ candidates. Parties said to have no structure won in States governed by All Progressives Congress, APC.
Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, the President-Elect, lost his fortress – Lagos – to Obi. Obi also won the presidential contest in some APC-controlled States like Nasarawa, Plateau, together with the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, among others.
Obi’s Labour Party, in the South East, was a raging hurricane. Featherweight candidates of the Labour Party for the National Assembly election were returned as winners of many Constituencies and Senatorial Districts. Many have started calling them Members-Elect and Distinguished Senators-Elect
The 2023 polls also made the presidential candidates of various parties fall head over heels in love with voters, who they overtly and surreptitiously courted, prior and during last weekend’s poll.
Politicians have now started learning hard lessons in hard ways, they are now humbled to know that it is no longer business as usual, that their ill stashed monies can amount to nothing on election days if they fail to deliver on their electioneering campaigns promises after being elected.
By now I’m sure those who are elected in these elections, starting from the president and the national Assembly members will have one thing running through their minds; and that will be delivering dividends of democracy to Nigerians who voted them or shown the exit doors in the next election; this alone remains a good omen for our democracy, and another comeuppance that our democracy is maturing beyond its previous years of puerility.
As against the usual narrative since 1999, where two dominant political parties and candidates contest presidential elections, such as the former president Olusegun Obasanjo of the People Democratic Party (PDP) in 1999 against Chief Olu Falae of the joint defunct Alliance for Democracy and All Nigeria Peoples Party (AD+APP), again Obasanjo of the PDP against the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari of the former All Peoples Party (APP) in 2003, Buhari again, this time under the platform of All Nigeria’s Peoples Party against the late president Umaru Yar’Adua of the PDP in 2007 , former president Goodluck Jonathan of the PDP against the incumbent president Buhari of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in 2011, and finally, again Jonathan of PDP in 2015 against Buhari of APC under the then newly merged All Progressive Congress (APC; the 2023 presidential election was able to give Nigerian the varied choice of making expansive electoral choices they have been yearning as a third force to rival the over two decades of dominance of both the PDP and APC.
There was a total detour from what used to be the norms during presidential election with the coming of the Peter Obi’s Labour Party (LP) into the 2023 presidential election.
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Peter Obi, emerged from a relatively small, hitherto inconsequential party to constitute a national movement in a short time. The movement of a motley group of people comprising disenchanted voters, angry young people, and sectional groups who feel alienated, among others, impacted on campaigns and willed to affect election outcomes.
In all it was a dogged and tenacious fight on all fronts from the three major contenders of Peter Obi (LP), Atiku Abubakar (PDP) and Bola Tinubu (APC).
It’s breathtaking that our democracy is gradually revolving from its yesteryears juvenile embryonic stages to puberty, with the coming of the Obidient factor into the race.
Peter Obi has no doubt made statements, he will now be taken seriously as a major factor in our body polity. He fought doggedly, tenaciously, unflinchingly and challenged the well-known and revered traditional politicians in the former Vice President Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and the president-elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
He pushed these mighty duo all the way, defeating the former in his Lagos homestead and political fortress. This alone is deep and huge sighs of relief for most Nigerians, because this is the kind of healthy competition where voters can make wide choices we are all assiduously craving for in our democracy. Finally our democracy is coming of age.
Dear Mr Peter Gregory Obi, there is always another day in everything, politics inclusive.
You had fought for democracy without chickening away nor defeated, you will come back to fight again. Recall that the incumbent President Buhari fought for four times, before clinching the Aso Villa berth; you will one day get your wishes to not just lead Nigeria, but lead her in the right direction.
Thanks a billion for changing the narratives in our democracy. You have demonstrated that there is still hope in our dear country, proved that the so much bloated claim of the so called “structureless” party is a mere hyperbolical fallacy.
So at this juncture, kindly endeavor to prevail on your Obidient support group to be OBIDIENTLY YUSFUL by being lovers of peace, and preachers of Nigeria’s undebatable unity, and to support the president-elect to chart a new course for our dear country Nigeria.
Dearest Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Waziri Adamawa, you are undoubtedly a hero of our burgeoning democracy. In fact hardly will a page of our democratic experiences be flipped without epistolary comments detailing your contributions to it be detailed therein.
Now, Nigerians will be happy seeing you assuming that inevitable elder statesman role, where your contribution front the outside and background will be jealously revered and venerated.
To the ATIKULATEDS, this is the best time to articulate that there is always an end to an era, the time to articulate the fact that the new feather of elder statesman will soon be inevitably added to the Waziri’s decorated epaulettes in our democracy, the time for sober reflection that there is always time to quit in everything, time to cooperate with the soon to be sworn-in government, help to foster peace and contribute our quotas to the peaceful coexistence of our dear country as patriots.
To the president-elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, congratulations for your emergence as the 16th president of our dear country.
It should be incumbent upon you to know that that you didn’t just win an election, but mandates of million Nigerians who believed in your capabilities and capacities to lead the country to the right direction of economic recovery, viability, stability and prosperity. Kindly purge yourself the belief that just won an election, rather the mandates of several Nigerians who believed in your RENEWED HOPE mantra of curbing the worrying security challenges bedeviling the country where lives are taken to the slaughter slabs almost on daily basis.
Your government will be expected to hit the ground running from May 29, this year that you will be sworn in, form a reconciliatory Government of National Unity (GNU), the encouraging move that your party is already making, bring together and extend olive branch to the aggrieved individuals that will help work with you to move the country to an enviable height.
You have always build bridge across ethnic, religious and political lines, even without power as a politician. It is now time you bring such peculiar trait to bear on governance for the betterment of the country.
After all is said and done, there is no winner in the just concluded election, and no vanquish. Nigeria’s democracy emerged the overall winner.
Ozumi Abdul, a staff writer at PRNIGERIA writes from Kano. He can be reached via [email protected]
