PHOTO: That Tinubu is a Master of the Political Game….By Muhammad Al-Ghazali
POLITICS DIGEST- The picture that accompanies this narrative tells a million stories in the context of the upcoming 2023 elections and probable outcome.
The setting was the KDSG Investment Summit 7.0 in Kaduna. Kaduna was the erstwhile capital of the old Northern Region.
The individuals captured in the frame include the 14th Emir of Kano Khalifa Muhammad Sanusi II, Mall. Nasir el-Rufai the Kaduna State Governor along with the APC candidate to replace him Senator Ubani Sani.
They were captured in a fiercely animated conversation with the APC presidential candidate and former Governor of Lagos state Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Even more crucially, Tinubu is the only politician among the lot to hail from the South – the Soutwest to be precise, but you won’t tell the difference from the optics! And why is that so critical? Simple!
The image depicts a thoroughbred politician at work! He knows his onions, and exactly what it will take to clinch the critical Northern votes in the upcoming elections particularly the 28% of all registered voters from the Northwest up for grabs!
By ignoring the primitive hullabaloo about his same faith ticket in his choice of Kashim Shettima, he had already guaranteed himself a hefty chunk of the 15% eligible voters from the Northeast where his major Northern adversary Atiku Abubakar hails from.
He’s obviously not losing any sleep on his chances in the Southwest where he hails from and had bred many power brokers. He can count on them to quarantine a hefty chunk of its 21% registered voters on INECs register in next year’s elections.
He knows he has a fighting chance in the North-Central states where the votes from Niger, Kwara, Kogi and Nasarawa in particular are likely to swing his way.
Tinubu is ever so conscious that the other formidable opposition party the PDP is locked in a war of attrition with the Labour Party, and its candidate Peter Obi, the outcome of which is likely to work in his favour at the polls.
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Unlike Obi, who’s the other major candidate from the South in the contest, Tinubu has made the strategic decision to aggressively court Northern votes which he knows will be crucial to his victory especially since both Atiku Abubakar, and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, hail from!
By contrast, whether it is due to unpardonable political naivety, or acute poverty of strategic impetus, Obi has opted to dance to the wild adulation of his kinsmen in the South-East with its combined voting strength of less than 10% registered voters on the same INEC register.
His recently released campaign council was another proof of the non-cosmopolitan orientation of his minders, and how woefully unprepared he is for the elections. As I write this, Tinubu is busy addressing Northern leaders at the Arewa House in Kaduna. Obi I understand is also scheduled to address the group and I hope he truly shows up.
To add to his woes, the leadership of Ohanaeze-Ndigbo recently jumped into the fray to further complicate his fortunes with their divisive comments.
He seems to be revelling in the inconsequential frenzy on the social media where he’s already the President in waiting courtesy of a few dubious online polls.
But how do you even begin to help someone who thinks he knows it all?
Rather than concentrate his resources and energies in the North where he has a mountain to climb, especially with a few months to the elections, Obi has opted to make religion center-stage in his strategy, while Tinubu, despite picking a same faith ticket, is doing everything to avoid a blowback by seizing every opportunity to rationalise and situate his choice of the same faith ticket in the realm of political strategy.
By contrast, Obi has hobbled from one church to the other where he made political statements and was even captured on tape urging Christians to take back their country.
He seems unperturbed by how that statement would resonate in the Northwest with its superior voting strength in particular!
The biggest problem Obi and his minders have is the insatiable recourse to view delicate political matters through their narrow prisms.
One hardly even needs to be partisan to realise that that tendency is an unmitigated disaster in any political dispensation.
Muhammad Al-Ghazali writes from Abuja
