_By Ibiseun Aroniyo
Many people have asked what my reasons were for supporting former Vice President Atiku Abubakar for president in the upcoming 2023 general elections. I gave some reasons privately, but since the question keeps coming up publicly, I choose to use this medium to explain my reason.
This will be based on 6 grounds on which I will rate the top 3 candidates accordingly on a scale of 3. On each ground, the best will score 3, the second best 2, and the poorest will score 1. Note that this scale only shows who I feel is better than who, and not the margin of difference between one candidate and the other. Please read along.
*SPREAD, STRUCTURE, AND LIKELIHOOD TO WIN (Tinubu 3, Atiku 2, Obi 1)*
Tinubu belongs to the APC, which is the ruling party having the federal government’s active and passive rigging might, Atiku is from the PDP which still has a large part of the structure it has a former ruling party, while Obi is from the Labour Party which has never been at the center. Tinubu’s APC currently has about 20 or 21 governors, Atiku’s PDP has about 13 or 14 governors while Obi’s Labour party has none. Out of 109 senators, Tinubu’s Party has 63, Atiku’s PDP has 38 and Obi’s Labour party has 1 senator. For the House of Representatives, APC has about 209, PDP 126, and Labour Party just 2 out of a total of 360. When it comes to members of houses of Assembly, APC has around 598, PDP 329 while Labour party has no single House of Assembly member out of a total of 991. All these may be subject to where one classifies the cross defection of a few lawmakers. Some of the largest voting states in the north are currently under Tinubu’s APC, including Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, and Borno. Atiku is from the north where the largest chunk of the votes come from while Obi is from the east, with the weakest voting strength. This is why where spread, structure, and likelihood to win the election are concerned, Tinubu 3, Atiku has 2, and Obi has 1 point.
*FEDERAL EXPERIENCE (Tinubu 2, Atiku 3, Obi 1)*
Tinubu was a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for about 11 months. He was governor for 8 years though, if you want to count that as experience at the federal level. Atiku was the vice president of Nigeria for 8 years. Atiku was also at the Nigerian Customs Service for 20 years, rising to the post of the Deputy Director of the service. Obi in his own case, was also a governor for 8 years. For this, I gave Tinubu 2 points, Atiku 3 and Obi 1.
*TENDENCY TO BE FREE FROM FRAUD/CRIME (Tinubu 1, Atiku 2, Obi 3)*
Let me say, upfront, that none of these candidates have been convicted of any crime, at least, in Nigeria to my knowledge. I’m basing my assessment here solely on two things – public perception and the same scale that the current government used to rate Deziani Madueke, Sabo Dasuki, President Jonathan, and the rest. Here, Tinubu’s real name, real father, and ancestry remain questioned, his primary school education is questioned, his secondary education is questioned, and his age, source of wealth, achievement and political ideology are all being questioned without answers. In fact, I don’t know any subject about Tinubu that’s not having a barrage of questions that have not been answered. Atiku also has unanswered questions about privatization that took place under him, while Pandora’s papers put some faint question marks on the cleanness of Obi. However, considering the veracity of the unanswered questions against these three candidates, I scored Tinubu 1, Atiku 2, and Obi 3.
*FAIRNESS AND JUSTICE (Tinubu 1, Atiku 2, Obi 3)*
This is pretty straightforward. Out of 24 years of Democracy, Tinubu’s zone (southwest) has produced a president for 8 years and a vice president for 8 years. Hence, Tinubu has no business running to be president. Atiku’s zone (Northeast) has never had a president and has had a vice president for 8 years. Hence, his aspiration is fairer than that of Tinubu but still not good enough. Obi’s zone (southeast) has had no president and no vice president for 24 years. Hence, Obi is naturally the fairest candidate for the presidency. Besides, after Buhari’s 8-year run as a Muslim president, the next president should be a Christian, and only Obi satisfies that fairness. Thirdly, a standard presidential ticket in Nigeria should have a candidate each from the north and south, from, at least two different faiths. Tinubu flouted this so woefully by presenting a Muslim-Muslim ticket. Yet, Atiku falls behind Obi because, after an 8 year run of a northern president (Buhari), the presidency should come down south. Hence, on account of fairness and justice, Tinubu has 1, Atiku 2, and Obi 3.
*AGE AND PHYSICAL STRENGTH (Tinubu 1, Atiku 2, Obi 3)*
We all know, though we will not all admit it, that Tinubu is the oldest of the 3. What is more certain is that Tinubu and Atiku are in the same age bracket. Obi is the youngest of them all. There is no argument that with old age comes frailty and the inability to meet up with the performance we could muster while we were young. This is evident in the fact that both government and private sectors have retirement ages for workers, and in Buhari’s confession in 2015 that old age would limit his performance. Besides, even a blind man can see that Tinubu is the frailest of the three candidates. He is simply, practically *SICK*. He slips after a few steps following a little stress, he struggles to take the stairs, his hands shake so badly he can’t hold objects, and he needs help to shake people’s hands or rearrange his own babanriga. Give him a pen to write “I am a member of APC” and see wonders as I believe his shaky hands may make you think he is writing Arabic, and a whole A4 paper would probably not be big enough for just the “APC” part of it! Atiku is not in top health anyway but Obi is strong and sound – the practical, true definition of *“hale and hearty”.* Hence, with age and health, Tinubu has 1, Atiku 2, and Obi 3.
*PERFORMANCE ANTECEDENTS (Tinubu 2, Atiku 2, Obi 2)*
This is the tricky part. I am not impressed with the performances of all these three candidates while in office. Tinubu is said to have performed so well as governor by raising the IGR of Lagos from 700million naira to close to 20 billion or 51 billion naira, depending on which figure a particular wordsmith or pundit thinks will sell Tinubu more. First of all, this is factually untrue as Lagos’ IGR for the year 2006 was only 5.5 billion naira, while Tinubu left office in the fifth month of 2007. It was in the year 2014, towards the end of Fashola’s tenure, that Lagos generated an average of 23 billion monthly IGR. The contradiction here is that those who want to credit Tinubu for the 51-billion-naira monthly IGR today, will by the same token, not agree that Tinubu has been running Lagos by proxy since 2007. It is my opinion though that that IGR was raised by extorting monies in the name of taxes from hapless citizens. The said IGR may also have largely ended up in Tinubu’s pocket, given that his source of wealth remains inexplicable and only a very small fraction of Lagos IGR and allocations accrued to his government could have been responsible for his very minimal achievement as governor. For Atiku, I’ll say the greatest economic growth Nigeria has ever had on all fronts since 1999 was under Obasanjo’s government, with Atiku as head of its economic team. Statistisense says Nigerian economy was grown by 81% by Obasanjo’s administration, and 1.4% by Buhari’s administration in 2020. Though Atiku was the Chairman of Obasanjo’s National Economic Council, which achieved this feat that has remained unbeat, one can argue that the buck did not stop on Atiku’s table at the time. On Obi’s part, he kept Anambra’s money for the Anambra people, rather than siphoning it. However, his achievements were not outstanding as far as I am concerned.
From this assessment, you will find:
1. Spread, structure and likelihood to win (Tinubu 3, Atiku 2, Obi 1)
2. Federal Experience (Tinubu 2, Atiku 3, Obi 1).
3. Tendency to be free from fraud/crime (Tinubu 1, Atiku 2, Obi 3)
4. Fairness and justice (Tinubu 1, Atiku 2, Obi 3)
5. Age and physical strength to deliver (Tinubu 1, Atiku 2, Obi 3)
6. Performance Antecedents (Tinubu 2, Atiku 2, Obi 2)
*TOTAL AGGREGATE*
Tinubu – 10/18
Atiku – 13/18
Obi – 13/18
However, relative to the other parameter above, I favour more the “tendency to be free from fraud and crime”, and also the “fairness and justice”. This is because, “if we don’t kill corruption, corruption will kill Nigeria”. Besides, we can’t have unity without fairness; we can’t have peace without justice and we can’t have development without peace. Hence, if I were to reflect my heavy leanings in these scores by recalibrating the scale to give room for more flexibility, Peter Obi would naturally be far ahead of the 2 other candidates as he will score far more on those 2 grounds than this scale permits.
Now, you should be asking me why then do I choose Atiku? I am choosing Atiku because, despite my heavy leanings toward anti-corruption, fairness, and justice, the most important factor on this list is the spread and likelihood to win the election! Once a candidate wins the election or has the brightest chance of winning, it won’t matter if he’s a thief, physically challenged, or religious extremist! Everything will be over. This means that Tinubu, with the highest point where the political spread is concerned, will win this election despite the fact that he’s the least desirable candidate where the leadership of this country is concerned! This also implies that Obi, despite his better aggregate, will still lose this election and all his qualities will be thrown away! What do we then do? Rather than support Obi to move up from the position of the second runner-up to the first runner-up, I’ll prefer to support and plead that we support ATIKU to move up from the first runner-up to the winner of the election in order to prevent a situation where Tinubu, the least desirable candidate will win. In this case, the best candidate, regrettably, will not be president, but the worst of them all would also have been avoided.
For this, I have chosen to support ATIKU for the 2023 presidential election… And so should you!