By Hamza Danjuma

The above question was asked by The Cable, the new
but increasingly popular online newspaper in its analysis
of the different aspirants on September 1, 2014, and I
expected that the analysis will go all the way to answer
the question.
Perhaps the first question should be: Does the APC
really want to win the presidential election next year? If
they want to win, then, they must do their homework.
As it appears today, there is nothing to suggest that
they want to win. Any party that wants to choose a
consensus candidate among several aspirants must use
certain objective criteria devoid of selfish interests. To
do so, the APC must ponder what the key issues are
right now that are likely going to influence the direction
of voting next year. In my opinion, there are four key
issues today:
1.Nigeria has become dangerously polarized on the
issue of religion caused directly by the Boko Haram
phenomenon and President Jonathan’s divisive actions
along those lines. This appears to be PDP’s main
strategy for 2015 as the party’s big wigs continue to
associate the APC with Boko Haram without bordering
to back up their assertion with any evidence. It would
also appear that the PDP has enlisted the SSS in this
dangerous strategy considering the fact that Marilyn
Ogar, the spokesperson of the SSS has started echoing
that line too recently. The PDP has continuously referred
to the APC as an Islamic party from the first day it was
established.
2. Beating a sitting president has so far not been
possible in Nigeria no matter how unpopular he is. To
defeat particularly this one will require the mobilization
of the entire country, in order to neutralize the rigging
machine.
3. Jonathan has currently been roundly branded, and
rightly so, as incompetent and unfit to govern, and
therefore extremely unpopular but because of (1) above,
that does not necessarily mean any APC candidate can
defeat him.
4. The unity of the north shall also be key as this will
determine whether a northern candidate can win in
2015. To defeat Jonathan in 2015, APC must field a
candidate who has the capacity to unite the whole north
and who can be supported by all the contending and
power centres within the party. The credential of that
candidate must also be such as to be able to neutralize
Jonathan and PDP’s strategy of balkanizing the nation
along petty religious lines in the 2015 election.
So in determining which of the APC presidential
aspirants comes closest to qualifying as a consensus
candidate using these criteria, let us re-examine the
names mentioned by TheCable viz Muhammadu Buhari,
Atiku Abubakar, Rabiu Kwankwaso, Aminu Tambuwal
and Sam Nda-Isaiah.
I will also examine the prospects of Rochas Okorocha
and Bukola Saraki
• Muhammadu Buhari: Buhari is a very well-respected
former head of state. He is straight as an arrow. His
greatest strength is that he is very popular among the
masses of the far North. But history has shown that
politicians with such massive following among their
people are held in suspicion in other parts of the
country. Consequently, such people usually cannot
garner the national appeal to become president. Very
popular politicians of old who fall into that category and
never became president include Chief Obafemi Awolowo,
Mallam Aminu Kano and Dr. Joseph Tarka. That is the
real reason Buhari lost in 2003, 2007 and 2011 and will
lose again in 2015 if fielded by APC as its presidential
candidate. Buhari’s case has also been worsened by the
fact that his opponents have successfully branded him
as a fundamentalist. Even though there is no evidence
to support this, the perception has stuck. It does not
matter who Buhari’s running mate is, that perception
will stick. That is why in spite of Pastor Tunde Bakare,
a well-known Christian clergy, being his running mate in
2011, he lost almost all of the Christian votes in
Nigeria. Buhari’s supporters always brandish his over
12 million votes in the 2011 presidential election as the
strongest reason he should be APC’s candidate, but
they forget that of this more than 12 million votes, less
than 250,000 votes came from the entire 17 states of
the South and probably even less from the Christian
North. This is what has led several to conclude that no
structure can deliver Buhari to the presidency. With
Buhari flying the APC flag, the APC would be playing
directly into the hands of Jonathan and PDP. Buhari will
get his traditional votes but will lose the Christian North
and the Christian South. Jonathan will coast to victory
easily with Buhari as APC’s presidential candidate.
(There are other reasons Buhari may not even get the
12 million votes again. There is the Buhari fatigue. After
contesting in 2003, 2007 and 2011, many people think
he should not be contesting in 2015 ag
ain. Many also believe that a 70-year old should not be
contesting to be president especially for a man that was
head of state 30 years ago, and there are still many
others who think that Buhari, having publicly declared
that he would not be contesting in 2015, has fallen
short of his own standard of integrity to go back on his
word. In spite of Buhari’s intimidating CV and anti-
corruption credentials, he is far from being the ideal
consensus candidate for the APC. Buhari’s APC
candidacy will immediately polarize the APC and the
party would have lost even before the race begins. But
even though Buhari may not be able to win the
presidency, he remains the biggest asset to the APC.
• Atiku Abubakar: Atiku’s strongest point is the tons of
money at his disposal to buy up the APC presidential
primary, but if that happens, then the election would
have been concluded for Jonathan. The President will
defeat Atiku without even having to rig the election. Not
many people both within the APC and outside think
Atiku should be the APC presidential candidate. Buhari
and Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu are unlikely to find it in their
hearts to campaign for Atiku as the APC presidential
candidate considering their past relationship.
• Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso: Kwankwaso has done
well as the governor of Kano State. He is one of the
PDP governors who crossed over to the APC because
Jonathan will not be keeping his promise of not seeking
a second term and therefore would be denied the
party’s ticket. But it will show the APC as an extremely
unserious party to give its ticket to a politician, no
matter how good, who simply crossed over into the
party to get the ticket. If Kwankwaso gets the ticket,
then the 2015 presidential election will be between PDP
and New PDP. Even the PDP will laugh at the APC. And
many original opposition politicians will remind
themselves that in 2003, they had to virtually wrestle
Kwankwaso to the ground in order to replace him as the
governor of Kano State. Buhari and his followers in
Kano will be reminded that in the 2003 governorship
election, Kwankwaso, together with Obasanjo, tried to
use the military to alter the peoples’ will. Kwankwaso
will most certainly be a good president but giving him
the ticket can break the party. He is also far from being
the ideal consensus candidate.
• Aminu Tambuwal: There haves been rumours of
Speaker Aminu Tambuwal decamping from the PDP to
the APC and contesting for the APC presidential ticket
almost immediately. As The Cable said, his candidacy
could satisfy the yearnings of a large section of the
country for a generational shift, but it will simply be
laughable for the Speaker, or anyone for that matter to
officially decamp from the PDP to the APC tomorrow
and the day after, he becomes the party’s presidential
candidate. The Speaker cannot be a consensus
candidate by any stretch of the imagination.
• Sam Nda-Isaiah: As The Cable said, Sam Nda-Isaiah,
the publisher of Leadership newspapers, is not a
political heavyweight. He has never contested any
election and has never occupied any public office, so no
one knows how he might behave in public office. But his
campaigners say that also makes him the only real face
of change among all the aspirants since “change” is the
APC’s slogan. It is probably true that no other APC
aspirant can really claim to represent change as Sam. At
52, he is also one of the youngest aspirants and
therefore a representative of the school of generational
shift. As The Cable itself analyzed, being a Christian
minority from the North could eliminate Jonathan’s key
and pivotal support in the Christian North. Because of
the activities of Boko Haram and President Jonathan’s
divisive politics, no Muslim candidate would be able to
receive northern Christian support. But Sam also has
another critical advantage. Northern Muslims feel very
comfortable with him in a way that they do not wit
h some other Christian northerners such as Professor
Jerry Gana, for instance. So Sam’s candidacy, in spite
of his scanty political CV (according to The Cable), has
the potential of uniting the entire North. His fresh face
in politics with little political baggage and a popular
South-west Muslim running mate can also deprive
Jonathan of the entire south-west votes, since his
candidacy can also neutralize Jonathan’s South-west
Christian vote advantage. And the Muslims of the
South-west will definitely not vote for Jonathan in 2015.
Unfortunately the South-west which used to be
insensitive to religion has changed. That is why for the
first time there is a clamour for a Christian governor in
Lagos State. The almost entirely Christian South-east
zone will be turned into battleground states by both
Sam and Jonathan with each picking up what they can.
Ditto for the South-south even though Jonathan should
be expected to win in his South-south zone in spite of
Governors Amaechi and Oshiomhole. Sam’s major
problem is that he does not appear to posses the
campaign war-chest like the other aspirants.( Sam also
has another vital edge over all the rest. It will be almost
impossible for Buhari to support Atiku and other PDP
entrants into the APC if they emerge candidates, but as
Buhari’s “boy” and a member of the same tendency, it
will not be difficult for Buhari to support Sam. It is
public knowledge that the Leadership publisher has been
one of the boldest and most consistent supporters of
the former head of state since he joined partisan politics
in 2002. In fact, he once joked during a media interview
recently that he is the “original Buhari person, not all
the current PDP people that now surround him and who
had rigged elections against us in the past”. Atiku,
Kwankwaso, Tambuwal and the APC governors would
also have no problem backing Sam.
• Bukola Saraki: The former governor of Kwara State
also has age on his side and will also represent those
with the thought of generational shift. He also did well
as a governor so can be counted to be a good
president. But he is hampered by a couple of issues.
First, like Atiku, Kwankwaso and Tambuwal, he is of the
PDP stock. In fact, in 2011, Atiku and Saraki were
presidential aspirants on the platform of the PDP. The
second is that he is currently under investigation by the
EFCC. Even though the EFCC issue is clearly a tool of
victimization of the Jonathan government against him,
the APC cannot field a candidate with this unresolved
problem.
• Rochas Okorocha: The main issue against Rochas at
this time is that the APC has technically zoned the
presidency to the North in 2015.
* Danjuma is resident in Hotoro Quarters, Kano.
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/09/will-apcs-consensus-candidate/