Without prejudice to the legal processes going on after the 2023 Presidential election, it needs be said, now that a date has been set aside for the Tribunal to make its position known, that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu was the most prepared for the contest. My personal conclusion is simply this: warts and all, the presidential candidate of the All Peoples Congress was the best prepared among the contenders to the presidency in the 2023 election. The party was also the most prepared of all. You can argue about other things. Be in court for the next one year to confirm if he won or not, that is beyond the concern of this piece. You also can talk about the myriad of allegations, mostly yet to be proven, some speculative, some worrisome, some controversial and some others hugely laughable, but it will be difficult to successfully argue that he was not the most prepared. For one, he started his aspiration quite early. The question could be asked, who started earlier between him and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar? The response will be simple and far from any debate if will look at the records of each and of the candidates.
Asiwaju after his second term began the process of taking over the southwest, his principal constituency by planting or supporting friendly candidates of his or of his party. He forayed into the Mid west, middle belt by deliberately supporting candidates with his vast resources, outside the support rendered by his party. None of the other candidates fared any where as much as Asiwaju in this direction. Also, he for all the years since 1999 have controlled the leadership process and leaders of the most cosmopolitan, most diverse and one of the most populous states in Nigeria, Lagos. By this, he has either for good or bad, been in the news for public scrutiny and evaluation than the rest of the candidates. Every day he is mentioned in the press, for whatever reason, his popularity and or notoriety expands and spreads. None of the other candidates had equal experience like his in this direction. Associated with the above is the fact that the vice-like hold he established on Lagos, the commercial centre of Nigeria, has also placed humongous resources, real and perceived, in his hands. Actual wealth and perceived wealth are keys factors in the perception of a candidate anywhere in the world, and more so in Nigeria. He was, flowing from the above, seen as possessing an endless pool of resources, big enough to outspend the other contenders to the presidency in the last election. Accept it or not, the other candidates either portrayed themselves as poor or miserly or truly seen as men who had seen better days.
Another point in his favour is the fact that the successes attributable and attributed, either worthily or otherwise, to his successors in the governance of Lagos robbed positively on him. The perception that Lagos is the most successful state in the country and that its residents have benefitted most from the fabled dividend of democracy has lingered for far too long without more than a feeble counter narrative. The success story of Lagos has been publicised without any serious interogation for so long that efforts around the election period to punch holes went no where.None of the other contenders had such a flowery testimony to performance and achievements. Even when in truth the sterling performance of Dr Musa Rabiu Kwankwanso in human development are there for all to see, the fact that his successor are not with him or within his party renders any such opportunity to appropriate his success impossible. The same goes for Peter Obi, whose successor has been the most vociferous in denouncing whatever success Obi may lay claim as governor. Atiku had no such record to recourse to and his claims of success as VP were either seen as fictional or at best without subsatnce.
Truth is, while he was VP, he was truly not the man in charge. OBJ, the president who was elected to preside, over and above Atiku, has never hidden his dislike for Atiku and so his claim of being poster boy of the successes of the Obasanjo presidency held no such gravitas as Tinubu’s on Lagos. Yet another pointer to the level of preparedness of Tinubu vis a viz the other candidates was the way post presidential congresses were handled. While he immediately commenced processes of reconciliation and rapprochement, Atiku Abubakar his closest rival took a worrisome leave to Dubai immediately after his far from uncontentious victory. While Asiwaju’s media machinery moved into overdrive to push the narrative that the congress was a successful family affair, the Atiku machinery went to town to crown heroes and villains of democracy out of what was at best a fatally-flawed process. While Asiwaju went wooing, some say, whoring with all the other aspirants and rumour says offsetting debts incurred by fellow aspirants from his party, Atiku and his men went near bananas alienating key contenders and their teeming supporters. Kwankwaso was portrayed as a spineless candidate on one hand and clandestinely being categorised as a silent supporter by the PDP candidate on the other.
Peter Obi, the surprise over performer in the race, moved almost late into the Labour party and did not succeed in turning it into an organic force to wrestle power before the polls. He ran on the platform of a party that was loud on opportunities and possibilities, vociferous on propaganda and virtual mobilisation but was handicapped by the absence of a credible organogram for actual delivery of defendable votes, a fatal obstacle to his ambition. More than all the above, while the APC was daring on southern candidacy with only a subtle effort to upturn the agreement with the introduction of Lawan, the PDP was loud about a southern presidency and louder, if not indecently so, about the subversion of the southern agitation and the recourse to a northern candidacy. The LP did not maximise the fact that its flagbearer is from the favoured geographic divide. Rabiu Musa Kwankwanso NNPP was obviously concerned about winning and exercising control only in Kano State and only used the aspiration for the presidency as an instrument for that and that alone. These and many facts underlined the readiness of Bola Ahmed Tinubu to perform better in the last election. INEC has declared him winner and he has since assumed office as president. If he truly won or not is still in contention and the first in the series of judgments to decide which, is set to be delivered on Wednesday. We wait.
- Akinsola, media and perception professional, writes in via eni.akinsola@googlemail.com
