•4 groups battle for control of party
If a daring plan by a powerful clique in the All Progressives Congress (APC) materialises, a Muslim from the South (names witheld) may emerge as the party’s presidential candidate in the 2015 presidential election, with a Northern Christian as his running mate.
This follows the opprobrium trailing the alleged Muslim/Muslim ticket the party was said to be contemplating.
Already, four broad groups have emerged in the party with schemes on how to choose its presidential candidate and where the person should come from.
A key leader of the party told Saturday Tribune that “the groups are, one, those angling for a Muslim/Muslim ticket, with General Muhammadu Buhari and Senator Bola Tinubu as the focus; two, those opposed
to the Muslim/Muslim idea but believe in a Muslim North/Muslim South ticket; and the third group working on a moderate Northern Muslim candidate with a ‘moderate’ Southern Christian as running mate. This group focuses on Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Rivers State governor, Rotimi Amaechi.
The fourth group, the source said, are those plotting secretly to shock the party and the entire country with a Muslim Southerner as candidate and a Northern Christian as running mate.
The senior party chieftain said unfavourable public reactions to the alleged plan to pair a Northern Muslim as presidential candidate with a Southern Muslim as VP would make both ‘pro’ and ‘anti’ elements to review the alleged plan.
Former Minister of Aviation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, an opposition chieftain, leaked the alleged plan to the public after he failed to dissuade those nursing the plan.
The senior party chieftain, who spoke with Saturday Tribune last Thursday, however, said that the party would end up with a Muslim/Christian ticket, though he did not expressly deny that the idea was on the party’s card.
Making his objection known to the idea, the party leader, who is a Northern Muslim, disclosed that he had made it known to other party leaders that the idea would make Nigerians see the opposition party as unserious and insensitive.
He expressed his delight that the issue became public at the early stage of picking candidates, and that the party would now be saved the embarrassment that could have come with the party emerging with a Muslim/Muslim ticket.
“If we did it and tried to change it due to public disapproval, nobody would take us serious again,” he said.
He was, however, unsparing of the former minister. Though he did not deny the fact that the minister had actually sat with leaders of the party at one point or the other, he doubted if such sensitive issue would have been discussed in his presence, given his outspokenness.
The projected Muslim/Muslim ticket was reportedly primed for former Head of State, General Muhammadu Buhari and former Lagos State governor, Senator Bola Tinubu.
Saturday Tribune, however, gathered from another top source that shocker might await those who think the North already has the presidential ticket of APC safe in its pouch, as a ‘think-tank’ in the party is reportedly developing a concept tagged Operation Jonathan Out.
The opposition’s winning formula and choice of presidential and vice-presidential candidates are to be tailored solely to achieve this singular objective. Those behind the plan reportedly viewed this as the central reason for the coming together of the legacy parties.
The idea is to have been founded on the repeated inability of Buhari to break into the South, particularly South-West, and the loss of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in Ondo governorship election despite being at the apogee of its popularity – which reportedly communicated a lesson to ACN chieftains now in APC that candidates are issues in the South-West politics.
To those pushing this idea, Buhari and South-West may never flow irrespective of the acceptability accorded his South-West party leaders like Tinubu by the zone.
Though Buhari is not expected to feature on the ticket, his understanding and support is said to be very crucial for the project, by rallying Northern Muslims behind the ticket as a way of proving to Christians in the North that they also matter.
A source told Saturday Tribune that even if Buhari spurns the support request, it is still expected that Northerners will vote massively against President Goodluck Jonathan, the projected presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and be more disposed to a Muslim from the South, especially the projected candidate with cordial relationship with Northern political leaders.
A liberal Muslim Southerner on the platform of APC is also expected to cut into Jonathan’s solid support base in the South, while an entire geo-political zone is expected to dump the president since their son being projected as the APC candidate would be more preferred.
Southern Christians are expected to trust the liberal Muslim by voting him.
An attraction for Northern Muslims being reportedly packaged into the agenda is a strictly single-term arrangement for both the presidential candidate and his running mate, while the vice-president is also expected not to seek the presidency immediately after their tenure.
The nation’s mood which does not favour second term and the expectation that the ongoing national conference would end up proposing a single term for elected executive is expected to strengthen the arrangement.
A prominent business tycoon (names witheld) is reportedly being tipped from the North as vice-president, with a retired general allegedly covertly pulling the levers.
His candidacy is also being projected to bring in the majority Christian North-Central into the opposition project, while Christians in core northern states are expected to see the ticket as a dream-come-true on their agitation for political recognition.
The permutation on the 25 per cent of total votes in 24 states (expected to be bolstered by Christian minorities in the core-Northern states) that would give Jonathan the constitutionally-required spread is also expected to be dashed by this arrangement.
A wholesale support is expected from minority Christians in states like Borno and Adamawa, while Taraba is expected to key in excitedly.
Leaders in the North-Central are said to be skeptical of APC’s change agenda due to the dominance of Muslims who have allegedly subjugated them for years in the party, a perception the shocking proposal is expected to counter.
Four major geo-political zones are expected to support the plan en-bloc. It was learnt that a survey among political leaders in the North showed that their revulsion for Jonathan is more for his open display of Christianity than being a Southerner, and that any arrangement that would put a Muslim in the presidential villa should take preeminence over tribe.
The president has been consistently accused of being anti-Islam.
In selling the agenda on the basis of the proposed single-term for the Southern Muslim president, it would be argued that those not in support should make a choice between fielding a predictable ticket of Buhari expected to be beaten by Jonathan and still stay out of power for another term, with the president expected to consolidate for his party man to succeed him or springing a surprise that would sweep Jonathan out of office for the party to consolidate before handing over to a Northern Muslim.
In both scenarios, a Northern Muslim candidate, especially Buhari, would not be in power in 2015 and the opposition might be worse off, the source submitted.
The thinking is that with the Islamic tag on the opposition party, fielding a Muslim presidential candidate from the North, where the religion is most pronounced and perceived as an instrument of subjugation, would be an instant put-off for the three zones in the South, North-Central and states like Taraba and Southern Kaduna, thereby giving Jonathan a roller-coaster back to office.
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