Tinubu alleges northern APC conspiracy

We think that Mr Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the candidate of the ruling All Progressive’s Congress (APC) is the front-runner in next month’s election. He has the deepest pockets of the major candidates, and access to the levers of the state can only help. However, cracks that have been evident in the ruling party over the last few years have began to widen. On Wednesday, 24 January 2023, videos emerged online that showed Mr Tinubu accusing President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration of deliberately triggering a long-running petrol scarcity, and the recent currency redesign in the build-up to the presidential election to throttle his chances of winning. Mr Tinubu made these claims while speaking in the Yoruba language at a campaign rally in Ogun State. He also accused the president’s inner circle of plotting to help the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate Atiku Abubakar win the elections slated for February. Immediately after the videos emerged, there was a coordinated wave of support from Tinubu’s followers as the APC National Youth leader, Dayo Israel, and Femi Fani-Kayode echoed the accusations.

The “Jagabandits” could not be more wrong. For a start, it is unlikely that the petrol scarcity is aimed at crippling Mr Tinubu’s chances at the polls. For a year now, the Nigerian capital, Abuja, has been suffering from the petrol scarcity which has now spread to other parts of the country. In Lagos, it has been on, intermittently, for months. Both predate Mr Tinubu’s emergence as the ruling party candidate. It is also important to remember that Mr Tinubu also attacked the Buhari group in the build-up to the APC presidential primary at a campaign meeting in Ogun State, where he said that the President owed him the presidency for supporting him to get elected after three failed attempts via the CPC platform, so this is likely a veiled demand for stronger support more than anything else.

Mr Tinubu’s accusations that the government is subtly supporting the PDP candidate Atiku Abubakar are unlikely to be true. If anything, they sound like cries for help from Northern voters. Bola Tinubu is the ruling party candidate, but of the three major presidential candidates, he is the one who is not wildly popular in his home region. If Mr Tinubu is truly being abandoned, it is because some people think he does not have the numbers to get elected. He is struggling in his South-West region, which is discontented with the outcome of his 15-year control. Likewise, he is very unpopular in the other Southern regions, the South-East and the South-South where his uninspiring campaign, characterised by blunders, has been seen as being powered by a sense of entitlement.

Peter Obi, on the other hand, makes believable promises to be honest and competent. He has the overwhelming support of the Southeast and significant pockets of admirers in other Southern regions and the North-Central. Without Buhari on the ballot, Atiku Abubakar appears to have become the most-supported candidate in the North, and decades of friendliness towards the South are helping him stay competitive there. He makes believable promises offering restructuring and devolution. At APC governorship rallies in the North, it has become common to see crowds chanting “Sai Atiku”. For a long time, Atiku Abubakar has stood as the leader of a moderate progressive Northern bloc that has not been fully embraced. Still, the North’s devastation over the last eight years, coupled with Mr Buhari’s absence from the ballot, has gotten him a much stronger following.

It will be arduous for APC politicians up North to sell Mr Tinubu to their people because he does not pass the test, regardless of whether you use ethnic considerations or competence as a guide. Mr Tinubu has offered nothing striking, and he appears to be invested in the idea that the ruling party’s might should be enough, and that is a problem. He spent the last decade antagonising Southerners from other regions, believing that all he needed was a good relationship with Northern powerbrokers. However, it does not look like the strategy is currently working, but we’ll wait until after the elections before returning to this. For now, the South (outside the South-West) largely identifies with Peter Obi, and the North appears to have embraced Atiku Abubakar. If Mr Tinubu does not become President, he helped Buhari become President for nothing.