With the election and adoption of former Vice president Atiku Abubakar,Peter Obi of the African Democratic Congress,National Democratic Party as Presidential candidates by their respective parties for next year’s Presidential election, the coast is clear for them to once again do what they did in 2023.
By January next year, the trio will attempt to dislodge President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who they separately faced three years ago but lost to him.
During the election in 2023 Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress,APC polled 8,794, 721 votes to defeat Atiku who polled 6,984,520 votes to come second while Obi polled 6,101,533 votes to come third.
On his own, Rabiu Kwankwaso of NNPP polled 1,496,687 votes.
It is instructive that both Atiku and Obi who fell apart in 2023 from the PDP would have defeated Tinubu by a very wide margin.
Today,both of them who last year July 2024 joined the rejuvenated African Democratic Congress with the intention of joining forces to defeat ruling APC, has again fallen apart as Obi moved on to newly formed National Democratic Congress led by Senator Seriake Dickson ,former Bayelsa State Governor.
Reasons for parting of ways by Atiku and Obi is not different from what separated them in 2023.
Today,Obi who apparently felt threatened by Atiku whose PDP structure dominated ADC has formed a pact with Rabiu Kwankwaso who also left the New Nigeria Nigeria Peoples Party earlier when his godson governor of Kano state, Kabiru Yusuff hijacked the state Party structure from him.
It came after Kwankwaso couldn’t get Tinubu to replace his vice President Kashim Shettima with him ahead of next years election.
Kano governor Yusuff and Deputy Senate President Usman Jibrin felt otherwise with Kwakwanso and moved on with Tinubu.
At the end of the 2023 election, APC had 75 senators,210 members of House of Representatives while PDP had 35 senators and 115 members in the House of Representatives.
Today, due to internal wrangling in the PDP which is a fallout of the 2023 crisis, PDP had only 4 reps and 3 senators left in the party while the ruling parry had gained 13 more senators making 88 and 210 rep members all who left the sinking PDP boat which gave Tinubu a good fight in 2023.
PDP loss became ADC gain as it had 8 senators while NNPP, APGA and NDC had 6 Senate seats with 3 seats vacant.
This makes APC still dominant in the National Assembly.
Peter Obis departure from the ADC in April had strengthened the NDC with the movement with him of former Labour Party faithfuls who joined the ADC last year with him.
Again today, Obi cannot boast of the same messianic youthful followers who joined LP from the ashes of the Endsars protest .
LP today has split into three factions and one of the remnants led by Nenadi Usman had adopted their own Presidential candidate in person of Chibuzo Okereke.
It is apparent Obi cannot muster the support he got in 2023 with the 700, 000 membership registration its new party, NDC submitted to Independent National Electoral Commission while ADC submitted 2.5 million members.
Atiku also submitted himself to presidential primaries which Obi and Kwankwaso ran away from and got 1.8million votes to emerge its candidate.
Obi emerged last week NDC candidate by a consensus arrangement.
Obi, it will also be recalled emerged LP candidate in 2023 by consensus.
Hence,Obi is on his familiar trait of running away from party primaries to be a candidate.
How somebody can win a party primary without structures in today’s politics remains a mirage just as it is difficult to get polling agents for a party that had only 700,00 members with INEC as different from 10million members it claimed to have through social media presence.
Still on a familiar path,NDC had no state governor besides the 4 senators and 17 members of the House of Representatives consisting of ADC members who defected with him to NDC from ADC in April.
Again, Atiku who is the presidential candidate of ADC had no state governor to mobilise and fund its operations just like NDC as Obi and Kwankwaso lost Abia and Kano that would have provided the big purse to fund their campaign.
Lack of funding could also explain why NDC avoided Direct primaries as Senator Dickson,sponsor of the NDC,could not be expected to raise the huge amount to fund primaries in 36 states.
It is because Obi couldn’t get the now divided Obedient Movement to release fund until he got the presidential ticket.
In other words, both Obi and his supporters wanted a ‘free’ platform to realise their goal.
From all indications, Atiku is likely to succeed in getting Rotimi Amaechi to be his running mate and if the former transport minister drop his ego, he still has a relatively deep pocket like Atiku to fund their ticket.
Atiku,it would be recalled got then Delta governor, Ifeanyi Okowa to fund his campaign with billions of his state money.
His case is still pending with the EFCC except that he has secured Delta Senate ticket from the ruling APC.
During the APC primaries,Tinubu polled 10.9million votes out of the 12million registered members it had with the INEC.
From all indications, both ADC and NDC would have to separately mobilise their members to face APC with 31 state governors with state resources to fight the 2027 presidential elections.
Both the ADC with 8 senators and NDC with 17 defected House of Representatives members will have to mobilise grassroots supporters separately to fight the ruling government who still have most of its members in NASS standing for re-election with the incumbent President.
Though in politics 24 hours can make a difference the two strong challengers in Atiku and Obi have to move the mountain to dislodge the ruling government at the centre with structures in all 176,974 polling units in Nigeria for the 2027 general elections .
This figure is in addition to the 56,872 newly created polling units.
With a ruling government facing the biggest security threat in Nigeria,ability to effectively stem the tide will reinforce its power of incumbency while the opposition inability to come together and present a single presidential candidate contrary to their promise during the opposition parties summit in April in Ibadan will only strengthen the ruling party with huge resources to fund elections in a country like Nigeria with a heavily monetized campaign process .
If the plan of the opposition parties to have many presidential candidates from the South to reduce influence of the incumbent is to succeed,they need more resources to shift the allegiance of the South West and South South now dominated by the ruling government.
Should by miracle a run- off presidential election becomes a fait accompli, the ruling government still have what it takes to manage the few areas that will participate.
Interesting days ahead