Prior to the 2015 General Elections, a great Political Tactician in the person of President Bola Tinubu, looked into the Political Crystal Ball and saw 12 million votes hanging on the head of one man, Muhammadu Buhari. These voters are faithful and diehard loyalists to this one Man, Buhari.

This great Political Tactician read the signs of the time and concluded that the time was ripe to dethrone the PDP from power. PBAT contacted Buhari, who had failed election severally times and told him that he would make him the next President of Nigeria.

The call to Buhari, then by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu (who is now the President of Nigeria), birthed the first fruitful Political Coalition of the current Republic that dethroned an incumbent government, headed by Goodluck Jonathan.

I was privileged to have served in the National Merger Committee that was drawn from the Coalition of ACN, CPC, Rochas Okorocha’s APGA and a few parties on the fringe that birthed APC.

Our work at the National Merger Committee that sat for a long time at High Chief Tom Ikimi’s House was clear; to create a Political Party that already had a clearly defined Presidential Candidate in the person of Buhari and a National Leader, now President Bola Tinubu.

When the breakaway PDP members joined this Coalition, they had no option other than to queue behind the fundamental alliance that birthed the APC.

Even when VP Atiku Abubakar felt that the weight of his money would upstage the then poor Buhari and plunged into the Party Presidential Primary, the fundamental alliance that birthed APC roundly defeated former VP Atiku Abubakar unapologetically.

Two cardinal points stand out.

1) The APC Coalition was formed by political bigwigs with close to 15 overt Governors and some covert ones.

ADC Coalition was formed by strange political bedfellows with conflicting political interests, without a single sitting Governor in attendance.

Any political coalition without the blessings and active participation of at least 10 sitting Governors is dead on arrival.

2) The APC Coalition had a well-defined Presidential Candidate ab initio who commanded 12 million diehard voters willing to die for him.

The Southwest was 80 per cent behind the APC Coalition.  The breakaway members of PDP solidified APC’s electoral roadmap to victory.

ADC, as of today, has no clear Presidential Candidate, which forecloses any analysis of the candidate’s strength.

Any political coalition without a clearly defined Presidential Candidate as the raft foundation on which the building blocks of the Coalition are anchored is bound to sink into muddy waters or suffer irredeemable implosion in due time.  You cannot place anything on nothing and expect it to stand and thrive.

Atiku is already campaigning for the ADC ticket, while Peter Obi is already advocating for a single term to complete the Power Rotation to the South.

Can ADC Centre hold at the eleventh hour of crossing the Rubicon on the basis of these competing and conflicting interests?

No! Absolutely not!!

ADC Coalition, as an association of strange bedfellows, will be faced with palpable dilemmas and confusion in the choice of a Presidential Candidate.

As noted above, a coalition grows into strength only when its Cornerstone is, ab initio, laid and anchored upon an identified Presidential Candidate.

On the other hand, a Coalition withers into weakness and insignificance when the contending interests of its Presidential Candidates begin to collide.

Let Me Explain

Electoral victory does not come on the strength of naive emotions and sentiments. On the contrary, Electoral victory happens on a clear and well-charted roadmap anchored on basic realities on the ground.

Seventy per cent (70%) of the voting bloc of the Northwest Geopolitical Zone will be driven by tribal and religious sentiments.  These sentiments tower high above economic hardship considerations, which are the song of the less than 10% elites of the zone.

VP Atiku Abubakar will hold a commanding electoral value in this Zone. A Peter Obi of Igbo extraction and a Christian will be very unattractive in this Zone. The same permutations will hold sway in the Northeast Geopolitical Zone.

Northcentral Geopolitical Zone will be a balanced turf between Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi.

The influence and edge between these two great Nigerians in Northcentral Geopolitical Zone will be too close to call.

Peter Obi is a great Southern Nigerian son and a vessel in the hands of God waiting for God’s appointed time for his full manifestation as a Nigerian President, but certainly not in 2027.

The Biblical Children of Issachar are reputed as knowing the signs of the time!

When Prophet Samuel was commanded by God to go and anoint a new King for Israel in the house of Jesse (1Samuel 16), David was the least considered by his immediate family, but the anointing oil landed on his head as the new King of Israel. Jesse, head of the household, paraded his older sons who had muscles, height, weight and girth. Samuel demanded that the other members of the family. Jesse admitted that it was David, who was tending the sheep on the field, who remained. Samuel said he would not sit down until the lad was brought. And young David was God’s choice!

The Oil on David’s head did not bring instant victory and enthronement as King of Israel. Rather, David began to confront horrible travails and challenges that resonated in the greater Book of Psalms, which he wrote, begging God and King Saul for his life and not even for the throne.

David, after passing through his wilderness experience, was manifested as King over Israel at God’s chosen time. This is Peter Obi’s story in the spirit.  Peter Obi is that great vessel in the hand of God, as well captured in Habakkuk 2:3… For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie; though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come, it will not tarry.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, by all stretched consideration of sentiments, will surely consolidate 90 per cent of the votes in the Southwest Geopolitical Zone.

South South Geopolitical Zone, by the machinery of government on the ground presently, will deliver over 80 per cent votes to APC.

Peter Obi will definitely NOT  command the same wave of 2023 in the Southeast in 2027.

A lot of water, they say, has gone under the bridge.

ADC Coalition, as an association of strange bedfellows, will be faced with palpable dilemmas and confusion in the choice of a Presidential Candidate.

Currently, there are sitting Governors, other Pipeline Aspirants in other parties consolidating Political Structures on the ground, as the ADC Coalition is still in limbo and yet to take off.

Grassroots mobilisation by other parties is ongoing and gaining momentum that will wedge such a waiver in 2027.

Are there hunger and other problems in the Land?

YES!!

Is there pain or suffering in the land?

YES!!

But let us not forget that President  Ahmed Tinubu inherited a country in a bottomless pit of decay and economic stagnation occasioned by eight years of clueless governance by Buhari. Crawling out of that pit won’t happen overnight.

No matter how awkwardly we perceive his methodology, PBAT has initiated painful and needful economic reforms that will rebirth Nigeria in growth and prosperity in a few years.

The nation, currently experiencing pains, is like a woman in the labour room. When she hears the cry of her baby, a bundle of joy, the birth pangs will vanish in a puff. Happiness will prevail. Nigeria is now travailing under the pain of childbirth.

Another great factor that will aid the re-election of President Tinubu will be the uncertainty and conflicting interests in the ADC coalition, which is still in limbo.

*Peter Chigozie Okonkwo

OHAMADIKE

[email protected]

Member of the then APC National Merger Committee and one of the Conveners of APC in Enugu State