The race for Aso Rock Villa is expected to peak on February 14, 2015, with the presidential election in which a winner will emerge, preparatory to a new four-year term, with effect from May 29, 2015. The incumbent president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, is poised to exercise his constitutional right to a second term in office in spite of political shenanigans by forces that are opposed to him.
Even though he has not formally declared that he would run in the presidential race, his body language, nuanced and veiled remarks, which perceptive minds easily discern, point to his readiness to take a shot at the nation’s topmost job for another term. This has been the expectation — reasonable as it is — of many Nigerians who are rallying behind him and his party, the Peoples Democratic Party.
For some privileged Nigerian politicians who are close to Jonathan and enjoy his mutual respect, he will seek re-election. One of them, Chief Tony Anenih, who is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the PDP, was categorical on the issue in his extempore address to South-south leaders in Calabar during the recent tour of the zone by the National Chairman of the Party, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu.
Anenih delivered his message in a way that left no one in doubt at all about its real intendment: he told the gathering that he is a father who knows what his son wants; that his (political) son (Jonathan) will contest the 2015 presidential election. He then urged Mu’azu to take the message back home to the northern part of the country. Gbam! The Oracle of Uromi, Nigeria’s political Nostradamus, has spoken.
Truth is, Anenih is not loquacious and his declaration in Calabar, at a time Party leaders were dancing round the issue by merely calling on the President to contest, was one of his rare interventions that have, over the years, seen him provide answers to political jigsaw puzzles. He rarely comments publicly on political issues. He would rather respond to them silently and build bridges of understanding, by reaching out to groups and individuals to achieve desired results.
But when he chooses to speak up, as he did in Calabar, he cannot be ignored. Like a crystal ball watcher, he had once declared that there was no vacancy in Aso Rock, meaning that then incumbent President Olusegun Obasanjo would be re-elected. He walked his talk by collaborating with other members of the PDP apparatchik to realize victory for Obasanjo and the Party.
The issue today in the unfolding 2015 presidential politics is Jonathan, on whom Anenih has greatly raised the stake: that he will contest (and, I daresay, WIN!) and why not? Here is an incumbent President whose performance in office has given him a huge head start over any likely challenger in the PDP for the party ticket. Therefore, with an amazing record of achievements to flaunt, the argument that is being strongly canvassed in some circles in the Party is that the President should be given the right of first refusal, something akin or tantamount to an automatic ticket.
For me, that is not a bad idea. It will, however, be appropriate if individuals who desire the Party’s presidential ticket are allowed to contest for it in the primary in order to strengthen internal party democracy. I can place a bet that whatever scenario plays out, Jonathan will be incredibly comfortable. This is because he enjoys the confidence and support of the Party, which he leads. He is thus the man to beat in the Party. He is also the man to beat in the presidential election.
Jonathan said that much in his last media chat when he declared, in an answer to a question on when he would formally declare his intention to seek re-election, that he remains the defending champion and he is therefore not under pressure to announce whether or not he would participate in the 2015 presidential race. I completely agree with him. Implicit in that rationalization is that he would contest.
The pressure is actually on the opposition parties, especially the All Progressives Congress (APC). They should be worried that they have not been able to produce their candidates. Not only have they not been able to produce their candidates, they have also not been able to package and sell them, as a number of groups have done for Jonathan by running television jingles dwelling on the achievements of his government.
Besides, the time-table released by the electoral body has circumscribed the opposition parties. The same time-table has egregiously given Jonathan and the PDP a clear edge. By the time the opposition parties accept the Jonathan challenge to come up with their candidates, it will be some four months to the election. The opposition will certainly struggle to sell their candidates in four months against the run of an incumbent PDP president whose achievements since stepping in the saddle, particularly from 2011 till date, are remarkable.
And when electioneering begins full blown, it is a fact that while Jonathan will be reeling out his catalogue of achievements to Nigerians, others will be inundating the people with campaign promises. It is not difficult to know which narrative will appeal to Nigerians more. Already, as groups and individuals intensify calls on the President to announce his intention to seek re-election, the leitmotif of their advocacy has been the avalanche of achievements of his government in all sectors of the national economy. This is sweet song to the ears of Nigerians, not the salad of mendacity and propaganda that the opposition has been feeding the Nigerian people on daily basis.
Significantly, the zonal rallies and advocacies by a number of groups have provided veritable platforms by PDP leaders, members, friends and followers of the President to sing and dance about his landmark achievements; and to urge Nigerians to pressure him to seek re-election. Nigerians are doing their reality checks to match claims of performance with tangible “democracy dividends”, and I believe, they must be ready to, in their large numbers, reinvest their mandate once more in Jonathan for another four-year term.
