A cloud of doubt and uncertainty is hovering over opposition parties’ plans to field a single presidential candidate for next year’s general election.
The presidential poll is scheduled for January 16.
Already, the election campaigns have kicked off in accordance with the regulations by the electoral agency.
While the opposition is proposing a single candidate to battle President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who is seeking re-election, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) predicted total failure for the opposition parties.
On Monday, seven opposition parties held what they described as a summit in Abuja to form an alliance with the intention of producing a single presidential candidate.
Top presidential candidates – Atiku Abubakar (ADC) and Peter Obi (NDC) – did not attend the meeting.
Their running mates were also absent at the event coordinated by a group with the name G-100.
The Monday summit was another attempt to put the opposition parties together, following the failure of the April 25 Ibadan summit hosted by Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde, candidate of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), who was also absent.
Apart from producing a single candidate, the conveners of the meeting said they were working toward a one-term presidency for whoever is picked as their joint standard bearer.
APC National Secretary Senator Ajibola Basiru said the idea of a single opposition candidate is dead on arrival, adding that a bottled maize cannot be devoured by hens.
Also, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, and Nigerian Ambassador-designate to Mexico, Reno Omokri, said opposition parties have embarked on a fruitless search that would lead nowhere.
Although Atiku and Obi have at different times expressed interest in spending only one term if elected, none of them has given any indication of readiness to drop the ambition.
In May, Obi parted ways with Atiku, leaving the ADC, which they both joined with the intention of forming a coalition.
ADC National Publicity Secretary Bolaji Abdullahi, who spoke on the outcome of the Abuja meeting on television, merely said the opposition leaders discussed issues beyond the proposed single candidacy.
He said: ‘To the best of our knowledge, there were so many things on the agenda beyond producing a single presidential candidate. One of the lead conveners said it is also about exploring areas of cooperation among the political parties.
‘If it will lead to a situation where we have a single presidential candidate, it will be fine. But that is not the main objective of the conversation.’
‘They can’t find common ground’
Basiru, who chided opposition figures for indulging in falsehood, said the proposal for a single candidate would hit the rock.
He said: ‘They cannot get a single candidate. Their case is like a maize inside a bottle that hens cannot eat. That is the analogy.
‘In the build-up to the primaries, they could not come together. They went their separate ways. They are not driven by the love for Nigeria, but by a selfish agenda. They are dishonest. That is why they cannot acknowledge the achievements of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who has put the country on the path of progress, despite the challenges.’
Basiru added: ‘The truth is that candidates have emerged on the platforms of all political parties. It is laughable for anybody to now say he or she wants to have a single candidature. It is like closing the stable when the horse has already escaped.
‘Because they are motivated by their individual inordinate ambition and not the interest of the Nigerian people, they cannot come to any understanding and unanimity as to anybody stepping down for themselves.
‘For us in the ruling party, their gathering was more of a publicity stunt than actual political relevance.’
Basiru also berated Atiku for adopting failed strategies to dent the image of the president by raising issues about age and ‘speaking from two sides of the mouth about fuel subsidy.’
He added: ‘Atiku said President Tinubu is over 90. But he heard the president addressing MKO Abiola then as uncle. If Abiola were alive today, he would be 89. The man is also speaking from two sides of the mouth about subsidy. They don’t have blueprints. They cannot match the APC.’
Morka: coalition not a threat
Morka said the renewed push for a coalition is dead on arrival because the opposition is not united.
The publicity secretary said the opposition would face the judgment of the electorate during the election.
He said: ‘The absence of the principal actors at the gathering was enough to show that their move hit the rock before the journey even began.
‘They will be roundly rejected at the polls again. The defeat they suffered in 2023 was child’s play compared to what Nigerians will do to them in 2027.’
PDP not part of G-100 summit, says spokesman
The Abdulrahman Mohammed-led Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Working Committee (NWC) yesterday stood by its earlier stand that it had nothing to do with the opposition summit and that there is no prospect of actualising their agenda.
The PDP restated what its National Publicity Secretary, Jagundo Haruna Mohammed, told The Nation on Sunday.
Omokri: egos will frustrate coalition
Omokri insisted that the coalition is dead on arrival, adding that leading contenders would be unwilling to subordinate their individual ambitions.
He said since Atiku and Obi would not agree on who should surrender his presidential ambition for the other, the alliance cannot see the light of day.
Speaking during the ‘City Boy Movement Media One-on-One with Otega Ogra,’ Omokri said the personalities involved in the opposition possess strong political ambitions and egos that would make the compromises required for a viable coalition difficult.
He said: ‘It’s not going to happen because the people in the opposition, they have very big egos.
‘Peter Obi has actually even a larger ego than Waziri Atiku Abubakar. It’s just that Peter Obi has self-esteem issues. So, because he has self-esteem issues, he is able to hide the big ego.
‘Peter Obi is not going to step down for Waziri Atiku Abubakar. Waziri Atiku Abubakar is not going to step down for Peter Obi. None of those people is going to step down for the other. So, it’s dead on arrival.’
The ambassador-designate said although discussions around an alliance could continue, the principal actors may eventually keep their distance from negotiations once the difficult question of who becomes the presidential candidate arises.
He added: ‘In fact, let me tell you what is going to happen. They will have that meeting. They will send representatives. The big fish themselves will not even go.’
The former presidential aide also predicted victory for the President in the election, adding that he is attracting support from more Nigerians.
Omokri said if the president could win in 2023 under considerably more difficult circumstances, he will win again in 2027.
He stressed: ‘You know, the best predictor of future events is past events. If this man won an election when he had, I think, just 19 governors, maybe, probably 20 governors, the Central Bank moved against him, and then he had a lot of things going against him, and he won, how much so now that he has probably over 30 governors? I mean, he is going to win the election.’
Omokri also alluded to ‘improving macroeconomic indicators,’ including economic expansion and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth outpacing population growth, as factors that could strengthen President Tinubu’s re-election prospects.
He said: ‘The economy has added $67 billion in two years. Our GDP is now growing faster than our population.’
Omokri pointed out that some critics of the administration were already acknowledging improvements in macroeconomic stability, saying that opposition figures should prepare for another four years outside government.
He added: ‘What they are preparing for right now is four more years of opposition, of activism.’
Giving reasons for his own decision to support President Tinubu after campaigning against him in 2023, Omokri identified the administration’s student loan programme as one of its most consequential interventions.
He said more than one million Nigerian students were able to remain in tertiary institutions because of loans provided through the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND).
Omokri added: ‘The reason we are spending trillions of naira today fighting insecurity is because in the past we did not spend billions of naira fighting illiteracy.
‘If you have one million university students, undergraduates who are only in school because of NELFUND student loans, that is a major thing. Because those one million people will leave, and then they’re going to be employable, or they’re going to start a business, and then it’s going to expand our economy,’ he said.
He also pointed to regular payment of federal and state public servants, major road infrastructure and developments in the financial markets as evidence of progress under the administration.
On infrastructure, Omokri said the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and Sokoto-Badagry Superhighway would substantially cut journey times and logistics costs when completed, with implications for the movement of agricultural produce and other goods across the country.