Peoples Democratic Party (PDP): Goodluck Jonathan (incumbent President)
Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN): Nuhu Ribadu (former EFCC boss)
All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP): Ibrahim Shekarau (Governor of Kano)
Congress for Progressive Change (CPC): Mohammedu Buhari (former Head of State)
National Conscience Party (NCP): Dele Momodu (publisher of Ovation Magazine)
All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA): No candidate "purchased" the presidential nomination form of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). The party's most powerful political office-holder, Anambra State Governor Peter Obi, has endorsed President Goodluck Jonathan.
For years now, there has been talk of the opposition parties (defined as every party other than PDP) uniting under a single coalition banner to "dethrone" the PDP. A brief synopsis of these efforts was published by NEXT, and Daily Trust has devoted lots of column inches to months of alliance discussions between Bola Tinubu's ACN and Mohammedu Buhari's CPC.
The interminable talks between the ACN and CPC are apparently still going onbut the ANPP stepping in to present itself to the ACN as an alternative alliance partner.
This is problematic.
Underneath the official rhetoric (and ghost-written facebook posts), President Goodluck Jonathan's campaign has been built on rallying support from the southern half of the federal republic for ditching the PDP's internal "zoning" arrangements. It seems the ANPP, CPC and ACN campaigns will revolve around mobilizing support from the northern half of the country for the de facto restoring of "zoning". Given what has been happening in recent days (Jos especially), recent years (since the Fourth Republic) and in each of five decades since 1960, this is a very, very dangerous ground on which to hold an election in Nigeria -- and it doesn't help that all parties will rig, and that all parties know that all parties will rig, which means none of the parties will consider themselves to have legitimately lost regardless of the announced result.
I doubt the CPC/ACN alliance will happen. There are Big Egos and Big Ambitions involved, and two Big Men who do not trust each other. And why should they? They are each trying to use the other to get at Aso Rock; once they are there, they will forget whoever got them there as seems to be the tradition in the Fourth Republic, which will be remembered only for the wars between godfathers and their godson.
At one point, APGA was involved in the talks. In a federal republic that has been influenced (some might say scarred) by ethnic majority "tripod" politics, it is easy to see why ACN, CPC and APGA would consider an alliance with each other against the ruling party. APGA unabashedly appeals to sectionalist interests in the Igbo-majority states. In the Yoruba-majority states, ACN is increasingly replacing the Alliance for Democracy as the sectionalist party. And in the Hausa-majority states, the CPC is starting to outflank the moribund ANPP as the region's sectionalist party.
I do not support any of our parties or politicians; I do not even see any difference between the lot of them. And I have disliked ethnic "tripod" politics ever since I was introduced to it as a child during the Second Republic; learning more about our history (including but not limited to the run-up to Independence and the First Republic), made me hate ethnic "tripod" politics even more.
Still, if the ACN, CPC and APGA had somehow come up with some sort of agreement ... it would still lose to the PDP. The Peoples Democratic Party is the culmination of a 50-year process of consolidation of Big Men from all over Nigeria, united in the singular goal of creating and maintaining a stable structure to share the "national cake" amongst themselves. The party's national reach (not of voters, but of Big Men and the political machines they control) has made sectionalist parties irrelevant at the federal centre for the first time since 1960.
Maybe Governor Peter Obi knows this. Interestingly, when he endorsed Jonathan, he was not speaking not as an APGA leader, but as Chairman of the "Southeast Governors' Forum", which would (in theory) count as the endorsement of all the governors of the Igbo-majority states.
In the meantime, Tinubu and Buhari continued their 11th hour negotiations.
This election really has nothing to do with the interests of the federal republic or of its people. Different power blocs within the political class are manoeuvring their political machines in preparation for fighting (literally) for a greater or lesser share of the national cake.
Even so, it worries me.
The unspoken-but-ever-present undercurrent of violence that lies beneath the façade of Nigerian political life is has been slowly, tortuously cresting the surface since 1999. The politicians still think they can play the usual games; some even think they can parlay the violence to their advantage.
I am ... concerned about the outcome.
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