By Ochereome Nnanna

IN this three-part serial, we make the point that President Muhammadu Buhari, who was sacrificially helped to attain his thrice-failed presidential ambition by Bola Ahmed Tinubu, did not intend to reciprocate the gesture. Left to him, Tinubu’s presidential project would not even have made it to the All Progressives Congress, APC, primaries. After failing to push through a Goodluck Jonathan return, Buhari’s attempt to impose Senate President Ahmed Lawan also crashed. Obviously disgusted that Tinubu succeeded in picking the presidential ticket, Buhari became withdrawn from the party’s affairs and adopted the attitude of belligerency towards Tinubu.

He suddenly started sounding populist. First, he started promising Nigerians that he would bequeath them one of the best elections in our history. He said he would not allow wealthy politicians to intimidate them with money. He approved the plan by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, to change higher denominations of the Naira, apparently to tame excess liquidity. But it was perceived as a political weapon fashioned apparently against Tinubu, the man with the bottomless pocket and unlimited readiness to spend to achieve his objectives.

With his obvious health problems, circus campaigns and apparent stiff shoulder from Buhari, money was the only other big gun Tinubu still had in excess. Money is what Nigerian politics is really all about. The sudden currency policy which Buhari was personally driving, and the stiff deadlines for the delegitimisation of the old banknotes, were seen as being targeted at the APC presidential candidate.

To lend credence to this perception, Tinubu attacked the president several times on the campaign trail. In Abeokuta, Tinubu jibed at Buhari over the currency policy: “We will vote, and we will win” on January 26, 2023. He quickly organised a face-saving visit to Buhari the following day in the company of some influential APC Governors.

That did not stop Tinubu from again hurling insults at the president in Calabar less than a week later. On February 1, 2023 in Calabar, he walloped Buhari’s government as incapable of “thinking and doing” in currency management which, he said, “they took from N200 to N800”.

Not only that, many Northern governors now deeply involved in Tinubu’s campaign, sided with him against Buhari. Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State and Umar Ganduje of Kano State, and even ex-Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State, fought Buhari with everything they had. 

El-Rufai rallied Kogi Governor, Yahaya Bello and their Zamfara counterpart, Bello Matawalle, and sued Buhari and the CBN at the Supreme Court over the deadline to phase out the old currency notes as legal tender. Buhari and the CBN ignored the Court’s order that the old and new notes should be used till December 2023. El-Rufai went to his state and made a broadcast asking the people to defy Buhari and the CBN.

Ganduje first asked Buhari to postpone a scheduled visit to Kano because the people would be hostile to him. He later gave the green light for the visit but failed to stop some urchins from hurling stones at Buhari’s departing convoy. Oshiomhole organised a rally and said uncomplimentary things about the president. He was also accused of organising hoodlums for violent protests against the currency policy in Benin and other parts of Edo State. This was already inside the month of the presidential election, and the APC seemed in danger of going into the polls tied down in a civil war against the President and their own Federal Government. 

However, Buhari never joined Tinubu’s campaign until January 2023, and even when he did, many Nigerians assumed he was just putting up appearances. But at the Gombe rally of the party on February 13, 2023, Buhari sent a message that he was “100 per cent” in support of Tinubu. He not only started regularly attending Tinubu’s rallies and raising the candidate’s hand, he kept pledging his support.

At a point very close to the presidential election, Buhari went as far as making a voice note broadcast affirming Tinubu as his candidate. There were even some media reports about that a particular bank led by a South-West indigene was permitted to ferry some hundreds of billions of the new currency to Tinubu, though the bank quickly died the allegation.

Also, an alleged nocturnal meeting between a top Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, official and the APC presidential candidate in the latter’s house a couple of days to the presidential election was firmly debunked. During the presidential election day, Buhari even showed the world that he voted for Tinubu by brandishing his thumb-printed ballot paper. So, from all indications, Buhari stopped fighting Tinubu and gave him the full compliments of his incumbency powers or “federal might” after initially turning his back on him.

So, we ask the question again: what really transpired between these two political buccaneers? I don’t believe they were acting a well-choreographed drama. They genuinely fought. Buhari did not want Tinubu as his successor. But, unlike Obasanjo, Buhari did not command enough grip on the party and its powerful governors to play for him or get it hot. Tinubu, el-Rufai, Ganduje and Oshiomhole, who were erstwhile lackeys of the president, turned around and waged frontal battles against Buhari. You know the funny thing? They got away with it. Not only that, Buhari even joined them. If you can’t beat them better join them.

Somebody who loves Buhari and the APC must have called the president and placed the card on the table. Tinubu losing the election would mean the end of the political “careers” of thousands of APC leaders. A hostile takeover by Atiku Abubakar or Peter Obi was simply unthinkable. The generality of Nigerians now hated the APC with a passion, and without Buhari’s incumbency lift, the party would be history. Buhari saw the danger and capitulated.