Joint persons of 2015             

This is probably the latest I have published my “person of the year” since I started writing this column. My practice of naming a Nigerian hero or heroine of an outgone year predated the column-I started in 2003 as an op-ed column in “The Guardian” and sustained that tradition until this column commenced in January 2006. In January 2016, this column quietly celebrated its tenth anniversary and I am now in the eleventh year of writing the column, my own contribution to policy advocacy and reform, education and public awareness on Nigeria’s political economy and its history and evolution, and development of our economic and business sector. The title “Economy, Polity, Society” clearly communicates our areas of interest and focus and broadly parallels a course I taught at the Lagos Business School, “Social, Political and Economic Environment of Business”

2015 was a critical intersection for Nigeria. It is a year in which we achieved “CHANGE” though the tenor, quality and direction of the change will yet be defined! What was clear and indisputable was the historical epoch the country recorded-the first time in our political history in which an opposition political party defeated an incumbent in a general election with the opposition candidate comfortably elected president. I personally have a hypothesis that questions that (simplistic?) definition of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as an incumbent and the All Progressives Congress (APC) as opposition in 2015. It is possible to argue, as I have done previously on this page, that what happened prior to the 2015 general elections was an “organ transplant” in which the soul and vital organs of the PDP had been transferred to the APC leaving the head and appearance of incumbent in PDP but the reality of power having gone elsewhere!

How else would any sophisticated as opposed to generic analysis interpret the fact that former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Vice-President Abubakar Atiku, who held office for half of the post-1999 democratic era were on the APC side along with current Senate President Bukola Saraki, House Speaker Yakubu Dogara, numerous former ministers, governors, legislators and political leaders from the PDP. Three former PDP Chairman, Audu Ogbe, Barnabas Gemade and Kawu Baraje were also in the APC. In Northern Nigeria, the transplant was comprehensive and almost complete with only a few prominent politicians left in the PDP; even in the Yoruba West, many of the governorship and legislative candidates of the APC were previously in the PDP. Nevertheless there is no dispute that at least in a nominal sense, an opposition political party defeated an incumbent one in 2015.

There is no doubt the unprecedented transition of power was the most significant political event in Nigeria in 2015, and some will argue given its possible historical ramifications, positive or negative, for a generation! Whoever was responsible for that transfer of power may be righty entitled to this column’s recognition as person of 2015. Candidates for that preferment are many-the obvious choice being General (now President) Muhammadu Buhari who strove for sixteen years through three failed presidential campaigns before his success on the fourth attempt in 2015. On the other hand, supporters of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan have claimed, not without basis, that he is the real hero of the story, an African president who organized an election in which he was defeated by an opponent, and who accepted his defeat and stepped down from office. There are many who argue that former Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega was the real change agent who conducted a fair election, and introduced the card reader technology which they claim changed the conduct of elections in Nigeria. There is a substantial case for the position that 2015 would not have happened but for the valiant efforts of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who by-and-large constructed the APC platform and engineered the acceptance of Buhari in Western Nigeria. There are others who I have heard argue that the real transformation of the presidential contest happened when Olusegun Obasanjo changed sides or those who suggest that the significant development was the defection of the five (5) former PDP governors-Rotimi Amaechi, Murtala Nyako, Wammako, Rabiu Kwankwaso and Abdulfatah Ahmed of Rivers, Adamawa, Sokoto, Kano and Kwara States. Victory has many fathers!!!

In my own reading, at the core of the victory of the APC in 2015 were three individuals the conjunction of personalities, interests, roles and actions of which produced the electoral earthquake of last year-Buhari, Tinubu and Jonathan! Buhari by his steadfastness in opposition and his stubborn self-positioning as the only credible politician from the North who consistently stood against the PDP and by the political calculation he provided of an assurance of “12 million votes” (his count in the 2011 election) provided a personality that the North and their allies could rally around. Whether anyone acknowledges it today or not however, Buhari’s mythical 12 million votes would have remained a myth again in 2015 as it was in 2003, 2007 and 2011 but for Tinubu’s skillful and determined platform-building. Tinubu took grave risks at the risk of his place in history and traded off a comfortable platform, ACN for an uncertain future. Some of the risks he took appear to have crystallized for him and his constituency!

Finally even if there was a Buhari and a Tinubu, there had to be a Jonathan, for the events of 2015 to happen! The APC needed a naïve, democratic and statesmanlike opponent to win in 2015. At the end of the day, the margin of APC victory was not larger than an African president could overturn!!! Ask yourself if a similar alliance of Buhari, Tinubu, Atiku and anyone else could have defeated Obasanjo in 2003 or 2007!!!

My joint persons of 2015, an admittedly odd assemblage are Muhammadu Buhari, Bola Tinubu and Goodluck Jonathan!!!

 

Opeyemi Agbaje