An aide to President Muhammadu Buhari has reeled out 3 political lessons he learnt from 2011, 2015 and 2019 elections.
Tolu Ogunlesi who oversees Digital Communications at the presidency has described the sessions as the biggest he has learnt so far.
The lessons – which featured rotational zoning, a former president, an incumbent president and a state – are listed below:
- Party Primaries must be transparent. Political Parties disregard Internal democracy at own peril.
- Incumbents can be defeated. Technology can be a gamechanger (PVCs, Card Readers).
- Zoning is not sacrosanct.
CONDUCT OF PARTY PRIMARIES: The recent judgement of the Supreme Court on the internal wangling of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) is a case study.
The apex court affirming the earlier position of the Court of Appeal, voided the primaries that produced the APC candidates. This development clearly avails the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) an opportunity to mount the saddle of leadership in the state.
DEFEAT OF INCUMBENT: The 2015 presidential election that saw former president Goodluck Jonathan fail in his re-election bid is another event that should not be waved away.
Mr Jonathan with the aid of card readers lost to incumbent president Muhammadu Buhari who has been re-elected for another term of four years.
The historic victory was the first time in the country, an opposition candidate will trounced a sitting president.
VIOLATION OF ZONING: There is an unwritten agreement that power should rotate between the two protectorates in the country.
POLITICS TIMES recalls that the demise of former president Musa Yar’adua two years after been sworn into office led to the breaching of the accord as Mr Jonathan who deputized him took over the mantle of leadership and refused to honour the agreement by contesting and winning the 2011 presidential election.
The same scenario is being expected to play out as the 2023 general draws near. Some individuals considered influential in the Northern part of the country has insisted that power will not go to the South in the coming general election.
Their grievances is that President Buhari has done nothing for the protectorate. They also alleged the the administration of the Nigerian leader has been hijacked by a prominent politician from the southern protectorate.
