Zulum Is Coming

By Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
People should forgive my ignorance if what I write here does not come to pass. His Excellency, Professor Babagana U. Zulum, the Governor of Borno State, the subject of this article, should overlook my wrong forecast at the political climate and not feel offended if indeed I am proven wrong.

Our friend, Farouk Adamu Aliyu, a confidant of the President, has about a year ago told the BBC Hausa Service that their party’s choice for president will depend on the choice of the opposition—meaning, if the PDP would give a northerner its ticket, then APC will have no choice but to do so too. The North is where the bulk of the votes resides.

APC is not doing this at its own volition. In fact, it has some very sleezy remarks for PDP’s likelihood to field a northern candidate.

In an interview published by Punch three days ago, Mr. Osita Okechukwu, a founding father of the PDP furiously accused PDP of being Machiavellian and responsible for APC’s return to the drawing board. Mr. Okechukwu:

The PDP is aware that President Buhari will not be on the ballot in 2023, therefore, for them there is a void to fill. They must have reasoned that the Buhari’s Vote Bank would be up for grabs if they go north. The PDP’s calculation is a desperate one, and selfish to the extent that they breached their own constitution and their age-long die-hard supporters in the South, especially the South-East.”

But abandoning the south and looking up north, thus copycatting the PDP, leaves him and his party at no better moral position than the former. And if indeed President Buhari has a 12 million votes bank, why would not the APC just sit back, ask the him to open his vote bank and give his party the 12 million it claims is there? The truth is that pragmatic politicians like the Chairman of the party, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, knows very well that those votes are no longer there.

They have been washed away by seven years of Buhari’s presidency to the extent that today you cannot find again him appearing on the poster of any northern candidate—from counsellor to president.

He is only being honest. Rather than give the ticket to a southerner when the party has failed northerners by the low performance of the President and lose the election to a northern PDP candidate, he is ready to throw away the moral costume of zoning and save the party and its members a day of judgement on earth.

He honestly knows that today Northerners are not safe and comfortable enough to brave a southern presidency. They are not at all in a gentleman’s mood of 1999.

In short, he must be the athlete who, right from when the gun is fired, when the candidates emerge, give the PDP a good run for its money, making the elections conclusive before they even take place.

This is where Professor Zulum comes into APC presidential equation. Than him there is not an APC candidate today in the north who can foot the above bill better for the party. It is a pervasive perception in the north that he is honest, brave, courageous, competent, down to earth, no-nonsense, empathetic—the embodiment of northern perception of an iconic leader and thus to the Machiavellian APC, the perfect Tyson who, on a good day, would knockout the PDP with a bloody nose within few seconds of the match.

He has not bought the form yet, even as I write this article. That is not to say that there have not been behind the scene consultations on the matter between him and the Party. There must have been some. But it was getting late as at yesterday. Hence the cabinet dissolution—I continue to think.