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2027 POLL: EL-RUFAI SLICES, DICES TINUBU, RIBADU, SANI (1)
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CapitalTimesNews / 6 days
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By Ehichioya Ezomon Chief Edwin Kiagbodo Clark, elder statesman, former Federal Commissioner, Leader of the Ijaw Nation, and Pan-Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), died on Monday, February 17, 2025, aged 97. Since his passing, the family home in Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory (FCT), has become a melting port for “our leaders” to sympathise with the bereaved. What such a solemn occasion demands of the visitors is an expression of genuine sympathy and empathy mostly for the demised’s family members, friends and associates, the people of their tribal and ethnic nationality, State of origin and the entire country. This is done amid reminiscences of the life and times of the departed, especially a personality of Clark’s standing, an unpretentious patriot and nationalist, whose voice of reasoning and moderation on issues of equity, fairness, justice, and national cohesion rang loudly till he breathed his last on earth. Politicians – individually and severally – have been queueing to show their faces and pay last respects to the Patriarch of the Niger Delta. Friday, February 21, was “the turn” of a coterie of opposition members to pay a “condolence visit” to the Clark family. Peopled mainly by Northern politicians, and led by former Vice President and thrice Presidential Candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the group postures for a political platform for an alliance, a coalition or a merger that can remove the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and President Bola Tinubu from power in 2027. It’s debatable whether it’s Atiku that led the “condolence visitors,” but among the delegation was the new “enfant terrible” (a person who behaves in an unconventional or controversial way) of Northern politics, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, former Kaduna State Governor (2015-2023) and ex-Minister of the FCT. El-Rufai boasts of rallying, for the 2027 poll, a similar opposition movement that transformed into the APC in February 2013, and defeated then-ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015. Imbued with such a self-imposed responsibility, el-Rufai, at the condolence visit, veered into the politics of 2027 presidential contest, and craved for a North-South-South alignment to “rescue Nigeria” from the Tinubu administration. El-Rufai urged the people of Niger Delta to continue with the good work of Pa Clark, noting that he really played a fatherly role throughout his lifetime. “I think the legacy of E.K. Clark and the work he has done should remind us all of the importance of being courageous, standing up for justice and risking everything for Nigeria,” el-Rufai said. Reflecting on the historical bond between the North and South-South, and imploring political stakeholders to restore that collaboration for the nation’s survival, el-Rufai declared: “In the 60s, 70s, and 80s, the North’s traditional political partners were from the South-South. Let us not forget that. Let us go back to that. Let us save this country because it really requires saving. We need a rescue operation.” As a pointer to whose trumpet the group blows, el-Rufai praised Atiku for his contributions to Nigeria’s economic development, particularly during his tenure as Vice President under President Olusegun Obasanjo (1999 to 2007). “Atiku was at the forefront of economic reforms that repositioned Nigeria during the Obasanjo administration,” el-Rufai said, adding, “Atiku’s role in attracting investment and restructuring the economy was crucial” – implying that an Atiku presidency will replicate what he did in government over two decades ago. El-Rufai’s solicitation reveals the actual purpose for the opposition visit to the Clark family: To capitalise on the emotional state of the bereaved, to score political points, and backing for a Northern presidency in 2027, unmindful of the zoning of the Presidency between the North and South of Nigeria every eight years. Embarking on an anti-Tinubu campaign, that the president hasn’t performed, and should be replaced in 2027, el-Rufai and his Northern colleagues make nothing of the zoning arrangement between the North and South that ensures equitable representation in a diverse society as Nigeria. For them, that “arrangement” was blatantly “breached” in 2011 when President Jonathan and the PDP refused the North to pick a Northerner to complete the “eight-year tenure” of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, who died in 2010. Then-Vice President Jonathan from the South (and South-South) stepped in to complete the barely one-year remaining of Yar’Adua’s first term in office, and was supposed to pave the way for a Northerner to round-off the last four years of the Yar’Adua presidency. But Dr Jonathan refused to step down or step aside; and egged on by cheerleaders, he’s “coronated” as the PDP candidate, and subsequently won the presidential poll in 2011. If Northerners were mollified in 2011 to allow Jonathan to “usurp” the remaining four years of the Yar’Adua presidency, they didn’t condone a similar antic in 2015 when Jonathan wanted a “Third Term” – as critics put it, taking cognizance of his being sworn-in twice in 2010 (to succeed Yar’Adua) and 2011. Jonathan discountenanced his Oath of Office in 2010, whereas the amended 1999 Constitution of Nigeria states that, upon the resignation, removal or death of the President, the Vice President shall assume the position, to complete the term (not tenure), and could seek a second term if he hadn’t been sworn-in twice as President. Not surprising, Jonathan faced stiff opposition from within the PDP, especially in the North, during the 2015 election, to the extent that the party leadership in the region, and members of his campaign council sold out and betrayed him on Election Day. For instance, Atiku – who’d defected to, and run for President under then-Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in 2007, and returned to the PDP before the 2011 election – led five PDP governors to walk out of the National Convention in 2014, and formed a factional New Peoples Democratic Party (nPDP), which later dissolved into the APC, to wrest power from the PDP and Jonathan in 2015. On the APC side as the main opposition, el-Rufai was a major actor in the scotched-earth campaign that prevented Jonathan from being re-elected in 2015. Going personal (as he does currently) el-Rufai, on
