The ruling party in Nigeria, in full disunity, is preparing to nominate this week its candidate for the presidential election of 2023, President Muhammadu Buhari calling for overcoming the infighting within his political formation.
Voters in Africa’s most populous country will go to the polls in February 2023 as the head of state ends his second term, criticized on all sides for his inability to stem the jihadist and criminal violence raging in Nigeria.
One of the main issues of this election will therefore be the question of security. The massacre of 21 people on Sunday in a church in the south-west of the country, a region that has almost been spared from violence, is a cruel reminder of this.
For the time being, no favorite has emerged in the Congress of Progressives (APC), which organizes its primaries on Tuesday in Abuja, the capital, further accentuating internal divisions.
Especially since its rival, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the main opposition party, has nominated the experienced Atiku Abubakar, former vice-president, to run for the presidency.
Among the APC contenders in the running are historic party leader Bola Tinubu, current Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, former Transport Minister Rotimi Amaechi and Senate Speaker Ahmad Lawan.
President Buhari urged his political formation to find a consensus, while refraining from publicly supporting a candidate.
“I ask you to recognize the importance of party stability and unity, which cannot be overstated,” Buhari said in a statement released over the weekend.
As of Monday, APC delegates flocked to the capital ahead of the start of the primaries scheduled for Tuesday. The name of the winner will probably be known between Tuesday evening and Wednesday.
Part of the ruling party’s internal divisions center on “zoning”, a tacit agreement in Nigeria that the presidency must alternate every two terms between a candidate from the predominantly Muslim north and the predominantly Christian south.
This agreement aims to maintain balance in a country which has more than 250 ethnic groups and where inter-community tensions are frequent.
But the PDP chose to ignore the “zoning” by choosing as its candidate Mr. Abubakar, a wealthy businessman from the north, who is running for the presidency for the sixth time in three decades, thus relaunching the debate on the side of the ‘APC.
– The strong man of Lagos –
Another tacit agreement of the APC wants a Muslim candidate to choose a Christian running mate, and vice versa.
Problem: the party does not agree for the moment on any duo.
Bola Tinubu and Ahmad Lawan are both Muslims, from the south and north respectively. The other two, Yemi Osinbajo and Rotimi Amaechi, are Christians and from the south.
Mr. Tinubu made a lot of headlines last week when he candidly claimed the presidency, saying he had brought Mr. Buhari to power, a view shared by many in Nigeria.
“I helped Buhari to become president. I met him in Kaduna and convinced him to run when he had given it up,” he said. “It’s my turn to be president.”
Mr. Tinubu is the former governor of Lagos, the economic heart of Nigeria, where he retained considerable influence.
The final choice of the APC is crucial: the two final candidates will face each other to obtain the presidency of a country plagued by widespread insecurity, from the jihadist insurgency in the northeast to the criminal gangs ravaging the northeast. west and center, through separatist movements in the southeast.
The economy is also a major subject in Nigeria, which has 215 million inhabitants, 83 million of whom live below the extreme poverty line, according to the latest census by the organization World Poverty Clock.
Africa’s largest economy, weakened by the coronavirus pandemic, is now bearing the fallout from the war in Ukraine, which has driven up fuel and food prices across the continent.