Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Nigeria’s Marmite president, is in no way a non secular bigot. He’s a average, even liberal, Muslim, who’s surrounded, together with in his rapid household, by practising Christians. Nonetheless, for self-interested political calculations, Tinubu performed the spiritual card to grow to be president in 2023 by choosing a fellow Muslim, Kashim Shettima, as his running-mate. Maybe greater than some other columnist in Nigeria, I wrote severally on the problem. It struck me as a profound mismanagement of Nigeria’s range and a monumental betrayal of the nationwide curiosity to position private political acquire forward of non secular stability and concord in Nigeria.
Tinubu’s explanations for selecting a fellow Muslim as his operating mate have been lame, disingenuous and provocative. He stated he picked Shettima as a result of “he’s an exceptionally gifted human being with superior mental capability”. But, in workplace, Shettima is a mediocre and lacklustre vice-president, diminished to attending meaningless worldwide conferences. Forward of the 2023 presidential election, Shettima stated that, as soon as in energy, Tinubu would take care of the economic system, whereas he (Shettima) could be “in command of” nationwide safety. But 614,937 Nigerians have been killed and a pair of.2m kidnapped inside one 12 months of the Tinubu-Shettima presidency, in response to the Nationwide Bureau of Statistics, and a whole bunch of 1000’s extra have been killed and a number of other thousands and thousands extra kidnapped since. A lot for Shettima being picked as Tinubu’s running-mate as a result of “he’s exceptionally gifted” with “superior mind”!
In fact, Tinubu opted for a Muslim-Muslim ticket as a result of it was solely by deploying the wedge situation of faith that he might safe the Muslim vote he felt he wanted to grow to be president. Certainly, leaders of Tinubu’s social gathering, APC, have been forthright on the choice. Abdullahi Adamu, then APC nationwide chairman, stated: “In our understanding of politics in Nigeria in the intervening time, the Muslim-Muslim ticket is the perfect determination for us as a result of we need to win the election.” Shortly after Tinubu secured his social gathering’s presidential ticket, Abdullahi Ganduje, then Kano State governor, later APC nationwide chairman, advised Muslim clerics: “We now have suggested him (Tinubu) to choose a Muslim deputy and he has agreed.” And in viral video after the election, Nasir el-Rufai, a former Kaduna State governor and a linchpin of Tinubu’s marketing campaign, stated faith was used to provide him “victory”. Tinubu, el-Rufai stated, knew he “had no choice” however to choose a Muslim running-mate, in any other case “he would lose the election”.
So, unquestionably, Tinubu blatantly performed the spiritual card and used the Muslim-Muslim ticket to win the presidency. But when the 2023 presidential election have been a referendum on the Muslim-Muslim ticket, nicely, Nigerians overwhelmingly rejected it. Of the 24 million voters in that election, solely 8.79 million, or 36.6 per cent, voted for Tinubu. In different phrases, a whopping 14.6 million, or 63.39 per cent, rejected his Muslim-Muslim ticket. This issues as a result of legitimacy for such a elementary shift as a Muslim-Muslim presidency in a rustic broadly cut up 50-50 between Muslims and Christians requires an amazing electoral assist. In fact, some would disguise behind constitutional technicality or Nigeria’s plurality voting system to claim legitimacy, primarily based on simply 36.6 per cent of the vote. However in a supposed one-person, one-vote democracy, you may’t dismiss the 63.39 per cent of the voters, an absolute majority, who rejected the Muslim-Muslim ticket.
To be honest, as soon as in energy, Tinubu tried to pivot in direction of some semblance of non secular balancing by appointing Christians into key places of work of state. This left the Muslim-North feeling considerably betrayed. Lately, Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, a chieftain of the Northern Elders Discussion board, stated on Channels TV: “I left Tinubu’s authorities after I realised that he turned his again towards Shettima and the North after deceiving them with Muslim-Muslim ticket to get elected.” That sense of betrayal is heightened by speculations that Tinubu would possibly drop Shettima as his running-mate forward of his 2027 re-election bid and exchange him with a distinguished Northern Christian. These speculations inevitably increase two questions: Is Tinubu having purchaser’s regret and, in that case, why?
To have purchaser’s regret is to expertise a sense of remorse after making a selection or determination. It’s inconceivable that Tinubu even remotely regrets his selection of a Muslim-Muslim ticket, with out which he wouldn’t be president. So, why would possibly he be contemplating a Northern-Christian running-mate for his second time period bid? Properly, there are three potential explanations.
First, Tinubu would possibly genuinely be involved concerning the spiritual pressure created by the Muslim-Muslim ticket and search to reverse the state of affairs in his putative second time period, leaving a legacy of non secular stability. Second, having used the Muslim-Muslim ticket to get elected in 2023, he would possibly really feel he has one other path to getting re-elected, corresponding to taking part in the Southern card. Assuming that Tinubu faces no severe Southern opponent and might garner the Southern solidarity vote, he would possibly win with a Northern-Christian running-mate by, along with an amazing Southern vote, harvesting the Northern-Christian vote and a smattering of votes from the Muslim-North. The third clarification has a world dimension: A Muslim-Muslim presidency is unhealthy optics when the world believes there’s Christian genocide in Nigeria. Thus, strategically, Tinubu could be leaning in direction of a Christian running-mate to appease President Donald Trump and blunt his narrative about Christian genocide.
Fact be advised, Tinubu can not ignore the Trump think about 2027: He wants President Trump to, no less than, be impartial within the election. However Trump received’t be impartial if he believes Christian genocide or persecution continues to be a problem in Nigeria. That’s why the presidency and the APC have been ecstatic final week when President Trump praised Tinubu’s spouse, Oluremi, as “a really revered lady”. However a day after Trump made these remarks on the Nationwide Prayer Breakfast in Washington, he provoked world outrage by tweeting a racist video depicting former President Barack Obama and his spouse, Michelle, as apes, and refused to apologise. But some in Nigeria selected to belief President Trump’s judgement, treating his contrived feedback on Mrs Tinubu as a real, credible endorsement of her.
However others usually are not so beguiled. President Trump is a transactional chief who received’t do or say something until there’s one thing in it for him or the US. With the US army now having a robust base in Nigeria, Trump is extra relaxed concerning the nation. Moreover, the Nigerian authorities is paying a US lobbying agency $9m, or $750,000 month-to-month, to foyer the US authorities on the Christian genocide narrative.
Trump likes that too; he’s thrilled when US firms win abroad contracts. And the US lobbying agency did an awesome job, getting Mrs Tinubu to attend the Nationwide Prayer Breakfast and getting President Trump to recognise her in a scripted remark that performed up her position as “a Christian pastor on the largest church in Nigeria”. Nonetheless, reality be advised, US evangelicals and lawmakers usually are not impressed about President Tinubu’s “my-wife-is-a-Christian” mantra. Moreover, they detest his authorities’s use of American lobbyists to vary the Christian persecution narrative whereas little has modified structurally concerning the plight of Christians, significantly Northern Christians, in Nigeria.
They’re proper. Lately, an APC chieftain, Farouk Aliyu, was requested on Come up TV if the North would settle for a Christian-Christian ticket, he replied: “Based mostly on the North I do know, the North is not going to be snug with a Christian-Christian ticket.” Thus, a Northern Christian won’t ever be vice-president, not to mention president, in Nigeria. Sadly, Tinubu’s Muslim-Muslim ticket foisted that perversity on Nigeria in 2023. In fact, he received’t have purchaser’s regret over the self-interested selection he made in 2023, however would he repeat it in 2027 or buck the pattern? The nationwide curiosity calls for the latter!
*Dr Fasan is the writer of ‘In The Nationwide Curiosity: The Street to Nigeria’s Political, Financial and Social Transformation’, accessible at RovingHeights bookstores.
The put up Muslim-Muslim ticket: Is Tinubu having buyer’s remorse? By Olu Fasan appeared first on Vanguard News.
