Many have written that former governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi, who recently decamped to  Labour Party, may not have a great chance to the Nigerian Presidency. They posited that Labour Party does not have a solid structure to win the Presidency. To a large extent, these pundits are partly correct, but there are things they must consider:

• Previous elections in Nigeria are not good indicators. Due to the new electoral law, party representatives have more time to campaign for the general elections. In the past, nominees were concluded around October/November. Today, we are doing the same thing in May. That gives a solid extra 5 months for candidates to tell their stories with enough room for parties to merge and push the messages to voters. Mr. Obi has time.
• PDP has wounded South by discarding the rotational structure. I expect it to struggle in the South in the next election. If people are unhappy with PDP, Obi has an opportunity to convert them.
• APC in a likely bid to “weaken” Atiku who is carrying PDP flag will be under stress to nominate someone from the North. If that happens, Southwest will go cold on APC and that will be an own-goal for APC. But if the party goes ahead and nominates someone from Southwest, the game moves back to the old regional blocks of the second republic.
• Under that structure with Atiku for North, Tinubu or Osinbajo for West, and Obi for East, the emerging “hidden voting power” will surface. And Obi has a huge opportunity.

What is the Hidden Voting Power? The Southeast is the second largest ethnic group in any part of Nigeria, after the indigenous tribe. While Southeast may not have huge voters, the fact is that even the one counted by Southwest and other regions have a heavy dose of Southeast and that number is in double digit percentage in some states.

Under that redesign, anything can happen considering that voters (yes Nigerians) are looking for a way to redemption. In other words, ideas can carry the 2023 election instead of pure regional politics. If Obi works hard and makes his case, you may be surprised that Nigerians can hire him. This applies to other candidates: the delegates may be disappointed and this could become an issue-based election where ideas are supreme!

I am rooting for Tinubu or Osinbajo for APC so that we can see them work hard in the ring for votes, knowing that regional tribal sentiments have been magically out-structured and frozen, by delegates, unintentionally.

Atiku Gets PDP Flag for Presidency – And The Battle Ahead with Obi, Tinubu

Everyone is writing about Atiku Abubakar since his ascension as the PDP flag bearer for the 2023 presidential contest in Nigeria. But if you look at things critically, the man who redesigned every aspect of the playbook was the governor of Sokoto State,  Aminu Tambuwal. Understand that Rivers State’s Governor Wike supported his campaign for president in 2019. Largely,  they were “pals” at least politically.

Tambuwal was the worst candidate PDP could have presented. He was so weak that even UNICEF would campaign against him! Why? He cannot even get Sokoto kids to register for WAEC. I mean, a man who is so incompetent to register kids for WAEC should not even be in any leadership conversation.

But in Nigeria, anyone flies before delegates.  Had Tambuwal remained, Wike would have won. (Atiku, Wike, Saraki received respectively 371, 237 and 70 votes). But when he pulled out, the Atiku moment came. In short, at the end of the process, Wike did not even wait to congratulate Atiku. He felt there was a political coup because he did not model that Tambuwal would yield to Atiku to score during the extra time!

Understand that Atiku had a natural advantage: PDP has 774 delegates with more than 400 from the North. But Atiku’s stars aligned when Norther Elders – former president, former military heads of state, former generals, former governors, chieftains of the PDP from the north and a former intelligence chief – asked Tambuwal to drop out. And he did. (We will see if Tinubu and Osinbajo will recreate a similar scene in days during APC convention.)

It is politics. In 2019, Wike funded Tambuwal against Atiku. In 2022, Tambuwal yielded to Atiku for Wike to lose. That is the spirit of how regional politics thrives in Nigeria.

The Adamawa born politician defeated 12 other candidates in a keenly contested presidential primary held at the Moshood Abiola Stadium in Abuja.

Of the 764 accredited ballots at the election, Mr Abubakar polled 371 votes while his closest challenger, Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, came second with 237 votes.

Nigeria’s former Senate President, Bukola Saraki, scored 70 votes to come a distant third while the Governor of Akwa Ibom, Udom Emmanuel, came fourth with 38 votes.

The only female in the race, Oliver Diana, and another contestant, Sam Ohuabunwa, scored one vote each.

A former President of the Senate, Pius Anyim, scored 14 votes while Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed, scored 20 votes.

The other contestants – ex-Governor Ayodele Fayose and Magazine Publisher Dele Momodu – got zero votes.

Twelve invalid votes were recorded.

Atiku Gets PDP Flag for Presidency – And The Battle Ahead with Obi, Tinubu

Elon Musk’s Twitter acquisition bid is getting longer than expected, dragging other issues along as it lingers beyond what many had hoped for. From the issue of bot to asking for lower price, and now the process of acquiring his earlier shares that has come under probe, Musk’s Twitter takeover bid is wallowing in chaos that has contributed to volatile price swings in the company’s stock price.

In April, Musk announced that he’s taken a nine percent stake in Twitter, after expressing his desire to see the app thrive on free speech. But the shares are believed to have been bought by Musk in a manipulative way, and now the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is looking to unravel if the purchase is anyway dubious.

The SEC is looking into Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk’s disclosure of his stake in Twitter Inc. in early April, according to a letter the agency sent to him that month.

In the letter, now made public by the SEC, the regulator asks Musk why it appears he did not file required paperwork within 10 days of the acquisition, and also questions why, when Musk did disclose his stake, he used a form meant for passive investors while he was openly questioning Twitter’s policies around free speech.

The SEC specifically asked Musk to explain why he opted to initially file a “13G” disclosure form, which is meant for investors who plan to hold their shares passively instead of a “13D” form, which is for activist investors who intend to influence management and policies of the company. He later amended the filing. Musk was offered a board seat shortly after his initial disclosure and has since gone on to attempt to buy the company outright in a $44 billion deal to take it private.

In another case, Twitter shareholders are suing Elon Musk, and Twitter itself, over their handling of the acquisition process that has turned chaotic. Since Musk’s acquisition bid, Twitter’s share price has dived more than 12%, and Tesla’s is down about 28% as part of a broad sell-off in tech stocks.

The downturn of both Tesla and Twitter stocks are now are pitting the companies’ shareholders against Musk.

Musk is not a newbie when it comes to sparring with the SEC as he had squared off with the Commission in the past. The SpaceX founder got into trouble with the SEC in 2018, when the agency sued him for tweeting that he had “funding secured” to potentially take his electric car company, Tesla, private at $420 per share. But in reality, a buyout was not close.

But as noted by Indiatimes, which cited outside experts, the financial consequences for the world’s richest man could be limited, as fines for such a misstep would likely rise to a few hundred thousand dollars. And others were skeptical it could endanger Musk’s efforts to acquire Twitter.

“I think from that investigation standpoint, the SEC is going to have a pretty strong case that he’s violated securities laws,” said Josh White, a finance professor at Vanderbilt University who previously worked at the SEC as a financial economist. However, he added it “would be disastrous if [the SEC] said, well, this Twitter deal is on hold because Musk filed the wrong form.”

“Twitter stock price would instantly drop … I don’t think that the Commission has an interest in necessarily standing in the way of the deal.”

CNBC reports that the proposed lawsuit from Twitter shareholders also alleges that Musk broke California laws by sowing doubt about whether he would complete the deal after signing the contract to buy it.

Musk said earlier this month he was putting the Twitter acquisition “on hold” until he is certain of the number of bots on the platform. The shareholders’ complaint added that his gripes about “bots” were part of a scheme to negotiate a better price or kill the deal.

As expected, Atiku Abubakar, Nigeria’s former Vice President, will hold the PDP presidential flag in the 2023 election. As I monitored this all day, when Aminu Tambuwal, governor of Sokoto State, asked his delegates to support him, I knew Atiku had a strong chance. Without Tambuwal, only Nyesom Wike, governor of River State, was remaining since former Senate President, Bukola Saraki, was not really there. (Atiku, Wike, Saraki received respectively 371, 237 and 70 votes).

I had predicted that Atiku would be the 2019 nominee, and even last week, I noted that it was for him, for 2023, when the party refused to zone it. From my permutation, there was really no reason NOT to zone it, if Atiku was not interested! PDP designed everything for Atiku.

In APC, I had noted that Bola Tinubu would get the ticket and would likely pick the governor of Ebonyi State, Engr David Umahi. In the Oct 2018 piece, I had noted that Engr Umahi will win governorship in Ebonyi but will decamp to APC within months: “The present governor of Ebonyi state will likely be his running mate. Engr David Umahi will win with PDP in 2019 but will decamp to APC shortly.”

That APC postulation will change now. With Atiku holding it for PDP, even Bola Tinubu’s candidate is severely wounded. (I had assumed, naively, that PDP would maintain its zoning policy of North and South.)  So PDP is going cold in the Southeast but may be strong in Southsouth as Atiku will likely pick Wike as his running mate.

Something big will happen to the APC ticket now. They will need to defend North and also play offense in the South since it is evident that most voters will move PDP in the north. 

From all angles, Tinubu will have to make a decision: expect him to call Peter Obi, the most popular politician in Southeast, for suggestions. I expect a third force because there are many victims that will go on a political revenge here.

Nigeria’s former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, has again emerged the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Mr Abubakar defeated 12 other candidates in a keenly contested presidential primary election held at the Moshood Abiola Stadium in Abuja on Saturday.

Of the over 763 ballots at the election, he polled 371 votes while his closest challenger, Governor of River State, Nyesom Wike, came a distant third with his 237 votes.

Nigeria’s former Senate President, Bukola Saraki, scored 70 votes to come a distant third while the Governor of Bauchi, Bala Muhammed, came fourth with 20 votes.

While Atiku’s victory at the Abuja stadium Velodrome was his second successive attempt, it also marked his fifth shot at the presidency. He has had other unsuccessful contests for the seat under both the All Progressives Congress (APC) and his current party, the PDP.

The Adamawa-born politician also secured the ticket of the PDP in 2019 but lost at the general elections to the incumbent, President Muhammadu Buhari of the APC.

The former vice-president will again face whoever emerges from the forthcoming presidential primaries of the APC.

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Comment 1: SE do not have voting strength. Their total votes is equivalent to just one state’s votes(Kano/Rivers). The highest total votes of SE was in 2019 and was almost equivalent to the votes of Kano/Rivers. Moreover, looking at the handwriting on the wall, Atiku is picking someone from SS as VP.