NigerianEYE's political newsmakers of 2013

In Nigeria’s political scene, the year 2013 was eventful, intriguing and full of surprises for many of the dramatis personae. Those who made it are many, but a few of them would be highlighted here, in no particular order.


Goodluck Jonathan

Politically, the year 2013 started for President Goodluck Jonathan in an inauspicious note. It had begun with him trying to resolve the spill-over of the crises in his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), caused by his supposed ambition to seek re-election.

Those who were opposed to the President’s re-election thought that by removing Bamanga Tukur as the national chairman of the PDP, they could effectively stop Jonathan. So, the governors of the PDP had, early in the year, demanded the convocation of the National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting of the party. They had wanted to use the forum to pass a vote of no-confidence on the party’s chairman.

The NEC meeting was not convened and the governors were later divided into two camps – those for the President and those against him. But those against seemed to be in the majority in the party’s NEC.

The crisis suddenly took another dimension with the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) election approaching. Those against Jonathan’s 2015 re-election simply took advantage of an existing feud between the President and the Rivers State governor, Rotimi Amaechi, to line up behind Amaechi, a contender in the election against the Presidency’s anointed candidate, Governor Jonah Jang of Plateau State.

For the first time, the NGF was factionalised between the Jang group which got 16 votes and Amaechi’s group that got 19 votes, because despite that Jang lost the election, Jonathan still recognised him as NGF chairman.

However, it is not the President’s role in the PDP crisis that culminated in the defection of five PDP governors and 37 PDP lawmakers to the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), or the NGF election scandal that kept him more in the news, but perhaps the letter former President Olusegun Obasanjo wrote to him, and his response to the letter.

Obasanjo’s letter was laden with allegations of sleaze, sabotage and subversion against Jonathan. The former President also advised the incumbent not to seek re-election in 2015. But in Jonathan’s response, he maintained a level of calm, politeness decorum in refuting all the allegations Obasanjo raised.

Olusegun Obasanjo

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo made the news in 2013 for his open campaigning against President Goodluck Jonathan’s re-election bid for 2015. One instance was on May 29, this year, when top leaders of the PDP gathered in Abuja to mark Nigeria’s Democracy Day. The former President was conspicuously absent. Instead, he was in Jigawa State where he addressed a gathering saying Governor Sule Lamido was the kind of leader Nigeria needs. While lamenting the state of affairs in Nigeria, he metaphorically averred non-performance on the part of Jonathan who many believe rode on his back to Aso Rock: “You can help a man get a job, but you can’t help him do the job.”

But the height of Obasanjo’s opposition against the President’s bid for 2015 was his highly celebrated 18-page letter in December. Obasanjo had said: “Up till two months ago, Mr. President, you told me that you have not told anybody that you would contest in 2015. I quickly pointed out to you that the signs and the measures on the ground do not tally with your statement. You said the same to one other person who shared his observation with me. And only a fool would believe that statement you made to me, judging by what is going on. I must say it is not ingenious. You may wish to pursue a more credible and more honourable path.”

The honourable path for Obasanjo was that Jonathan should forget 2015, a move he is willing to actualise even if it means teaming with the opposition APC who recently paid him a visit where he declared that he was, by his letter to Jonathan, trying to rescue Nigeria.

But while Obasanjo thought that he had done a national service by writing Jonathan a letter about the state of affairs in Nigeria, his daughter, Iyabo, attempted to turn the heat on him by writing an open letter exclusively published by the Vanguard Newspaper, in which she detailed Obasanjo’s failing as a husband and father.

But unlike the Obasanjo letter that centres on the affairs of state, the Iyabo’s letter was a family affair that needed not to be made public, analysts said.

Rotimi Amaechi

In 2013, Governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, probably made the news more than any individual in Nigeria. On many battles, he triumphed against the more powerful foe, the Presidency. But whether he would eventually win the war, that is, keeping Rivers in the opposition, remains to be seen.

In May this year, Amaechi defeated Jang, the presidency’s candidate, to emerge the NGF chairman. The Presidency refused to recognise Amaechi and even orchestrated his suspension from the PDP.

Shortly after, five out of the 32 lawmakers in the Rivers House of Assembly said they had impeached the speaker, Otelemeba Amachree, ostensibly to pave the way for the impeachment of Amaechi. But with his security details, Amaechi stormed the House and stopped the illegality.

Amaechi had to also battle the State police commissioner, Joseph Mbu, whom he accused of complicity in the plot to impeach him.

The Rivers governor has also endured police intimidation. In one occasion, he was locked out of the Governor’s House main entrance. His supporters were also barred from gathering, the recent of which was when they were prevented from receiving visiting APC leaders at state’s airport.

Now, a member of the APC, whether Rivers would continue to be an APC state after the 2015 election remains Amaechi’s biggest test. But analysts said he would win the state for APC because the issues at stake are bigger than him, Jonathan or the South South sympathy. They said the issue is about the economic survival of Rivers. Under the Jonathan presidency, the state, it is believed, lost Soku oil fields, a major goldmine, to Bayelsa, Jonathan’s state.

There is also the anger of the people that the Jonathan Federal Government has refused to approve the Africa Development Bank (ADB) water project which Amaechi successfully negotiated. Though the Presidency tried to blame the delay on bureaucracy, the people of the state may not be convinced. And as Amaechi said in a recent APC rally, “If a South South President will not give you water, what do you do?” the people chorused, clutching the APC symbol of brooms: “Sweep him away.”

Aminu Tambuwal

The nature of the politics that saw his election as Speaker of the House of Representatives was perhaps the reason Aminu Tambuwal has remained more a friend of the opposition APC than his party, the PDP.

In the wake of the defection of 37 lawmakers recently, the PDP leadership asked him to declare the seats of the lawmakers vacant, but typical of Tambuwal, he ignored his party leaders.

There are also speculations that Tambuwal may soon declare for the APC. If this happens, it would confirm a widely held belief in the presidency that Tambuwal is a PDP member during the day but an APC man at night. There is also the talk that APC was contemplating making him its presidential candidate.

Perhaps, it is Tambuwal’s ceaseless attacks against the presidency that has prominently featured him in the news. He has on two occasions, in less than two weeks, said the body language of the executive arm of government seems to favour corruption.

Sule Lamido

Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State is known for his courage, outspokenness and political craftsmanship. Though he remains the chief critic of President Goodluck Jonathan and his party, the PDP, he refused to defect to the APC like his other colleagues.

But the Presidency is not fooled because it knows that Lamido’s reason for not defecting to the APC was not because of the fear of the unknown in the opposition party. It knows that the Jigawa governor’s reason for not defecting is part of a larger plan – a plan that disturbs it because it is yet to fathom.

Rabiu Kwankwaso

Festus Odimegwu would not forget the Kano State governor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, in a hurry. It is the man that made him lose his job as Nigeria Population Commission (NPC) chairman. Odimegwu had faulted the 2006 census that ranked Kano as the most populous state in the country.

For that singular act, Kwankwaso insisted that Odimegwu had become too controversial to preside over the 2016 census. Few months after, Odimegwu was asked to resign.

The Kano governor is also one of the arrowheads of the new PDP that later merged with the APC. He is also rumoured as a likely APC presidential candidate.

Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu

The leader of the G7, Governor Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu of Niger State is the General who took his comrades to war but decided to remain with the enemy – but for tactical reasons. Outspoken, immensely intelligent and analytical, he made the news for insisting that 2015 is the turn of the North.

Bola Tinubu

Former Lagos State governor, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is a newsman for 2013 because he sacrificed his political advantage in the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) for the APC. The ACN had been a platform where Tinubu holds sway as the generalissimo, and with the party’s popularity in the South West, the former governor enjoyed the advantage of deciding who becomes what in the zone.

Despite the risk of being not too relevant in a grand mega party, Tinubu took the dive. And recently, he and other APC comrades visited one of his fiercest political enemies, Obasanjo, in a bid to realign ahead of 2015.

Muhammadu Buhari

Major General Muhammadu Buhari’s integrity still remains intact, despite the murky terrain of politics he has plunged into. When reporters wanted to drag him into the 2015 presidency talk, he simply told them he would step down if the party finds somebody better.

For the APC, Buhari’s integrity and popularity remains the party’s greatest asset. Observers have said that he could deliver more than 70 per cent of the votes in the North to the APC.

Bamanga Tukur

The PDP national chairman, Bamanga Tukur, is not just the proverbial cat with nine lives, but the politician with many lives. He has survived battery of attacks, calls for sack by both anti-Jonathan group and now pro-Jonathan supporters. But curiously, the President refused to sack him and even said the call for such was baseless.

Analysts have said the reason the President would not sack Tukur was because the PDP chairman is the only man that can guarantee the President a 2015 chance.

Olagunsoye Oyinlola

Olagunsoye Oyinlola reclaimed his position as PDP national secretary in November this year after being out of the job for more than a year. But the day he was set to resume, he was curiously expelled from the party. He has returned to the court again to fight, and his victory, if that happens, would throw spanner in the works of the PDP apparatchik.

Jonah Jang

Plateau State governor, Jonah Jang, was adopted by the Northern States Governors’ Forum as its candidate in the NGF election, but majority of the governors from the region voted for Amaechi. Instead of conceding defeat, Jang insisted that he was the duly elected NGF chairman.

Peter Obi

The outgoing Anambra State Governor Peter Obi featured prominently in the news in 2013 for being a right hand man of President Jonathan, though they belong to different political parties. Obi is the leader of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).

In the November 16 election which many observers didn’t give the APGA candidate a chance because he is a neophyte, Obi allegedly used his Aso Rock connection to win the poll for APGA.

Chris Ngige

Senator Chris Ngige made the news for his dogged fight to return as governor of Anambra for the second time. Against many odds, one of which is the low popularity of his party among the people of the South East, he ran for the election that later became controversial.

Godswill Akpabio

With his unflinching support for President Jonathan, Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State has remained consistent in his resolve to help President Jonathan get the 2015 ticket. He was also made the chairman of PDP Governors’ Forum (PDPGF), ostensibly to rival Amaechi’s status as NGF chairman in the South – while Jang takes care of the North.