Tinubu vs Saraki: The Empire Strikes Back

India has more political families than any other country in the world. The most prominent of those families is the Nehru-Gandhi family. Since the 1920’s, when Motilal Nehru first became Congress President, one member from each generation of the family has either led the Congress Party or both the Congress Party and the Indian nation. His son, Jawaharlal Nehru became India’s first prime minister. His granddaughter and great grandson, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi at different times also served as prime ministers of India. Rahul Gandhi, the most recent of the family to attempt to lead India, in 2014 led his party to a crushing defeat in the hands of current prime minister, Narendra Modi’s BJP. And for Modi’s antecedents, as a boy he sold tea at a train station with his father.

Bola Tinubu is a self-made politician and proof that a recognized family name is not necessarily the only recipe for success in politics. After his initial achievement as a two-term governor of Lagos state, he has grown in political clout by dispensing favours, privileges and nurturing the ambitions of others, both big and small from local government chairman to state legislator, governor and now president. In the politics of Nigeria, he is the embodiment of a political godfather and he came about playing that role through his own ingenuity. Over the years, he had very little to boast of in family connections. Tinubu has succeeded where others have failed. Former president Goodluck Jonathan also grew from relative obscurity to office of president. But his rise was due more to accidents of history than his abilities as a politician.  Tinubu, along with former vice president Atiku Abubakar, can both be described as the canniest politicians of our time. But unlike Atiku, Tinubu has had the patience to build a political party from scratch. Even the president, Muhammadu Buhari who many do not see as a politician in the traditional sense, has been more successful in floating a political party than Atiku.

But despite Tinubu’s achievements and the number of politicians he has built over the years, his own aspiration of becoming vice president and maybe even president still eludes him. As compensation however, the government of Buhari appears to have given the former Lagos governor latitude to place his own men in strategic places in government leading to attempts to hand pick the leadership of the National Assembly. Standing in his way and on the on the other of the spectrum was Bukola Saraki, also a former governor. Saraki’s own ambition was to be president, which he later downgraded to becoming senate president. Unlike Tinubu, Saraki cannot claim to be self-made. He comes from a political family and was not only handpicked to become governor but can be said to have inherited a political empire from his late father, Olusola Saraki whose name still looms large in the politics of Kwara and Nigeria. Inherited or not, the younger Saraki showed his determination and guile in how he became senate president and even publicly admitting he had  to sleep -with eyes wide open- in the car park of the National Assembly to access to the complex on the day of the inauguration of the 8th Assembly.

But also unlike Tinubu, Saraki’s politics is more about self-preservation than dispensing favours and building small and major politicians. Had the late Olusola had his way, Bukola, now senate president would not have been the only inheritor of the Saraki political dynasty. His sister, Gbemi Saraki, a former senator would probably be sitting pretty as governor of Kwara today. In pursuing his own goals, the senate president has shown that he takes no prisoners and loyalty to a cause; a party or family is not enough to hold him back. But Saraki, in becoming Senate President has been able to surpass his father who only managed to become senate leader and made several failed attempts to run for president.

Now that Saraki has struck, putting a halt to Asiwaju’s growing dominance over Nigerian politics, the impending rivalry between them, which will likely be a major feature in the Buhari presidency, is in so many ways similar to a possible match-up between Hilary Clinton and Jeb Bush in the United States. A Bush first went against a Clinton in the 1992 presidential election when Bill Clinton unseated George H W Bush as president. Clinton with no family ties in politics was previously a governor and had made it politically all on his own. Clinton, like Tinubu was known to reach out to hundreds of politicians and nonpoliticians alike while he was in office. Without taking anything away from his success, Bush however was from a political family with his father before having served as a US senator all throughout the 1950’s. But after Bush lost his reelection to Clinton, his political empire struck back with his son succeeding Clinton as president. Now Clinton’s wife, after a stint a senator and later, secretary of state, is seeking the nomination of her Democratic party to run in the 2016 presidential election. If she gets the nomination, there is a chance she will go up against another son of Bush who is also seeking the nomination of the Republican Party.

Closer to home, there are political rivalries that over the years shaped the direction the country travelled. Top among them is the Ibrahim Babangida and Muhammadu Buhari rivalry. Again, like Tinubu, Babangida has had very little to boast of in terms of family connections. He worked his way into the hearts of men in the military and within political ranks. Till date, hundreds of people, both high and low are known to have access to him. There is probably no Nigerian that that shows more interest in the affairs of others. As it was the military way then, he pushed Buhari out as head of state in the 80’s. Buhari on the other hand can be said be a part of the Yar’Adua political family considering that he grew up with Musa Yar’Adua, a first republic politician a minister. While they have both renounced their military ways by embracing democracy, Nigerians didn’t get the chance to see Babangida and Buhari go head to head in a political contest after Babangida, in the only opportunity that could have been, failed to pick the ticket of the PDP for the 2011 presidential election. Regardless, it was Buhari that had his early career propelled by family ties that finally got elected as president. IBB’s outreach to others was just no enough to sustain a political career. The empire struck back.

Though Buhari has taken sides, the fight in the National Assembly and the party isn’t not about him or his presidency. It is more about the post-Buahri era. Anyone who manages to consolidate political power with control over the party, the National Assembly and the six geopolitical zones will be unstoppable four years down the road. And if the Buhari presidency turns out be a two-term presidency, then all the infighting happening now will be in vain. To stop the fight from derailing his presidency, Buhari will have to do a lot more than taking sides. He will have to shut down the ambitions of all the warring parties.

And they all have shortcomings. Tinubu does not appear to be able to see beyond the interests of the southwest at a time he should be building bridges across the length and breadth of country. Other than consolidating power in the southwest, it is hard to see what Tinubu’s long tern strategy is, considering that he promotes a regional candidate for every available political position open for contest. With the office of the vice president safely in the hands of the southwest, still if the former governor had had his way, Bisi Akande would be the national chairman of the APC not John Odigie-Oyegun who was his back up candidate. Femi Gbajabiamila would also today be speaker of the House of the Representatives. The cabinet of the president is yet to be formed, so is hard to say who he wants where..  The north makes up close to 60 percent of Nigeria’s population. It has always been the strategy of competing regions to peel northern minorities, particularly the Christian minority away from the mainstream northern political goals. But that may be about to change with the election of Yakubu Dogara as speaker coming after a general election that saw the region’s minority voting for the first time with the mainstream.

Dogara’s election also better serves the interest of the Buhari because it will bring to an end, the acrimony in the north between the dominant tribes and its minorities. And should a split ever occur again, it could take at least two or election cycles. For that reason, getting block votes from the region will be easier in future elections.

Now the only real competition Tinubu has for the soul of the southwest is former president Olusegun Obasanjo. But Obasanjo’s tentacles spread across the country. And if Tinubu’s real rival is Atiku, not Saraki, the former vice president has the advantage here because he has more of the political spread. This also gives Atiku reason to back Saraki and ensure that the former governor does not consolidate his hold over the party.

Saraki’s shortcoming is more of a misfortune, the misfortune of being geographically placed in the north central region. The region is probably the most ethnically diverse in the entire country and with no dominant political force. Unable to consolidate power regionally, Saraki did it in his early political career by becoming first among equals as chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum and now as president of the senate. That Saraki was able to maneuver his way to lead the senate was not by accident. He had family history on his side. But after coming out on top in the battle of wits, Saraki still denied Tinubu and the APC an opportunity to save face by ignoring their choice of principal officers in the senate. If recent events in the National Assembly and the APC are anything to go by, then the future of Nigerian politics promises to be full of intrigue, drama, betrayals and counter-betrayals. But who will be the next Tinubu that will rise against all odds to dominate the political space, or the next Saraki trying to go one better than a previous generation of his family?

Culled from ThisDay News