The inside story
On March 28, President Goodluck Jonathan lost his re-election bid. He was defeated in the contest by former military ruler, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd). AYODELE OJO writes on the factors that led to the president’s defeat
Like never before, the March 28 presidential election was fought like a war. Never in the history of Nigeria has election been fought with such intensity. The attention of the world was shifted to Nigeria. Governance and economy got relegated while politics took the centre stage.
President Goodluck Jonathan was rattled. On several occasions, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential standardbearer got agitated. His rival and former head of state, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, was more calm and calculative. The forces behind him in the All Progressives Congress (APC) were massive and potent. By the time the votes were counted, President Jonathan had been humbled by Buhari. The president polled 12,853,162 votes against Buhari’s 15,424,921 votes.
Jonathan won in 15 states – 11 in the South-South and South- East, one in the South-West, three in the North and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Buhari won in 21 states – 16 in the North and five in the South-West. For the first time in Nigeria, an incumbent president lost his re-election. What really went wrong? Why did President Jonathan lose? Was it poor performance? What was the magic of the opposition? Indeed, there are a lot of factors responsible for the president’s defeat. The tide against President Jonathan’s fortunes began to change with the July 31, 2013 merger of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) and Congress for Progressive Change (CPC).
That day, all permutations changed. For the first time in Nigeria, the opposition became national in outlook. The event of August 31, 2013 also played a key role. That day, aggrieved PDP governors walked out of the PDP convention in Abuja to form what they called New PDP. Another major landmark event against the president was the collapse of New PDP structures into the APC on November 25, 2013. The events made the opposition against Jonathan strong and virile such that there were 16 governors in the camp of the APC and a substantial control of the National Assembly.
The outcome of the December 2014 primaries of the APC in Lagos where the losers like former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, Governors Rochas Okorocha (Imo) and Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano), and Sam Nda-Isaiah embraced the winner, Buhari, and worked with him also shored up APC’s fortunes. The calculation among the PDP hierarchy was that APC would unravel after the primaries. The choice of Prof. Yemi Osinbanjo as Bu-hari’s running mate also discredited the long held notion that the APC was a Muslim party. Osinbajo, a professor of law and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), is a pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG).
The support base of Jonathan and Buhari also influenced the outcome of the elections. Buhari’s cult followership among the masses could not be matched by Jonathan’s clout. The president’s support base was mostly in the South-South and South-East and largely among the elite. While Osinbajo added some verve to Buhari’s candidacy, Vice-President Namadi Sambo could not sway support for the president in the North, where the APC trounced the PDP.
APC’s campaign
The damage done to the credibility of President Jonathan and his administration by the APC was much. The APC ran a formidable campaign which portrayed Jonathan administration as corrupt, inefficient and incapable of taming Boko Haram insurgency.
This, no doubt, affected the fortunes of the president in the election. APC campaign put the PDP almost always on the defensive. It was more of a movement. The “Change” mantra was massive. While APC dwelt on its plan for Nigeria and failures of the government, the PDP often found itself struggling to react to messages put out by APC about the government.
The PDP campaign attempted to cast Buhari as a villain. This irritated the North. There were less efforts at showcasing the president’s achievement; if there were they began only rather late. While the PDP was busy sponsoring litigations against Buhari on qualification, APC was on the field vigorously campaigning. Unlike in the 2011 election, Buhari had a robust political platform well-funded to challenge President Jonathan.
The north at war with Jonathan
There is no doubt that the North was angry with the president. This was evident in the voting pattern which saw President Jonathan narrowly winning two [Taraba and Nasarawa] of the 19 northern states in the March 28 presidential election. In the 2011 election, Jonathan won seven northern states. In the March 28 presidential poll, Buhari routed President Jonathan in the North even with 12 PDP governors and 22 ministers on his side.
The APC presidential candidate polled12,228,491 votes against the president’s 3,694,920 votes in the North. For the North, the election was like a war. The region needed the power at all cost. The race was united and all the major forces cast their lots with Buhari; not because they so much loved him but he was a potent vehicle to reclaim power. And there was deep resentment against the president in the North. The North felt aggrieved by the decision of the president to breach the gentleman’s agreement with regard to single-term he was said to have struck in 2011. They felt that Jonathan was usurping their rights. There was a unity of purpose.
Choices could be made in other elections, but in the presidency the votes must be for Buhari. The resentment against Jonathan dates back to 2011 when he decided to contest the presidential election. The thinking was that if Jonathan had opted out of the race to allow the North to complete the eight-year tenure which the late President Umaru Yar’Adua would apparently have had, a moral burden would have been put on the region to cede power to the South after the completion of the term. The president was advised against running in 2011 but he refused. Meeting were held between representatives of the president and the North without any fruitful result.
And if President Jonathan had honoured the single-term pact he allegedly signed with the North there wouldn’t have been so much opposition. Some of the governors, especially Babangida Aliyu of Niger State, publicly spoke against the decision of the president to contest for another term. The governors and the ministers except Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State could not publicly campaign for Jonathan. Even those known to be supporting the president were harassed by hoodlums. And so the president was left standing alone literarily in the North. Saturday Telegraph learnt that prominent northerners became Buhari’s campaign managers in the North.
They crisscrossed the northern states, meeting traditional rulers, Islamic scholars and various groups marketing Buhari and denouncing Jonathan. Religious and ethnic issues were played up. The president was accused of neglecting the north and protecting his Niger Delta kith and kin. The president’s faceoff with the former governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, did not help him either.
When Sanusi became the emir shortly after Jonathan sacked him, the president against tradition did not felicitate with the monarch until after the intervention initiated by the Sultan of Sokoto. The Kano people saw the presidency’s position as an affront to their reverred monarch. The hatred coupled with other factors such as Buhari and Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso’s personalities counted against the president as Kano polled 1,903,999 votes for Buhari against Jonathan’s 215,779.
Boko Haram, Chibok girls: Jonathan’s albatross
One major factor that contributed to the fall of President Jonathan was the Boko Haram insurgency. The inability of the government to rescue the over 200 Chibok schoolgirls abducted in April 14, 2014 by the terrorist group gave Jonathan out as one presiding over an inefficient government. The famed statement of the president that Boko Haram members are in his government was also a minus for him. The belief of the president that no girl was missing in the wake of the abduction also affected his image.
The general belief in the presidency, initially, was that no girl was abducted by Boko Haram and that the whole abduction episode was a scam. Prominent northern leaders accused the president of not doing enough to tame the insurgency until in the build up to the March 28 presidential election when the military stepped up action like never before to rout the insurgents, particularly the North-East.
The failure of the president to visit Borno State, the epicentre of terrorist activities, and other North-East states until the build-up to the March 28 election made him seem like an uncaring president. Some Northern elements believe that the war against Boko Haram was to decimate the North. Even the ousted governor of Adamawa State, Admiral Murtala Nyako (rtd), accused President Jonathan of embarking on genocide against the people of the North. No doubt, the failure of the government to swiftly tackle terrorism on Nigerian soil exposed Jonathan’s government to ridicule.
The fact that the North-East people, the most affected by the Boko Haram insurgency, see President Jonathan as uncaring created a deep resentment against him. That perception could be glimpsed from the fact that the president performed poorly in all the North-East states.
President’s missteps in South-West
One of the battlegrounds for the presidential election was the South-West. The geo-political zone has the second largest number of voters in the country after the North-West. The six South-West states of Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ondo and Ekiti collectively have 13,731,090 registered voters. As such, both the PDP and APC turned the zone into a battlefield. While the APC got its calculation right, the PDP’s permutations were faulty.
The opposition APC is in control of four of the six states (except Ondo and Ekiti) coupled with the fact that the party has most of its staunch leaders like former Governor Bola Tinubu from the zone. Also, APC picked the vice presidential candidate from the zone. But for President Jonathan, he relied on the PDP structures and its leaders in the zone to deliver the votes for him. Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State was the arrowhead of his campaign in the zone. But he took the wrong approach. Mimiko enlisted the leaders of the pan Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, into the project. On no fewer than two occasions, Afenifere leaders endorsed President Jonathan’s re-election, citing the need for the implementation of the 2014 National Conference report as the basis. Several post-conference summits were held to drum up support for the president.
Unfortunately, the approach failed. Barring Mimiko and a few other members of the Afenifere, most of the group’s leaders have lost political relevance. To some of them, a Jonathan project was an avenue to advance their interest. Some made fortunes out of the project. But they never went out to canvass votes for Jonathan. The last time Afenifere had sufficient clout was between 1998 and 2003 when it was a factor in the Alliance for Democracy (AD). The group influenced the political direction of the Yoruba race. But all was gone since 2003 when the PDP hurricane swept the South-West states. So, for President Jonathan, it was a miscalculation to think that Afenifere was a strong vehicle to rally votes in his favour.
The president provided enough fund for the group and its leaders in the course of electioneering. Jonathan also got it wrong with the belief that the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) was potent enough to provide the needed support for him. Desperate for support, President Jonathan awarded a pipeline security contract reportedly worth billions of Naira to the OPC leaders, Frederick Fasehun and Gani Adams. Both of them became ardent supporters of the president. Even Fasehun founded a political party, the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), all for Jonathan. His party endorsed the president for second term. But most of Fasehun’s activities did not go beyond the media; there was no serious efforts by him and his group to mobilise for the president. Adams was so obsessed with Jonathan such that he promised to deliver six million votes for the president.
The president even hosted the OPC leaders and coordinators at the State House, Marina, Lagos, in the build up to the election. But the only known effort was the disruption of public peace in Lagos when his group marched on Lagos roads calling for the removal of the INEC chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega. One major factor responsible for the failure of the president in the South-West was the fact that the zone was mostly on the fringe in the Jonathan administration, especially with regard to appointments.
There was hardly any figure from the South-West that held a key position in the nation’s executive, legislative and judiciary. The only consolation was the Chief of Staff to the President, Brig-Gen. Jones Arogbofa. Unfortunately, Arogbofa was the candidate of Afenifere. His elder brother, Otunba Oladehinde Arogbofa, is the Secretary-General of Afenifere. So, his reach and scope was limited. He was also not a politician and his office barely attracted anything to the zone. So, to the zone, they never had anybody in Jonathan’s government. This informed the preference for the APC in which Osinbajo is now vice president- elect.
Gambling with aggrieved governors
A major blow to the president’s ambition was the internal crisis that tore apart the PDP towards the end of 2013 and throughout the reign of Bamangar Tukurled National Working Committee (NWC). The game for President Jonathan began to change on August 31. Seven PDP governors – Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers), Aliyu Wammako (Sokoto), Babangida Aliyu (Niger), Sule Lamido (Jigawa), Rabiu Kwakwanso (Kano), Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara) and Murtala Nyako (Adamawa) walked out of the party’s special convention in Abuja, where the president was present. The aggrieved governors otherwise known as G7 later formed a parallel New PDP.
The government used its might to intimidate the governors into submission but they were unyielding. The secretariat of the New PDP in Abuja was closed, security details of some of its leaders were withdrawn while the police even harassed the governors during one of their meetings at Kano Lodge in Asokoro, Abuja. At last, five of the governors except Lamido and Aliyu defected to the APC. To the PDP leadership, there was no cause for alarm.
But by the end of voting in the March 28 presidential election, four of the governors with the exception of Amaechi of Rivers delivered their states for the APC. Even with Nyako out of office, he took his pound of flesh from Jonathan by ensuring that Adamawa went the way of APC. If President Jonathan had effectively managed the PDP internal crisis, there would have been less collateral damage done to his re-election. With Governor Kwankwaso in the PDP, Buhari wouldn’t have secured 1.9 million votes in Kano.
The marginal difference wouldn’t have been that much in Sokoto and Kwara states where Buhari won landslide. Those the president depended on to salvage the situation in states where the PDP lost its governors to the opposition except Rivers, his fortress, failed woefully. Education minister, Ibrahim Shekarau, was decimated in Kano. His clout as former governor of the state coupled with the support of minister of foreign affairs, Aminu Wali, was too weak for Hurricane Buhari. Former Governor Attahiru Bafarawa could not withstand Governor Aliyu Wamakko in Sokoto. Shekarau and Bafarawa defected from the APC to the PDP.
Poor handling of the primaries
The fallouts of the PDP primaries also affected Jonathan’s fortunes. While all the organs of the PDP adopted Jonathan as the sole candidate, crisis tore apart the state chapters of the party over the choice of candidates for the elections. Leaving the party structures at the governors’ whim was a major minus for the party. The state governors who are the favourite of the party leadership and presidency imposed candidates for the elections at will.
This led to the exit of strong party members to the APC. Even some of the president’s ministers – Samuel Ortom and Labaran Maku – who resigned their appointments to contest the governorship seat of their states were forced out of the party to the APC and All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA). The governors brazenly snatched senatorial tickets from the incumbent forcing a number of senators to seek shelter in APC. With the exodus of PDP chieftains to the APC, the ruling party was weakened at the state level. For instance, in Benue, former PDP national chairman, Senator Barnabas Gemade and Ortom pitched tent with Senator George Akume in the APC.
The effect was so massive that Gemade defeated Governor Gabriel Suswam, who had won the PDP senatorial ticket which the former also contested, in the March 28 National Assembly election. Ortom also won the governorship election. These forces ended the 16-year reign of PDP in Benue State. And for the first time, the PDP lost the presidential election in Benue. In Adamawa, PDP leadership imposed its wishes on the state.
Nuhu Ribadu, the governorship flag bearer, and National Assembly candidates were elected in a primaries held in Abuja which left much to be desired. This forced some members out of the PDP in the state and those that stayed put worked against the party. The cumulative effect was Jonathan’s loss. In Kebbi, former governor and onetime minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Senator Adamu Aliero, was denied the PDP senatorial ticket. Serving senators and other legislators suffered the same.
Hence, they defected to the APC. The effect was massive. Jonathan polled 100,972 votes against Buhari’s 567,883 votes. APC also won all the contested seats. It was the same story in most of the states. Citing lack of internal democracy within the PDP, Tukur said the development caused the defeat of the party.
Speaking on Thursday in Yola, the Adamawa State capital, Tukur said: “We have been advocating for its [internal democracy] entrenchment in the party for a long time. It’s unfortunate that the failure to heed to our advice led to the unsavoury defeat the party suffered. “We have been preaching election not selection, internal democracy not imposition. Anywhere it was done, it will leave a bitter pill in the mouth.”
Obasanjo’s virile attacks
Like or hate him, former President Olusegun Obasanjo has become an insti-tution in Nigeria. Having ruled Nigeria as military and civilian leader, he has farreaching contacts within and beyond Nigeria. Obasanjo was instrumental to the emergence of Jonathan as vice president and president. But he soon fell out with the president. At every opportunity, Obasanjo chastised Jonathan’s government. In his autobiography, My Watch, Obasanjo returned a damning verdict on President Jonathan, accusing him of corruption and ineptitude. The president is always at the receiving end of the former ruler. But the president and his aides always fired back.
The president also moved against Obasanjo’s political associates in the PDP. But Obasanjo rallied his associates against the president. He launched verbal attacks against the Jonathan administration. He also encouraged his associates like former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, now governor-elect of Kaduna State, and onetime Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, to launch sustained attacks on the administration. Also, many of his political associates pitched tent with the APC while opposition leaders courted him with several visits to his Abeokuta residence.
The former president facilitated the movement of some of his acolytes who are PDP governors into the APC. Governors Kwankwaso and Nyako, ex-Governors Olagunsoye Oyinlola and Segun Oni dumped PDP for APC. Several sources said Obasanjo coopted retired generals, traditional institutions and political leaders from the North and South-West into the “war” against Jonathan’s re-election. Several meetings were held in Ota, Abeokuta, Ibadan and Abuja to perfect the Operation- Jonathan-Must-Go strategy. Even some of the former president’s political associates served as moles in the PDP and worked against the re-election of President Jonathan. Indeed, Obasanjo did collateral damage to President Jonathan. The president’s government became the object of attack home and abroad for the exleader.
Govs failed to fund campaign
In terms of funding, President Jonathan provided enough resources for his campaign. But some of the people trusted with the responsibilities of aiding the president’s victory failed him. Sources told Saturday Telegraph that a North-West PDP governor deliberately starved the Jonathan-Sambo Presidential Campaign Organisation in his state of fund despite the fact that the Presidency released huge funds for the project. “Our governor told us that the PDP candidates in the National Assembly election should fund our campaign. The state presidential campaign organisation was not funded. We were left to fate and this gave the APC a leverage.
It was like a deliberate effort to sabotage the president. I was surprised that my governor played a major role in the president’s campaign when in actual fact he has not hidden his hatred for Jonathan,” a party source in the North-Western state told Saturday Telegraph. Many of those trusted with the fund saw the campaign as veritable means of enriching themselves. In some polling units in the North, PDP agents were not mobilised for the presidential election whereas in some places they did not show up for the election for fear of being attacked or for non-mobilisation.
For instance, on election day, a North- Central governor was heard telling his people that they should vote in line with their conscience. “No serious effort was made by the governor to campaign for the president. He was not bothered whether the president won or not. Ironically, this is one of the governors believed to be working for the president,” a source told our reporter.
Betrayed by trusted aides
President Jonathan was also let down by his trusted aides. Many of those he trusted betrayed him. Some of them surreptitiously worked for the opposition. Even those that stayed put in the party could not deliver their states for the president. They created impression that all was well for the president. Some party chieftains given money to mobilise stakeholders who could sway voters to Jonathan’s side helped themselves to the campaign fund.
By the time the president realised that his aides were deceiving him, it was almost late. The failure of some of the president’s aides to genuinely do his bidding forced the president to personally reach out to religious leaders, traditional rulers, stakeholders, diverse groups and associations. Except for Chief Tony Anenih, the chairman, Board of Trustees (BoT) of the PDP, who served as National Campaign Adviser, and Deputy Director General of the Presidential Campaign Organisation, Mr. Peter Obi, influential members of the Campaign Council failed woefully in their states. The Director General of the Jonathan- Sambo Campaign, Dr. Ahmadu Ali, was routed in Kogi State. Ali could not even deliver his polling unit for Jonathan.
His deputy in the North and minister of special duties, Kabiru Turaki, lost badly to the APC in his home state of Kebbi. Prof. Jerry Gana, who served as director, Contact and Mobilisation, could not even mobilise Niger State for the president. Even the National Chairman of the PDP, Adamu Mu’azu, failed woefully in his home state of Bauchi. PDP came out of the general elections with dismal performance. The combined forces of Mu’azu, Governor Isa Yuguda and Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Senator Bala Mohammed, were not strong enough to ward off the pro- Buhari sentiments.
The ego war among the trio also contributed to the defeat of the president in Bauchi. Throughout the campaign, they all worked at cross purposes. The ministers, except a few of them, did little to help the president. Some of them had no contact with their base. A large number of them failed to openly solicit support for President Jonathan. Except ministers from the South, most members of the Federal Executive Council did not openly identify with the president’s ambition save for appearances at rallies attended by the president. Probably a good number of them do not have political relevance.
Resentment over Niger Delta militants
The perceived pampering of the former Niger Delta also created a deep resentment against President Jonathan in some parts of the country. Under the Jonathan administration, ex-militants became multimillionaires with patronage and awards of pipeline surveillance contracts. Some of the beneficiaries of the contracts did not help Jonathan’s cause. Exmilitants like Mujaheed Asari Dokubo threatened Nigeria’s existence if Jonathan was not re-elected.
Their utterances also created enmity for the president such that former Minister of Defence, Gen. Theophilus Danjuma called on Jonathan to call his kinsmen to order. In no small measure, the ex-fighters did damage to the president’s re-election by portraying him as a sectional leader.
Technology as obstacle to rigging
The use of permanent voters’ cards (PVCs) and card readers also affected the fortunes of the president. Unlike in the past elections when the process was characterised with massive irregularities, the use of PVCs and card readers reduced electoral malpractices. The PDP fought against the use of the card readers but the Jega-led INEC insisted on the technology. The process affected the fortunes of the parties but more on the ruling PDP.
Poor marketing and communications
In terms of performance, President Jonathan has not done badly. His administration has done well in a number of sectors. But the president has been badly managed by his media handlers. Those trusted with the responsibilities of projecting the image of the president and the administration failed woefully.
To many, Jonathan has not done well. Their position is justified. There is no proper communications of his achievements with the public. But the reality on ground contradict general perception of abysmal performance. Indeed, the president has performed well even better than some of his predecessors. President Jonathan admitted the failure of the information management of his administration. “I know I have a challenge with the information management by my administration,” Jonathan told a group of senior journalists at the Villa last year.
Even while meeting private sector operators in Lagos in the course of the electioneering, a chief executive of a multinational company was surprised at the magnitude of what the administration had achieved. “Mr. President, looking at the documents on your accomplishments, I’m surprised at what your administration has done,” the executive stated. In his response, President Jonathan said he knew he had a problem. He said his media handlers have failed to project him well and the achievements of his administration. With the public perception of non-performance, it was easy for the opposition to label the Jonathan-led administration as inefficient.
International community and media
Most world powers were somehow against the administration. This was evident in the difficulty the federal government had in buying arms and ammunition to prosecute the battle against Boko Haram, forcing the country to use backdoor channels in South Africa.
The United States, United Kingdom, France and others saw the Jonathanled government in unflattering terms. This was hinged on the opaque nature of transaction in the oil sector, subsidy fraud, The international media did not also help matters. Leading media organisations like New York Times, The Economist, Washington Post, Financial Times of London and several others rated Buhari ahead of President Jonathan. They also dwelt extensively on the failings of the government.