Some months ago, 18 presidential aspirants agreed to elect a consensus candidate. The initiative sounded so exciting and we were all expectant. On getting to the day of the election, some of the candidates opted out of the process few hours before the election, leaving 11 aspirants to participate.
Nigeria’s former minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili monitored and observed the election. She gave her account of how the election went down. “The PACT – Presidential Aspirants Coming Together had 13 Aspirants at their Opening today. They did inform the Media & audience in the hall, ahead of their voting process, that Yele Sowore and 4 other Aspirants had moved on at different time since they launched their initiative.”
She stated how the 11 aspirants voted, and how the winner was gotten after Moghalu and Durotoye and Tsado got the same number of votes and had to recuse themselves so the remaining aspirants could vote.
The PACT – Presidential Aspirants Coming Together had 13 Aspirants at their Opening today. They did inform the Media & audience in the hall, ahead of their voting process, that Sowore and 4 other Aspirants had moved on at different time since they launched their initiative.
— Oby Ezekwesili (@obyezeks) August 30, 2018
She ended by saying “I have no iota of doubt that Citizens have a STRONG HUNGER for an Alternative Political Leadership Class in our country to emerge at all levels of Elective Offices. For all those who believe they are part of that Alternative Leadership Class, Citizens shall be observing.”
Some hours after the election, one of the aspirants Professor Kingsley Moghalu announced that he was still in the race. He said the clause in the PACT Memorandum of Understanding gave him the constitutional rights to pursue his political ambitions. “The arrangement had unraveled even before the final selection of the consensus candidate. Only seven aspirants participated in the final voting out of the original 18 aspirants, mainly because many of the aspirants had withdrawn from the process,” Moghalu had said.
Less than a week ago, Oby Ezekwesili declared her intention to run for presidency “To show that we mean business, especially as we have already started building a multi-million-person national grassroots organization across the 36 states of Nigeria, I am announcing not as an aspirant, but as a candidate running under the flag of the ACPN (@ACPNHOPE). #Hope2019” She wrote on Twitter.
Amongst over 90 Political parties in Nigeria, only the APC and the PDP have strong party structure all over the country. One would expect that the ‘New Nigeria’ aspirants should know better and rally behind a consensus candidate if they hope to indeed transform Nigeria. But no, everyone thinks he/she is the ‘messiah’. I don’t want to call their interests, Selfish because it is actually genuine. I understand their drive, I understand the yearning to see Nigeria changed and better for all. Nevertheless, with the way they are all going about this, I do not see this happening in 2019.
We all could have ended up wasting our time.
For want of better role model; they should take a cue from the PDP.