How APC threw Osinbajo, Tinubu into ‘deathmatch’ political wrestling ring

Barring any last-minute change in plan, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is set to produce a consensus presidential candidate today.

But in the event that the aspirants fail to yield ground for one of them to emerge as a consensus candidate, then the delegates would have to come in to decide for them.

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, perhaps, did not contemplate a situation where he would be thrown into a wrestling ring with his former boss, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

He may have thought their ‘fight’ would not have to involve body contact. At least, he could be throwing punches, but from a distance. Reason being that he still recognises that Tinubu, the Jagaban of Borgu, made him politically.

But the meeting Saturday night with President Muhammadu Buhari and all the presidential aspirants on the APC platform where they were pointedly told to go decide among themselves who should be the consensus candidate seems to have changed the tenor of the fight.

The same Saturday, northern leaders, including past and serving governors, had written to the ruling party and to the President on the need to zone the slot to the South for the sake of equity and fair play.

For this reason, Mohammed Badaru Abubakar, Jigawa State governor, who was one of the presidential aspirants, withdrew his ambition.

By the development, Osinbajo, Tinubu and a few other aspirants were expected to take the hard decision of endorsing one of them.

Analysts say that Osinbajo and Tinubu are now in a ‘deathmatch’ political wrestling ring, where it is fair to use all manner of ‘dangerous objects’ to defeat an opponent.

In a deathmatch, wrestlers fight in a ring where ropes might be substituted for barbed wire. Broken bottles, nails, and other dangerous objects are strewn on the canvas and pull moves that are partly choreographed and partly influenced by what the raucous crowd is cheering for.

In this match, “smash a fluorescent light tube over an opponent’s head? You’ve got it. Stick wooden skewers into their head? Sure thing. Slam their body onto upended thumbtacks? Of course!”

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A professional deathmatch wrestler once confessed: “The risk of hurting someone is so much higher because we are throwing glass and we are using weapons and things that can really hurt someone else.”

The presidential ambition of Osinbajo and Tinubu has pitted their supporters against one another. A lot of tough talks have been released from either camp.

None of them appears set to yield ground for the other. A case in point was the meeting last month between the South-West APC leaders and presidential aspirants from the zone.

The meeting failed to persuade any of them to step down. Each of the aspirants strongly believed they had the best chance to clinch the party’s ticket.

Since Saturday night when Buhari gave the marching order, a series of meetings have been held. The South-West restlessly engaged the frontrunners and placated those believed not to have the clout to go beyond this level in their aspiration.

At the time this piece was being written, neither Tinubu nor Osinbajo had indicated interest to yield ground for the other. Feelers rather indicated that both would want to present themselves to the delegates to decide their fate.

It was gathered that the odds are in Osinbajo’s favour.

“I think the point where we are now, the Vice-President stands a better chance to succeed Buhari. Suggesting to him to yield ground for Tinubu would be tantamount to cowardice. I am also not thinking that he would do such a thing. What I am seeing is ‘a fight to the finish.’ Tinubu should just humble himself by stepping down; by so doing, he would garner a lot of respect rather than going into elective primary and be disgraced by a political godson,” Kingsley Adu, a political affairs analyst, told BusinessDay.

Luke Ezem, a member of the 3rd Force that believes that neither Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) nor APC should get back to power, said: “I am not in support of APC or PDP, but what I am seeing is a situation where Tinubu and Osinbajo would prefer facing the delegates to stepping down. But nothing is sacrosanct. Anything is possible through treachery.”

In a situation where Tunubu has shown serious interest in the post and has vowed to fight to the finish, pundits say that he may be unable to willingly step down for Osinbajo, hence, the envisaged “deathmatch.”

In a published opinion article, Olu Fasan, a political economist, said that Osinbajo possessed the moral high ground to seek to succeed Buhari, as anything contrary to that would amount to cowardice.

“It would throw up a political oddity in which a sitting vice-president defies the law of natural progression and refuses to run for president because his ‘godfather’ wants to run for the office,” Fasan said.

He had at the time of the article wondered: “Surely, if Tinubu wants to run for president in 2023, the inevitable questions are: What about Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo? Would he too seek his party’s nomination? Or would he chicken out and throw in the towel because of Tinubu?”

Fasan, who at the time strongly believed that the presidency should go to the South-East, said that granted otherwise, there should be no reason Osinbajo should not succeed his boss, which according to him, is the natural thing to do.

He said: “Let me state at this point that neither Osinbajo’s candidacy nor, even less so, Tinubu’s candidacy is of interest to me. This is because my principled position is that Nigeria’s next president should be of Igbo extraction.

“If a Yoruba becomes president in 2023 and does eight years, power will then return to the North for another eight years. Thus, by 2039, the Igbo would have produced no president for 40 years since 1999. That’s not a fair way to treat one leg of the tripod of the largest ethnic groups on which Nigeria originally stood.

“Nor is that sustainable in terms of this country’s unity and stability. So, my preference is for the two main parties, APC and PDP, to pick their presidential candidates from the South-East.”

But explaining why Osinbajo may be in a quandary over his ambition, the erudite scholar said: “Tellingly, the argument about why Osinbajo should not run for president if Tinubu wants the job turns on loyalty and gratitude. The argument goes like this: Osinbajo would not have been vice president without Tinubu; so, he owes Tinubu an eternal debt and would be disloyal to challenge him for their party’s presidential ticket. But this is utter hogwash, based on a false narrative that Tinubu helped Osinbajo to become APC’s presidential running-mate in 2015 out of sheer generosity or favour. But that’s not true!

“Of course, no one can deny Tinubu’s role in Osinbajo’s emergence as APC’s vice-presidential candidate in 2015. But everyone gets a helping hand in life, including Tinubu himself. He became the gubernatorial candidate of Alliance for Democracy in 1999 because Chief Abraham Adesanya and other Afenifere leaders, who controlled the party, preferred him to his rivals.”