The Fourth Republic: Twists and Turns

Dialogue With Nigeria By AKIN OSUNTOKUN

By Akin Osuntokun

Nigeria’s Fourth Republic approaches the 2027 elections under familiar stresses and some new strains. Central to the country’s instability is the persistent overcentralisation of power in Abuja, which distorts federalism and undermines prospects for a stable political equilibrium.The immediate background to the inauguration of the Fourth Republic was the precipitate death of the two main Nigerian political protagonists, military head of state, General Sani Abacha on the 8th June 1998 and Chief Moshood Abiola (the winner of the June 1993 presidential election) on 7th July 1998.

The broader precursor was the crisis fomented by the annulment of the June 1993 presidential election by military president General Ibrahim Babangida.The collateral damage of the annulment crisis was the polarisation of the Nigerian polity along the North/South dichotomy particularly the North/South-west cleavage.

As recently as January this year, no less a scholar than Professor Bolaji Akinyemi characterised the context of the conflict as a situation of internal colonialism. Asked of his take on the Christmas day military intervention of President Donald Trump in the security crisis of Nigeria, he responded “Well, I hope that the intervention by Donald Trump will be a positive one in the sense that now, we will have a Nigeria of equity. There will not be marginalisation and there will be no group that will be regarded as sacred. We will all be equal. Those of us who have served in government will know that there have always been elements in government that are regarded as sacred; untouchable. While you will be regarded as just somebody being tolerated”.

The early Fourth Republic saw a measure of continuity: Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s two terms and the handover to Umaru Yar’Adua on the PDP platform. Discontinuity and disruption ensued with the precipitate death and exit of Yaradua in 2010. This was a disruption of the emergent North/South rotation of power principle that has the potential to temper anxieties, preclude frustration and tame the destabilising struggle for the control of the Nigerian presidency. The net effect of Yaradua’s exit was the premature reversal of power to the South. There was a course correction in 2015, when General Muhammadu Buhari defeated the incumbent President, Dr Goodluck Jonathan.

As Nigeria runs the calendar towards the 2027 presidential election, worthy of note is the observation that elections in which incumbents are seeking reelection are prone to volatility and crisis than those in which the incumbents are not candidates. There is an inherent element of paranoia among incumbents which foments a recourse to the lapse of seeking to overdetermine the outcome of the election. This is what precipitates the trend towards one party dictatorship where significant political actors are coerced and induced to join the party of the incumbent president. As we speak, upwards of 30 of the 36 state governors have defected to the ruling party, the APC.

To meet the constitutional handover deadline of 29 May 2027, the electoral calendar will likely compress, making this year especially consequential. The specifics of the putative calendar are the primaries where the candidates are decided followed by the choice of the running mates. Since the flagbearer of the APC is already decided, it will commensurately endure less of the stress test but the choice of running mate has acquired fresh sensitivity. The Tinubu/Shettima Muslim–Muslim ticket has become contentious, especially after international and domestic commentary framed Nigeria’s security and political choices in religious terms.

President Tinubu’s visit to Turkey and reported remarks by President Erdoğan describing Nigeria as an “Islamic state” fed a perception of religious imbalance and bias. As critics put it: diplomatic framing is deliberate, and coupled with a Muslim–Muslim ticket it appears to many as directional rather than coincidental. The APC has tried to mitigate this by zoning key party offices (party chairman to the Middle Belt, secretary to the federal government, Senate presidency to the Christian South), but the controversy remains a liability.

If the primary is a walk in the park for the presumed APC presidential candidate, the choice of the running mate is fraught. The unintended consequence of the (Christianity persecution frame of Donald Trump’s intervention in Nigeria’s security challenge) has posed a renewed problem for the legitimacy of Tinubu’s Muslim/Muslim presidential ticket. And as if taking a cue from Sheik Gumi’s Islamic chauvinist playbook, (who recently admonished the Tinubu government to fraternise with predominantly Islamic countries like Turkey and Pakistan), the President recently embarked on a state visit to Turkey where reported remarks by President Erdoğan describing Nigeria as an “Islamic state” fed a perception of religious conspiracy theory.

Just how unseemly Nigerians found this development is captured in this articulation. “Nations do not redefine other nations by accident. Diplomatic wording is deliberate. Framing always precedes policy. Now place this beside a government produced by a Muslim–Muslim ticket—a decision many Nigerians warned against, not out of hatred for Islam, but out of respect for balance. When religious balance is removed from the top, it sends a message. When a foreign power with Islamist leanings becomes your preferred security partner, it stops being coincidence and starts looking like direction”.With sentiments like this, the religious imbalance of the ticket will be further highlighted and amplified by the contrast of a balanced ticket of the opposition party. The assumption remains that the Tinubu/Shetimma ticket will subsist.

This season has equally witnessed the novelty of the ideology of a Yoruba hegemony that has forcefully challenged and seeks to supplant the status quo ante of Northern muslim hegemony. The conspiracy theory is that when the latter is not directly in power, it seeks to rule by the proxy of beneficiaries who feel indebted to pay back the ‘loan’ facilitated by the assumed electoral/political dominance which attributes a preponderance of registered voters to the North. The enabler of this hegemony is the all powerful center invested by the pseudo unitarist constitution to become a leviathan. As such, it has the latitude to suppress or destroy any contending and coordinating centres of power.

What is unique about the Tinubu presidency is that no president or head of state of Southern origin has deployed this kind of zero sum autonomy. More so, in an unambiguous defiance of its erstwhile custodians who helped propel him to power. What is not so strategic about the deployment is the lack of concurrent mobilisation of the South-South and the South- East zones. Beyond the fulfilment of the North/South power rotation principle, many people are disinclined to heed any Northern grievance on account of the region’s disinclination to grapple with the root cause of the problem through constitutional reforms. They see no reason to pay heed to any aspirant from the North, coming to exploit this vulnerability, leaving the pernicious political status quo unreformed.

Nonetheless, Nigeria will always fight shy of one party dictatorship so long as there is cause (real or contrived) for ethnoregional grievance and alienation. Since 1951 and in one form or another, Nigerian political parties have been rooted in the three regions which have themselves mutated into the present 36 states. So, today, you have the political elite of the North, who, upon being precluded from the customary access to patronage and preferment, has expressed its grievance by construing itself as the base of the emergent opposition coalition. A disaffection that is indicated in the abortive coup attempt whose manpower is near exclusive to the North.

Allied with this Northern base is the equally aggrieved South East, long consigned to the margins of political power and the attendant deprivation. Hence, the inevitability of the emergence of the African Democratic Coalition, ADC, with Vice President Atiku Abubakar and Governor Peter Obi as the personification. The issue that will immediately arise is the ‘dialectics of irreconcilable intra party interests’ The idealistic obidients have been talking tough about ‘Obi or nothing’ They expect him to lead or step aside—not to deputize.

In typical Obidients defiance, their spokespersons inveighed against the ADC publicity secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, that the Obidients are a ‘symbol of identity and political awakening which didn’t emerge from division but from years of political betrayal, broken promises, and a generation tired of recycled leadership. The Peter Obi or nothing slogan did not appear in a vacuum, it is rooted in political history and citizens’ frustrations. “Peter Obi or nothing” expresses a refusal to return to “politics as usual.” For many young Nigerians, Obi represents competence, transparency and a break from patronage politics”.

Surprisingly, the statement does not entirely rule out cooperation and concession. It argues that the slogan is less about rejecting others and more about affirming a political identity, that instead of “scolding or tone-policing them, a smarter response would’ve acknowledged our frustration, respected our passion,and encouraged broader coalition‑building without blaming the base. Movements grow through inclusion, not lectures,”.

Now, the chances of Atiku emerging as the ADC Presidential candidate is disproportionately high. In what it takes to win primaries in Nigeria, he towers heads and shoulders above his rivals, Rotimi Amaechi and Obi. The latter is constrained by two contradictory pulls of the Obidients idealism and the South East realpolitik. In my contemplation of the choice of location for the Obi declaration for the ADC at Enugu, I surmise that, first : The preponderance of the personalities at the declaration were allies and associates of Vice President Atiku Abubakar, suggesting they were the motive force behind the occasion.

Second is that the choice of Enugu as the fit and proper venue for the event equally suggests that it was a South East political statement. Many political leaders from the zone appeared to have come to the conclusion that alliance with the North and Atiku is the most practical route to the elusive presidency. Trending otherwise are speculations that the Godfather of Kano politics, Rabiu Kwankwaso, will join the ADC and run with Obi. If this (genuinely) materialises, it will be a formidable challenge to Tinubu. I remain skeptical on this because I personally find it difficult to believe that the advertised fallout between Kwankwaso and his protege, Governor Kabir Yusuf, is real. There are those who believe that all the drama is made up taqqiya. The emergence of Rotimi Amaechi cannot be ruled. He remains a possible dark horse: intra‑coalition frictions between Obi and Atiku could create space for a third‑way beneficiary.