FORMER Secretary to the Government of the Federation, (SGF), Boss Mustapha, raised the political barometer in the country a notch higher last week when said that President Bola Tinubu did not play any significant role in the election that brought former President Muhammadu Buhari to power in 2015.
According to Mustapha, Buhari, who died just yesterday, entered the 2015 presidential contest with 12 million ‘sure’ votes from his devoted followers in the North, while the legacy parties in the merger that led to the formation of the All Progressive Congress (APC), contributed a meagre three million votes to his victory. The legacy parties he was referring to are the now defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP), a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), as well as the breakaway faction in the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
Let me quote him: “For us in the ACN, I do not intend to stir any controversy, but I will make bold to state this, that the merger in 2013 was midwifed to present a Buhari or create a Buhari Presidency because we looked at the statistics of the votes that were coming to the table. In the 2003 election, it was the Obasanjo/Buhari presidential contest where Buhari recorded 12.7 million votes. In 2007, it came down to 6.6 million, it went back to 12.2 million in 2011.
When we were conceptualizing the merger, what would give us a head start and obviously, it was at the back of our consciousness that the merger with the CPC, though it had only one state, the ACN had six states, ANPP three states, and when you sum up the total votes that gave us the presidency in 2015, the aggregate of the total votes was 15.4 million. So, basically, what we brought to the table after the merger outside the Buhari’s 12.5 million votes was three million.”
Mustapha spoke at the launch of the Book titled: ‘According to the President: Lessons from a Presidential Spokesman’s Experience’, written by Garba Shehu, the former Senior Special Assistant in Media and Publicity to the then President Buhari.
Mustapha told the world that he did not intend to stir any controversy, but that was exactly what he did with that statement. As expected, there was immediate push back from the Presidency with Temitope Ajayi, the Senior Special Assistant to President Tinubu on Media and Public Affairs, describing Mustapha’s comments as a “disservice to our recent history”. He said without Tinubu’s political strength and strategic mobilisation, Buhari would not have secured the presidential ticket of the APC in the first place, let alone contest and win the presidential election.
“There was no way he (Buhari) would have won the election to be President without first becoming the presidential candidate of his party, APC. General Buhari would not have won the APC primary election at the Teslim Balogun Stadium, Lagos, in 2014 without President Tinubu, who mobilised the APC governors and the South West delegates to move Buhari’s way”.
He further argued that while Buhari had a consistent support base of around 12 million votes from the North, it took Tinubu’s backing and strategic alliance-building to translate that into a nationwide victory. “Buhari had his 12 million captive Northern votes, yet he lost three presidential elections in 2003, 2007, and 2011. Every effort and support that made it possible for President Buhari to win should never be diminished.”
Twenty-four hours after the salvo from Mustapha, Vice President Kashim Shettima also took a subtle jab at his boss, Bola Tinubu, when he said that former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration wanted to remove him as Governor of Borno State but for the intervention of the then Attorney-General of the Federation, Mohammed Bello Adoke, and the then Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, who made it clear to Jonathan that he lacked the power to remove an elected councillor, not to talk of a state Governor elected by the people.
Again, Shettima made the revelation in Abuja during the public presentation of Adoke’s memoir, OPL 245: Inside Story of the $1.3 Billion Nigerian Oil Block.
Shettima said that Tambuwal and Adoke were courageous enough to tell Jonathan that he lacked the constitutional authority to remove even an elected councillor, let alone a sitting governor.
Just few months back, President Tinubu, who is Shettima’s boss, not only suspended the elected Governor of Rivers’ State, Siminalayi Fubara, but also sacked all the 31 members of the Rivers State House of Assembly for six months. The questions many political analysts are asking is if Shettima is subtly distancing himself from the decision taken by his boss to suspend Fubara for six months.
The salvo from Boss Mustapha, coming at a period when the permutation for the 2027 general elections is up in the air, is an indication that the North is not well disposed to a Tinubu second-term and there is a palpable push to put the North behind the opposition, the Africa Democratic Congress (ADC), in their bid to take over power come 2027. A sure way of doing that is to whittle down Tinubu’s perceived political invisibility by reminding him that he brought only three million votes to the coalition that brought Buhari to power while the North alone gave him over 12 million votes in 2015.
Aside from that, the opposition from the North believes that it would serve their purpose better if Buhari is used as the face of the opposition in the North in their desire to give Tinubu a bloody nose come 2027. Indeed, during the last Sallah celebration, Buhari’s home in Kaduna was turned into a Mecca of sorts as various interest groups trooped to his house to pay Sallah homage.
Leading the pack was Nasir El-rufai, former Governor of Kaduna State and a leading member of the ADC, who told reporters that he was in Buhari’s home to brief him of his decision to leave the APC, citing a growing misalignment between his personal values and the current direction of the APC as the primary reason for his decision. El-Rufai has been a vocal critic of the Tinubu’s administration after he was not cleared by the Senate for a ministerial position due to an unfavourable security report on him.
Apart from El-rufai, other leading members of the APC that have found a new home in the ADC include former National Chairman of the party, Abdullahi Adamu; former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, as well as former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal. Many of them make up the intellectual group within the defunct CPC.
Few days after El-Rufai’s visit to Buhari, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar also led former Governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal, amongst other notable politicians on a Sallah homage to Buhari in Kaduna. In a swift move, the APC National Working Committee, led by former National Chairman, Abdullahi Ganduje, also stormed Buhari’s residence to pay homage.
There was a follow up visit on the former president by APC Governors who pleaded with Buhari to halt the defections of prominent northern politicians to the opposition, promising that the party would address the grievances of his loyalists. Buhari has told his loyalists that he has no desire to leave the APC but that he could not stop those who are bent on leaving.
However, the conservative bloc within the CPC, led by the former Governor of Nasarawa State, Umar Tanko Al-Makura, has made it clear that the CPC has no intention of breaking away or aligning with the ADC. “We remain loyal to our party, the APC, and firmly supportive of the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu,” Senator Al-Makura declared. Al-Makura emphasized that the ideals that initially brought the CPC into the APC fold principles centered on progressivism, discipline, and national development remain alive and binding. “We will not enter into any form of coalition against President Tinubu. The majority of us who came from CPC are firmly behind this administration,” he said.
The CPC bloc’s unwavering stance may influence other factions within the party and further solidify the APC’s unity in the lead-up to 2027. For now, the message is clear: despite the undercurrents of political realignment sweeping across the country, the CPC wing of the APC is standing firm—united, loyal, and ready to support the Tinubu presidency into the next political chapter.
Tinubu is well aware of the mounting opposition to his administration in the North and this underscores the ongoing realignments and permutations in the APC. The decision to drop Ganduje as APC chairman and the rumour that Shettima may be dropped as running mate to Tinubu in 2027 are some of the strategic moves coming from his end to get sizable number of votes from the region. The expected opposition from the North is also responsible for his desperation to capture more states from the South ahead of the 2027 elections. The defection of Delta State Governor, Seriff Oborevwore; former Delta Governor, Okowa; Akwa Ibom Governor, Umo Eno, and several others in the South into the APC fold was to ensure that 2027 was a done deal for the Jagaban Borgu.
Going back to the Mustapha salvo, it is quite sad that the former SGF is trying to rewrite history when most of the participants are still alive. The truth is that there wouldn’t have been a Buhari presidency without copious mention of Tinubu. He, it was, that went to Katsina to plead with Buhari to run in 2015 after he failed to clinch the top job on three different occasions and vowed not to contest again. In the build up to the election in 2015, Buhari was down financially, and it was Tinubu that provided most of the funds used to fund the election. Billions of Naira from the funds of the Lagos State government also went into the election on the instruction of Tinubu.
If Tinubu wasn’t that important in the 2015 election that brought Buhari to power, why was the Vice Presidency slot ceded to him? It is on record that it was Tinubu that nominated Vice President Yemi Osinbajo to the President after he requested for three names from Tinubu. While no one can say Tinubu single-handedly made Buhari President, it would be dis-ingenious for Mustapha to rubbish his contribution to Buhari’s victory.
Zainab Galadima, daughter of a prominent Northern politician, Buba Galadima, has already told Tinubu that the North is angry with him and that he should not expect their support come 2027. She predicted that Tinubu may not get more than 30 per cent of the votes from the North and he is well aware of the hurdles ahead.
With two years before the polls, Tinubu can still turn the tide if he prioritises the welfare of the masses, battle inflation, to ensure that the price of foodstuff reduces and frontally tackles insecurity in all parts of the country. The battle ahead would be quite interesting. May the soul of former President Buhari rest in peace.
See you next week…
- Akintunde is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Glittersonline newspaper. His syndicated column, Monday Discourse, appears on News Point Nigeria newspaper on Mondays.