THE THIRD WHEEL: TOO LATE TO RIDE

Nigeria as a nation has always been notorious for having the patience of a suckling baby crying for milk, nothing else matters but nipples to our tiny mouth to satisfy. Our thirst quenched for the moment and a smile of accomplishment beams as we make a mock face of victory. But no sooner had the child suckled than he got hungry again. And the crying continues and the cycle continues too. We have always been a nation that lives by the tenets of the now. A people of convenience and a nation of the present. This is the very nature that characterized the fall of the initial attempt at forming a formidable coalition against the APDPC as someone described them.

Whereas, planning is sancrosanct to most developed and developing nations of the earth, trust the average Nigerian to leave it until it is too late. We are most active once Lazarus is dead, because the physicians here claim that they understand how to cure death. But the medicine to cure sickness before it leads to death they didn’t learn.

There has been so many epic moments in our action packed game of thrones, as the race to the throne gets steeper. After the botched presidential debate on Saturday, January 19, 2019, the nation’s political space as witnessed a lot of back and forth dracula movements and antics.

The candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, the primed opponent of the incumbent, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, swiftly released bold claims that he has the list of thirty corrupt individuals in the Buhari’s camp. He went ahead to mention quite notably, the national leader of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the great Jagaban himself, also the currently embattled Rotimi Amaechi, as though his purported damning leaked tapes were not enough a torture.

Alhaji Atiku’s name calling was very strategic as it coincided quite conveniently with the Obasanjo’s rantings in form of open letters. Obasanjo in his ranting compared Buhari’s government to that of his former employer’s, Sani Abacha, now reconcile this with a list of highly questionable characters in his government and then you will now that winter is may truly be coming for the man from Daura.

The other frys in the fringes: the Tyrions of Nigeria, Kingsley Moghalu, Jon Snow, Fela Durotoye, may be bending the knee for the Queen of dragons, Mama Oby. However, unlike Khaelesis, Mama Oby may not be too desperate for the iron throne anymore. So these guys round off an action packed month of amazing power play with the suggestions of the Queen of dragons that they need to unite their political mights together. That maybe as a united front they can deliver a full punch to the Night King and his Nemesis.

Now, this is where the challenge is, if it will now work. Because this was the what they tried to achieve in the very first episode of season one. Madame Oby had been brought in as an independent umpire to oversee a transparent election among a narrow pool of fourteen persons to pick among themselves a unity candidate under the Presidential Aspirants Coming Together, PACT, arrangement. But like a pack or Domino’s it came crashing down even before the first ballot was cast. And although at the end of the two stage voting process a winner was declared in the person of Fela Durotoye, Omoyele Sowore and Kingsley Moghalu had almost immediately reneged on the agreement.

The simple fact was that everyone of them entered the arrangement with their personal interests still alive and so it was either they win or PACT wouldn’t stand. This is because each one of them feel like the next best creation after Ijebu garri, and so immediately each went his way to push their interests to the front. And it wasn’t a big deal when the Queen mother also threw her hat into the ring to join the race to King’s landing.

The ideals of the PACT arrangement was a noble one, at least in principle. It was to help harness the different strengths of the new little geniuses that came on the scene. Sowore appeals to the activities, student unions and generally the “aje-kpakos” of Nigeria. His speech isn’t laden with the hypnotic feel and elite swag of Fela Durotoye and the thoughtfulness and economic pedigree of Moghalu, together their forces would have been able to get around a few millions to make a decision for them by the ballot. Individually they don’t amount to much, no insult intended, but they only cater to their caliber of persons in Nigeria. Alone I doubt if any one of them could muster a hundred thousand votes, label me a doubting Thomas or a man of little faith and I would not argue. Unfortunately, my position may be a little sound politically. However, as a unified force? I am tempted to scale the bar around a million or two and even the impossible may happen. But that would have been if they handled the PACT arrangement well and worked together as a team from the very first episode.

Now, maybe three seasons after and a hundred episodes in between, Madam Oby feels the need to retort back to the third wheel argument. She was given the golden opportunity to midwife the birth of a new baby under the prophecy of an infamous prophet of doom. When he prophesied and “prophet-lied” about it the third force coalition to wrestle power off the hands of the two ancient wise men. Madam Oby after the incident of the debate and seeing the great disrespect shown by these ancient men and how it didn’t even do as much as a dent to their political ambitions, finally saw through the coloured prism of her interest. Now she has withdrawn from the race.

Now, she is ready to drop her personal crown and become nonpartisan again. She is ready to drive the interest of the nation’s above hers and with that announced her withdrawal from the race with keen interest to pushing the formation of the third wheel. Fela Durotoye taking a cue from her, also announced his readiness to submit to a third wheel arrangement, which I must admit is a noble gesture of comradeship. Although, Fela Durotoye is still very much in the race unlike madam Oby.

However, while this is a good development, it is essentially an attempt to glue broken pieces of eggshells together, it is simply futile. From where I sit, I can tell that the likes of Moghalu and Sowore are in this race for the end win or lose and none will step down for the other, not even to the ridicule of being deputies to each other.

I have followed both of them and I can tell that Sowore feels like the best thing after Agege bread and that he’s better prepared than Moghalu or anyone else to seize power from Atiku and Buhari. Moghalu on the other hand, feels he is the most prepared presidential aspirant after Abraham Lincoln in the world and that Sowore is just a lousy lot in the pool. So as strong personalities that they are in their respective climes, it will be near impossible to try to bring them together in a room that is not for a debate on who is better prepared.

Personally, I am particularly interested in giving the tricycle system a trial at this year’s elections, enough of the motorcycle rhetorics of the past. I was really hopeful that the PACT arrangement would be able to muster a solid front and alternative to these two bad choices. But it was a golden fish that arrived dead in its aquarium.

The update on the status of Madam Oby’s bold move on the chess board is not too promising: her political party alienated her afterwards and adopted Buhari as its candidate. While INEC said to madam Oby that “you are over two months and a half late to withdraw from the presidential race as deadline was in November.”

So as typical Nigerians, madame Oby’s withdrawal from the race is an attempt at trying to wake a dead man. When months and weeks ago she had the chance of getting him up by administering a simple tablet of aspirin. Now, he is dead and they claim they only learnt the medicine of necromancy, let us continue to watch, maybe there is more to abracadabra than a magic wand can weave.

The stakes were taken a notch higher when the Social Democratic Party, after an endless battle in court on who was the rightful owner of the presidential tickets, have decided to adopt the candidate of the APC. And so, all those who were praying for a miracle at having the fine Cross River gentleman, Donald Duke become president would have to wait until next elections.

The sentiments after the withdrawal of Madam Oby was such that Fela Durotoye, Omoyele Sowore and Kingsley Moghalu would consider another attempt at coalition. However, they are in my opinion an election year late already and any attempt at joining force will simply split their individual votes by half. So while it is a noble gesture to try to come together and pull in their voters into one camp, it is too late. They are better off going at the polls on their own as they have been doing for the past few weeks. If each is able to get a total vote across the nation in any region above 100,000 then they could go with that victory into 2023. Maybe then they would have become politically wise and under that in the game of politics, interest is key and pulling forces together can ensure victory. After all, Atiku is not without the help of Bukola Saraki and other fellow aspirants. Neither is Buhari anything without the help and influence of Bola Tinubu and others.

All hope is not lost however, the third wheel seem to gain more air pressure pumped into it, when the candidate of the Alliance for Democracy, AD, has decided to throw the hat for Omoyele Sowore. He has gone ahead to make a boisterous claim of adding four millions votes across the nation to the X number Sowore could garner by himself. I guess when we get the final votes after February 16 we can compute what X truly means.

It is not only Sowore’s camp that seems to be having hopes at resuscitation, as Kingsley Moghalu could not have caught a more golden fish join him than the Literature heavyweight himself, Prof. Wole Soyinka. This is good news indeed for the young professor and like a defibrillator, it can jump start his chances by a few volts or should I say votes.

The most unfortunate part of this story is that, rather than having just a single third wheel fighting against the two wheelers, we are faced with many third wheels. That the mere thought of the alternative choice around us cripple many of us. And then to the larger group of intelligent voters, they cannot shake away the thought that a vote aside the two wheeler system amounted to a waste of vote. So maybe if we had gotten it right from the beginning, maybe if these young men had come together and joined their little drops of rain, they would have made more than a splash come February 16. But all hope is not lost.

As an incurable optimist that I have been known to be mostly, I am never one to be caught saying never. So maybe, just maybe, they can make the third wheel work and drive us away from the land of okadas.

Now, who is the doubting Thomas?