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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
NIGERIA: Focus on political parties' campaign strategies
LAGOS, 25 March 2003 (IRIN) - Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo began his campaign for re-election in "hostile" territory this month. Makurdi, the city in central Nigeria where, on 1 March, he addressed his first rally since winning the ruling party's nomination in January, is the capital of Benue State, where troops acting on his orders raided several villages in October 2001, killing hundreds of civilians in reprisal for the killing of 19 soldiers by a local militia.
Obasanjo did not receive an easy welcome to Makurdi despite making an earlier trip to the city in January to apologise - for the first time - for those killings. On the eve of his visit hundreds of protesters poured out onto the streets, denouncing his planned rally, until police dispersed them with teargas and arrested suspected leaders. It took a heavy police presence to ensure that the president campaigned in Benue without incident.
Obasanjo had scored a sweeping victory in Benue in the 1999 election that ended more than 15 years of military rule in Africa's most populous country. But after the army killings his popularity in the state, which is the heartland of the politically vital Middle Belt region, plummeted.
Opposition politicians have since begun to look at Benue as one of the states they would pluck from the grip of the ruling party in their bid to deafeat the former military ruler at the polls.
"It was very important to us that we had that rally in Makurdi," Terna Iyorse, a PDP supporter, told IRIN. "After the unfortunate incidents of 2001 it seemed as if the President's rating in the state was at an all-time low, so the party decided to take on the most difficult task first."
Muhammadu Buhari, the presidential candidate of the main opposition All Nigeria People's Party (ANPP) is widely seen as Obasanjo's main rival for the presidency. Like the president, he was a former military ruler. But while Buhari is a Muslim Hausa-Fulani from the north, Obasanjo is a Yoruba Christian from the southwest. In a Nigeria riven with deep ethnic and regional rivalries, where one comes from always counts in politics.
Acutely aware of this of this factor, the two front-runners have had to make very strategic choices of running-mates.
Obasanjo has retained Vice President Atiku Abubakar, a northerner and a Muslim, in the hope of winning a substantial number of votes from the region as he did in the last election. Buhari, for his part, chose Chuba Okadigbo, a former university professor and an Igbo from the southeast. Okadigbo had been elected a senator on the platform of the ruling PDP four years ago but switched loyalty to the ANPP last year.
Buhari has also moved to distance himself from his perceived support of Shari'ah, the strict Islamic legal system adopted by 12 states in the Muslim north in the past three years. Where Buhari had been reported in the past as backing Shari'ah punishments such as amputation for stealing and death by stoning for adultery, he has been reported recently in his campaigns as saying he would respect Nigeria's constitution - contradicted by these penalties - if he became president.
His choice of Okadigbo is also significant. Nigeria's southeast, dominated by the Igbo - the third biggest of Nigeria's more than 250 ethnic groups - had failed in an attempt to secede as Biafra in the late 1960s. Since the defeat of Biafra in 1970, people from the region have accused successive governments of marginalisation. Obasanjo is widely perceived in the region to have intensified the marginalisation and his political rivals have been all too eager to capitalise on the apparent resentment.
Former Biafran secessionist leader Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, who is the presidential candidate of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), is pitching his campaign on redressing perceived injustice against the southeast since the end of the civil war. If he wins, Ojukwu said, he intends to devolve more powers to Nigeria's regions, to give the people a greater measure of self-determination.
By so doing he also hopes to leave the central government substantially weakened and undeserving of the desperate attentions of power-seekers. To improve his chances of winning, Ojukwu has chosen Sani Bayero, a northern Muslim from the royal family of the north's biggest city, Kano.
The Alliance for Democracy (AD), which with the PDP and ANPP took part in the 1999 elections, is not offering a presidential candidate for the April ballot. The party, which swept the six states in the ethnic Yoruba region of southwestern Nigeria, has adopted Obasanjo - who is from the area - as its presidential candidate as part of a deal reached with the ruling party.
Four years ago AD had backed Obasanjo's rival at the polls, Olu Falae, accusing the president of being a stooge of powerful interests in the mainly Muslim north. But during his current tenure, the president favoured the region with strategic appointments both in the armed forces and government and appears to have won over the most influential political personalities from the southwest. Whereas he won scant votes among the Yoruba four years, he is expected to score a massive victory in the southwest in the coming polls.
The Yoruba are the second largest ethnic group in Nigeria. The largest are the Hausa-Fulani of the north.
"What the leading parties in Nigeria have a common is the lack of any programme saying what they would do to improve living standards," political analyst Paul Obodoukwu told IRIN. "None is talking about improving water and electricity supply, building roads and improving education. They are all basically playing on ethnic sentiments."
The difference appears to be with a group of some 25 smaller political parties, registered for the polls after a prolonged legal battle against stiff conditions imposed by the electoral commission. They have been weighing the option of choosing "a consensus candidate".
Most are left-leaning and have tried to bring up issues related to living standards and the country's poor economic performance in the midst of huge resources in their campaigns.
Lawyer and human rights activist Gani Fawehinmi is being touted as a possible candidate for the parties, but some members of the coalition have begun to shown signs of dissension, with at least seven offering presidential candidates of their own.
"If the parties can unite, there is a chance they can make an impact and offer a viable alternative to the main parties," said Obodoukwu. "Otherwise, Obasanjo stands the best chance of making it back to the presidency."
Themes: (IRIN) Governance
[ENDS]
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