Osinbajo-Ganduje posters flood Abuja amid quiet politicking for 2023 presidential race

There has been a rash of quiet politicking and jostling for the nation’s topmost job in 2023 when President Muhammadu Buhari would have rounded off his constitutional two terms in office.

Advocates and strategists have upped their games to secure nationwide approbation and validation for their preferred candidates.

Supporters of a number of presidential hopefuls have devised strategies of letting Nigerians into the know that their principals are either interested in the presidency or are being nudged to throw their hat in the ring.

The latest evidence of this to hit Abuja are the posters of a group called the “Osinbajo-Ganduje Alliance”.

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The posters emerged on Saturday as support groups are beginning to roll out posters and position themselves ahead of the 2023 presidential election.

The posters read: “Osinbajo-Ganduje Alliance (OGA), For Better Nigeria OGA Na Master.”

A statement signed by Messrs Oluleke Moses and Bello Adamu Mohammed of the Osinbajo-Ganduje Alliance support group says, “Vice President Osinbajo and Governor Ganduje have both offered the most plausible solutions to ending the security crisis occasioned by the farmer-herders’ crisis across the country.

“We believe that if power rotates to the South, Osinbajo is best placed to unite, heal and inspire our great nation.

“We also firmly believe that Ganduje’s antecedents as Governor of Kano make him the perfect Northern vice presidential candidate to Osinbajo; one who will advance and protect the interests of a Northern Nigeria plagued by poverty and insecurity.”

Most political pundits believe that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo is quietly nursing a presidential ambition, while Governor Abdullahi Ganduje, whose tenure ends in 2023, has publicly expressed his support for a Southern President.

The group said the ticket is formidable and with support by Nigerians, it would win the election to continue the APC government’s development agenda.

The governing All Progressives Congress (APC) is most likely to zone its presidential ticket (position) to the South of Nigeria, after eight years of Buhari’s presidency.

This is based on a purported gentleman’s agreement reached among the founding members of APC in 2014.

Kano in North West Nigeria is renowned for its politics, and boasts of the largest voter turn-out figures in Nigeria.

Lagos, Osinbajo’s first political base where he served in the administration of Governor Bola Tinubu as Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, (though an indigene of Ogun) has arguably become the hub of political influence and activity in the South of Nigeria.

As concerns around Tinubu’s health and age have grown, there is mounting opposition to Tinubu’s ambition within the APC; and more politicians and pundits in the South are beginning to talk and play up the prospects of younger Turks within the APC like Prof. Osinbajo, Gov. Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State and the former governor of Lagos, Babatunde Fashola (SAN).

Gov. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, a PhD holder in Public Administration, who served his defeated erstwhile political godfather Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso, then as deputy governor in Kano, belongs to a moderate group in the APC and North that believes the next President of Nigeria should come from the South.

Pairing a sitting Vice President from the second largest voting zone in Nigeria with a governor from the largest voting zone in the country could be a political masterstroke for votes in 2023.

However, as the APC appears to have conceded that power rotates to the south, and as consensus appears to be growing around Prof. Osinbajo’s candidacy, it is anticipated that the contest for the Vice presidential slot among Northern APC politicians will start to assume the center stage.

No official reactions have come from the Vice President’s or Governor Ganduje’s offices on this development that would appear to be pushing them somewhat too early into the presidential fray.