The Nigerian 2023 Elections
About the Major 2023 Presidential Candidates
Bola Ahmed Tinubu
The early life of the APC Presidential candidate, Ahmed Bola Tinubu is mired in mystery to date as no authentic publication can give one any detail with certainty. Based on the several newspaper articles on his birthdays, Ahmed Bola Tinubu was born on 29th march, 1952. He spent some of his adolescent life in southwestern Nigeria before moving to the United States in his adult life. He was reported to have worked for Mobil Nigeria as an accountant upon his return to Nigeria, before entering politics as a Lagos West senatorial candidate in 1992 under the banner of the Social Democratic Party. That electoral process which was based on an experimental creation of two political parties by the military administration of General Ibrahim Babangida, asking people to just join any of the two they so choose, was later annulled by the same General Babangida Administration in 1993.
Tinubu’s name first came to the limelight in national politics when he became a prominent member of the National Democratic Coalition NADECO, a movement formed to challenge the nation over the annulment of that 1993 elections that made him a Senator, and a kin of his by ethnicity, Moshood Abiola the Presidential candidate favored to win before annulment.
NADECO’s main support base was from the diaspora, where Tinubu resides until his return later to run for the governor of Lagos state in 1999 during the first electoral process that followed the 1993 annulment. Ahmed Tinubu became the governor of Lagos State for two terms from 1999-2007 under the political party called Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN. That party ACN later formed a coalition with the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, of the now President Muhammadu Buhari to strengthen the two opposition parties towards unseating the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, in the 2015 elections. The strategy worked and Muhammadu Buhari became president, and Tinubu remained the APC party leader afterwards, until his nomination as APC presidential candidate in June of 2022.
Atiku Abubakar
Not much can be said also about the early life of the PDP Presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar except that he was born November 25, 1946 in Jada to Aisha Kande his mother, and Garba Abubakar his father. According to an interview he conducted with Vanguard and published on 28 September, 2014, Atiku Abubakar has only one sister who died in infancy, and his father died by drowning when Atiku was 11 years, in 1957, while crossing a river from Jada his village to Toungo another village.
Abubakar attended Jada Primary School. Having graduated in 1960 he went to Adamawa Provincial School, and later Police College in Kaduna, but did not graduate due to lack of o-level math. He later studied for a one-year diploma from Kano School of Hygiene, then on to Ahmadu bello University for diploma in Law, 1967-1969.
Atiku Abubakar later worked for the Nigeria Customs Service for twenty years, rising to become the Deputy Director, before he retired in April 1989 and took up full-time business and politics.
He remained in business but contested various political positions which he continued to lose. Wikipedia summarized it thus: “Atiku Abubakar has unsuccessfully contested five times for the Office of President of Nigeria in 1993, 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019. In 1993, he contested the Social Democratic Party presidential primaries losing to Moshood Abiola and Baba Gana Kingibe; in the 2007 presidential election he polled third to Umaru Yar'Adua of the PDP and Muhammadu Buhari of the ANPP. He contested the presidential primaries of the People's Democratic Party during the 2011 and lost out to former President Goodluck Jonathan. In 2014, he joined the All Progressives Congress ahead of the 2015 presidential election and contested the presidential primaries losing to Muhammadu Buhari. In 2017, he returned to the People’s Democratic Party and was the party presidential candidate during the 2019 presidential election, again losing to incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari.”
Until his nomination to run for Presidential elections under the banner of PDP, Atiku Abubakar’s only successful experience in politics is confined to the 8-year as Vice President of the PDP during the Olusegun Obasanjo Administration, 1999-2007.
Peter Obi
Peter Gregory Obi, the Presidential candidate for the Labor Party oy Nigeria, is the youngest of the three political candidates. He was reported to be born in July of 1961, in Onitsha, Anambra State. He attended Christ the King College, Onitsha, for his secondary school education and the University of Nigeria, Nsukka from 1980 to 1984, where he graduated with a B.A. (Hons) in philosophy.
His political career was a truly checkered governorship tenure beginning in 2003 to 2014. Wikipedia summarized his political career thus: “Peter Obi contested in the Anambra State Governorship Election as a candidate for the All-Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) party in 2003, but his opponent, Chris Ngige of the People's Democratic Party, was declared winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) so Obi went to court. After nearly three years of litigation, Ngige's victory was overturned by the Court of Appeal on 15 March 2006. Obi took office on 17 March 2006 only to be impeached on 2 November 2006, by the state house of assembly and replaced the next day by Virginia Etiaba, his deputy, making her the first-ever female governor in Nigeria's history. Obi successfully challenged his impeachment and was re-instated as the governor in February 2007.
Three months after that, Peter Obi once again left office on 29 May 2007 following the General Elections, in which Andy Uba was declared the winner by the electoral body. Obi returned to the courts once more, this time contending that the four-year tenure he had won in the 2003 elections only started to run when he took office in March 2006. On 14 June 2007 the Supreme Court of Nigeria upheld Obi's contention and returned Obi to office. This brought to an abrupt end the tenure of Obi's successor, Andy Uba whose 14 April 2007 election the Supreme Court nullified on the grounds that Obi's four-year tenure should have remained undisturbed until March 2010.”
Peter Obi declared his intention to run for the position of President of Nigeria on 24th March, 2022 under the platform of the People’s Democratic Party, but later announced he has resigned his membership of PDP, and would be running for President under the Labor Party platform instead.
Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso
One of four Presidential candidates vying for the Presidency in the 2023 elections is Senator Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso of a newly registered political party called New Nigeria People Party, NNPP. Though the party is new to Nigerians, and his candidacy one of the last to be announced, the former state Governor and Senator from Kano seems to have the most credible experience in politics than the three contenders. Experience may not be the only criterion for effectiveness and capacity to lead, but surely the Kwankwaso candidacy is one of the most credible of the four in terms of comprehensive experience.
Senator Kwankwaso was reportedly born 21 October, 1956 in Madabo to a dagaci of the village (village head). He attended local elementary school in his village, Kwankwaso Primary School, Gwarzo Boarding Senior Primary School, Wudil Craft School and Kano Technical College before proceeding to Kaduna Polytechnic. He later went abroad where he obtained his masters degree in water engineering
His political career began in 1992, when he was elected a member of the House of Representatives representing Madobi Federal Constituency under the umbrella of the experimental Social democratic Party, SDP, of the Babangida Military Administration which was later scrapped. Subsequently however, he went headlong into politics as the first civilian governor of Kano under current presidential style democracy from 1999-2003. He lost reelection to Malam Ibrahim Shekarau of ANPP in 2003, but returned to the seat for another four years between 2011-2015.
Virtually, since his entry into politics in 1999, he has held one high office after another at state or federal level; from state governor, to Minister of Defense, to Senator from Kano Central Senatorial District May 2015 to May 2019.
On 14th July, 2022, Senator Kwankwaso announced his choice of Bishop Isaac Idahosa, 57, as his running-mate. Idahosa is the presiding Bishop and Senior Pastor of the God First Ministry, Lekki Light Centre, Ajah. An indigene of Edo State, he is a trained Automobile Engineer from the Kaduna Polytechnic, with masters and doctoral degrees in theology.