The Yorubas say, ọ̀bọ ń gbé ọ̀bọ gun ọ̀pẹ (a helpless monkey offering another a leg-up the palm tree), a proverb about the theatre of mutual incapacity, and it has rarely found a more perfect illustration than the African Democratic Congress ticket of Atiku Abubakar and Rotimi Amaechi.
Atiku’s emergence as the ADC flag-bearer was invalidated last week by a Federal High Court in Abuja, which nullified the David Mark-led leadership of the party and every decision taken under it, including the primary that produced him. Not surprised, his response was vintage Atiku: a personally signed statement insisting, “I am in this race. I am not going anywhere”. To me, his defiance is admirable, but not a legal submission. His lawyers are now seeking a stay of execution, a polite way of asking the court to pretend it didn’t mean what it said. A candidate who cannot secure the legal existence of his own party is in no position to rescue a country.
Then there is the running mate, Rotimi Amaechi, who has spent the past week confessing, with the air of a man unburdening himself on a therapist’s couch, that former President late Buhari promised him the APC presidential ticket in writing, told him not to campaign, and then failed to honour the commitment. He said, and I quote, “The first mistake that I made at that primary was that I listened to President Buhari,” he told a Lagos radio station. He added that he could have won had he done deals, promising governors the vice-presidency and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation. This is not a statesman’s lament; it is a gambler’s regret. He is not complaining that the game was rigged. He is complaining that he did not rig it better.
The ADC calls this pairing a “unity and rescue ticket”. But a rescue party whose presidential candidate is legally suspended from the ballot and whose deputy is still auditioning for victimhood is not a rescue party. It is a support group. Amaechi was betrayed by Buhari; Atiku has been betrayed by the courts. Together, they propose to rescue Nigeria from the depredations of more competent malefactors. The logic escapes scrutiny.
There is a deeper maladroitness here. Atiku’s statement that “Bola cannot use the courts to escape the judgment of Nigerians” is richly ironic coming from a man whose own candidacy has just been nullified by a court. One does not escape the courts by appealing to the people; one escapes them by winning in court. Amaechi, meanwhile, has managed to make his own betrayal the centrepiece of a campaign that is supposed to be about the country’s future. The public is not interested in whether Buhari broke a promise. It is interested in whether either of these men can govern. On the evidence of this ticket, the answer is a helpless monkey’s promise. They are two candidates ascending a palm tree that leads nowhere