Election analysis: Nigeria’s ruling party convention and President Buhari’s succession plan

Nigeria’s All Progressives Congress (APC) held a convention on 26 March to choose new leaders as it prepares for the 2023 general elections. The procedure highlighted President Muhammadu Buhari’s supremacy within the ruling party. He ordered the party to adopt his own candidate Abdullahi Adamu as its new chairman and form the rest of the leadership using a list of pre-determined candidates. By this, the president is trying to arrange a succession and has set the tone for the APC’s presidential primary that will be held around May. He will have picked the party’s eventual nominees before then and the event will largely be ceremonial.

Significance - Supremacy

Infighting preceded the APC convention held last weekend such that state governors under the party tried to remove the interim chair and aspirants demanded an open vote instead of the party’s method of ‘consensus’. However, President Buhari averted a second deferment of this convention when he overruled the state governors and directed the party to write a last-minute list of new leaders without any election. Aspirants who did not make this list were compelled to withdraw from the selection process, and Adamu emerged as the new chair after Buhari had chosen him for the position. This scenario may be replayed when the party holds a primary in May to choose a presidential nominee.

Buhari has been the unquestioned APC leader since his rivals such as Bukola Saraki and Abubakar Atiku defected to the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in 2018.  The APC’s constitution requires the party to nominate candidates for a presidential election through an electoral college comprising delegates from the grassroots, but Buhari is in fact centrally placed to decide the nominee when the party holds a primary as a formality in May.

This would be the second time since civilian rule was restored in 1999 where the incumbent would try to install a successor having completed two allowed terms. Olusegun Obasanjo of the PDP did it in 2007 when he handpicked two obscure state governors as running mates with little input from his party. The party went on to win that election. Buhari’s role in the current succession arrangement is especially pivotal considering he is from the northwest region that produced nearly one-third of all votes in the 2019 presidential election.

Outlook - Succession

Buhari has been the rallying point for the APC’s factions since the party was formed as an opposition coalition in 2014. Now the hierarchy will defer to him on choosing presidential and vice-presidential nominees, but he will struggle to unite the factions behind his candidates given he is not personally contesting this time. Rivals from different regions may turn against each other and the president will need to coordinate the campaign from the front line, as did his predecessor Obasanjo who personally toured the country campaigning for his own candidates. On this note, the party’s prospects at the 2023 elections will depend on the inclusiveness of Buhari’s succession plan and the extent to which he is involved in the campaigns.