Mamman Daura and Nigeria's Next President

WHOEVER wins the February 2023 presidential election in Nigeria would have done so mainly because of or in spite of Mamman Daura, the 83-year-old senescent nephew of President Mohammadu Buhari. This may seem like an ostentatious claim or an inflationary bestowal of power on a man whose only claim, in the current circumstances, is that the president is his youngest nephew. Yet this is an open secret among those with intimate knowledge of the current contest for the presidency and the nature of power under the Muhammadu Buhari administration. But most people are unwilling to discuss it directly in public, either out of discretion and/or fear of the almighty Daura.

However, between the ruling party candidate, Governor Bola Tinubu, and the main opposition party candidate, Vice President Atiku Abubakar, there is clear recognition of the pivotal role that Daura plays and would play regarding who becomes the next president of Nigeria. For the former Governor of Lagos, this could not have come as a surprise. He acknowledges that the presidency, which has been, for most of the past eight years, effectively under Daura's control, is somehow mobilizing against him. Perhaps more than anyone else, it was Daura who ensured that Tinubu would not, as "designed", reap the full benefits of his total investment in making Buhari president. When Buhari declared upon assuming power that he belonged to no one, it was partly a ventriloquist shot from his nephew in the direction of the man who had assumed he would be the power behind the throne. At the center of the process that culminated in the much-analyzed outburst of the Jagaban in Abeokuta, when it let the world know that emi lo kan ("it's my turn" or "I'm next") were the machinations of Daura. to ensure that Tinubu would not be the ruling party's presidential candidate, let alone succeed Buhari.

Those who thought the explosion sealed Tinubu's fate were to realize later that the man did not rule Nigeria's most important state either directly or vicariously for 22 years for nothing. Leading the battle against Buhari and his masters, Abeokuta's wager proved to be a brave undertaking that helped stop Daura and his constituents in their tracks and thus made a mockery of their desperate attempt to hand over the party ticket. in the Senate. President, Ahmad Lawan. If Tinubu's feisty survival of the President Olusegun Obasanjo-led tsunami that swept every other DA governor from power in 2003 didn't convince most people of the man's political genius, how he clawed back every southwestern state in installments from the opposition and eventually installed Buhari as president in concert with other forces, should have confirmed his unusual political power.

There is no doubt that this powerhouse was most vulnerable when it officially joined the bid to win the APC ticket and remains so now as it goes for the ultimate prize. Yet it was also the time when all his accumulated political assets had to be mobilized in the service of the ambition of a lifetime. However, it should be noted that it wasn't until Tinubu met Daura that he experienced his first major checkmate in Fourth Republic politics. The man who has since become the most valuable player in Yoruba politics was dealing with an unusual opponent in Daura. None of those Tinubu had struggled with since 1998 when he began his campaign to become Governor of Lagos State possessed the strategic advantage of a combination of stealth, reluctance and irresponsible power as Daura does.

Cerebral, generous but taciturn, Mamman Daura, the fascinating power-monster par excellence, and the former editor and newspaper director seems determined to put an end to Tinubu's political ambition on the eve of the ultimate circuit of the latter. As the only surviving member of the triumvirate who can claim almost unbridled influence over Muhammadu Buhari, Daura is well placed to hinder or advance the ambition of the two main presidential candidates, Bola Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar in the presidential election of February 2023. . And he does not hesitate to use his influence to tip the balance against the former governor of Lagos. With the deaths of the other two people closest to Buhari, namely the late Emir of Borgu, Haliru Dantoro Kitoro III, who died in October 2015, barely five months after Buhari came to power, and Liman Ciroma, the Nigeria's first qualified archaeologist (whom the Guardian of London described in a 2014 obituary as a courteous, caring and generous good civil servant), the Daura-born presidential nephew has not had a counterweight since 2015. Had he lived long after 2015, the late Emir, who was singularly responsible for negotiating the rapprochement that made possible the "political marriage" of Buhari (CCP) and Tinubu (ACN), would not...