After spending quality time in the comfort of the Tinubu Presidency, Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, a descendant of a Mauritanian patriarch, who has held several senior positions in government, is back on his partisan regional political posturing on behalf of Northern Nigeria’s political establishment.

He has reunited with his friend, Prof. Usman Yusuf, and they are yet to be joined by Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, the third member of the tag team with an exaggerated sense of the Northern Nigerian political machine that has gone past its sell-by day.

The trio do not realise that the military that used the 1979 and 1999 constitutions to structure Nigeria to consolidate the political gains that Premier Ahmadu Bello wrought for Northern Nigeria in the First Republic no longer scares Southern Nigerians. The histrionics of old no longer work, and today’s politics requires cooperative and negotiated engagement between both regions.

As is his wont, Baba-Ahmed is trying his best to stare down the Southern Nigerian political establishment as the “magical” 2027 general elections approach. His ostensive focus is on the interests of the Northern Nigerian masses. But Northern Nigerian political elites, like their Southern counterparts, only secure sinecures for themselves.

Maybe Baba-Ahmed should remember that the North started ruling Nigeria from 1957, when Abubakar Tafawa Balewa became the chief minister and prime minister from 1960 to 1966, and Gen. Yakubu Gowon ruled for nine years before Gen. Murtala Muhammed’s short-lived rule and Shehu Shagari’s four-year tenure.

The North continued ruling again from the time of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, Gen. Sani Abacha and Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, who consolidated the political structure that already gave Northern Nigeria undue advantage over the South.

After nearly 40 years, they handed over to former President Olusegun Obasanjo at the beginning of the Fourth Republic. He handed over to Umaru Yar’Adua, who yielded to President Goodluck Jonathan, who was browbeaten by the North to hand over to President Muhammadu Buhari.

Between 1957 and 2025, the North ruled for about 50 years. And now, the Baba-Ahmed chorus is angling to take the power from the South, which has just held power for 18 years. From the look of things, a president of Northern extraction in 2027 may be ruling Nigeria up the Niger River.

Nigeria’s politics is never about the interests of the masses of Nigerian citizens but the economic fortunes of the political elite, whose major concerns are the sinecure positions that will give them access to portions of Nigeria’s commonwealth.

Nigerian politicians have no ideological identities or even programmes for the people. That went with the Obafemi Awolowos of the First Republic. Today’s politicians switch political parties mainly on whim and political expediency.

The current rally, especially of some Northern Nigerian political elements, to form coalitions against the presumed ambition of President Tinubu to run for reelection in 2007, is fuelled by regional sentiments and not any altruistic intentions for Nigeria.

Strange bedfellows, who threw shades against each other, are now joining political parties that they had rejected as unviable, or collaborating to form unholy alliances. People who defended political positions with the zeal of evangelists suddenly turn around to defend diametrically opposing points of view.

Some of them hope to achieve a merger on the scale of the ruling All Progressives Congress that emerged from Action Congress of Nigeria, Congress for People’s Congress, All Nigeria People’s Party and breakaways from People’s Democratic Party and All Progressives Grand Alliance.

Sometimes they do it for “stomach infrastructure” gains. At other times, it is to escape prosecution (or political persecution) from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. In other words, most Nigerian politicians only look out for their own good.

President Tinubu appears to be doing his own political calculations in a manner that is ripping apart the political house of cards that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former Kano State Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso, former Kaduna State Governor Nasir el-Rufai, former Secretary to the Federation Babachir Lawal (and possibly former Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi) are putting together.

Former President Obasanjo has encouraging words for this coalition: “For Tinubu to be defeated (in 2027), there is the need for a powerful unified coalition… Neither Atiku, Obi nor Kwankwaso can defeat Tinubu on their own. If they do not unite, they will fail again.”

Indeed, the Southern Nigerian counterpart of the Northern political establishment has started its own realignment ahead of 2027. Delta State Governor Sheriff Oborevwori and his immediate predecessor, Dr Ifeanyi Okowa, have led PDP stakeholders in their state to the ruling party, APC.

Observers think many more such moves are expected in the coming months, if not weeks. These moves further show that Nigeria’s politicians do not quite play the politics of ideology or principles, but of expediency.

Okowa’s exit from PDP sends a Nunc Dimittis to former Vice President Atiku’s quest for the presidency and probably supports the position of Minister of Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, who preferred a Southern presidential candidate in the 2023 general elections.

Observers say that the move of the Delta State PDP stakeholders was inevitable after former Delta State Governor James Ibori, godfather of Delta State politics, allowed his daughter, Erhiatake Ibori-Suenu, to contest as a member representing Ethiope East/Ethiope West in the House of Representatives on the platform of the APC.

Are these moves made in the interest of the people of Delta State (or Southern Nigerian people)? Not really. The intention is to position the stakeholders for access to the power and commonwealth of Nigeria, though the defectors claim that their move was made to advance the security, welfare and development of Delta State.

But there is no doubt that these moves are significant steps to reaffirm the resolve of Southern Nigerian politicians who want the presidency to remain in Southern Nigeria, no matter the skirmishes of the Northern Nigerian political establishment to change the narrative.

The PDP, still the main opposition political party, is being steadily decimated as a result. And the seeming insurrection by the CPC faction of the ruling APC, led by Shehu Malami, a Northerner and former Attorney General of the Federation, is being put down most cleverly.

If the Obidient Movement successfully registers its members on its online portal, as it has been announced, it might mean that the inventoried votes will be warehoused only for Peter Obi’s 2027 presidential ambition and are therefore unavailable for another presidential candidate, especially from the North.

With all these, Baba-Ahmed, Yusuf and their co-travellers would be demonstrating a lot of commonsense if they join their so-called Northern voting clout to that of Southern Nigeria to ensure that whoever becomes president in 2027 is a Southerner, even if they do not want President Tinubu to return.

Yusuf says the current Muslim-Muslim presidency has not served him. Well, Vice President Kashim Shettima is not from his North-West Nigeria. Baba-Ahmed, who could not resist throwing shade at former President Buhari, thinks President Tinubu should step down for the younger generation.

 Both men should, however, ensure that ethnic Yoruba Nation agitators and their Indigenous People of Biafra counterparts, who are watching the developments with keen interest, are not thinking of exiting Nigeria if a Northerner becomes President in 2027