PACT Consensus: 5 Things we learnt after Fela Durotoye defeated Kingsley Moghalu

These are the lessons we learnt after Fela Durotoye defeated Kingsley Moghalu to emerge PACT consensus candidate.

On Thursday, August 30, 2018, presidential aspirants under the Presidential Aspirants Coming Together (PACT) umbrella, organised a vote among themselves to settle for a consensus candidate ahead of the 2019 elections.

At the end of a two-staged voting process, Fela Durotoye of the Alliance for a New Nigeria (ANN) defeated Kingsley Moghalu of the Young Progressive Party (YPP) to emerge consensus candidate of PACT.

Soon after the vote however, Moghalu pulled out of the coalition citing “overwhelming outpouring of support for my candidacy from all parts of Nigeria.”

Moghalu also said “PACT did not produce a true consensus candidate” because “only seven aspirants participated in the final voting out of the original 18 aspirants, mainly because many of the aspirants had withdrawn from the process.”

Moghalu added that he is “firmly in the race for President of Nigeria in 2019” because “the office requires competence and experience”.

Here are 5 things PACT election and the disarray that followed, taught us all….

1. Moghalu is politically naïve

There is no presidential aspirant outside of the establishment who has covered more stomp grounds across Nigeria than Moghalu. The former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank has also run the most issue-based campaign and his talking points have been so fleshed out that he was beginning to appeal to first time and undecided voters.

You would have thought that a candidate who was flying higher than the rest of his class would know better than to sign up to a PACT where he really had no equal and where he could be shortchanged.

 

Not only did Moghalu allow himself to be co-opted into PACT, he signed up to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that clearly stated that losers were going to abide by the outcome and support the eventual consensus candidate.

In the end, Moghalu was defeated by Durotoye who is in no way a better candidate for the presidency than he is.

If you scream the word “naivety” into a mirror three times, chances are Moghalu’s face will pop up to assail you. He played himself.

2. Fela Durotoye needs all the money he can get to lift his campaign off the ground

Durotoye is better known as the presidential aspirant who talks a good game but offers zilch meaty policy proposals you can hold him to.

He comes across as fluffy, shiny and nothing more. But he can be more.

After news emerged that he had defeated Moghalu to emerge PACT’s consensus candidate, not a few thought that he wasn’t the best candidate from the coalition to galvanize a youthful base.

At the core of Durotoye’s campaign struggles is money. He needs loads of it to deepen the grassroot appeal and structure of the ANN. He’s been seen less on the stomp because his campaign is probably cash-strapped.

He needs to make the media rounds, show up in people’s faces and run a ferocious social media and grassroot campaign. He isn’t there yet because running a ferocious election campaign in Nigeria will cost loads of money and Durotoye needs loads of that right now.

3. Nobody knew the other PACT guys who ran with Moghalu and Durotoye

Thomas-Wilson Ikubese, Dare Fagbemi, Mathias Sado, Felix Nicholas, Elishama Ideh, Clement Jimbo were some of the other presidential aspirants who forfeited their respective presidential ambitions on the altar of PACT—which was easy for them to do seeing as no one really knew who they were before Thursday.

Okay, that was a tad harsh, but none of those guys had done enough to merit 5,000 votes country-wide on polling day.

It is therefore fitting that we don’t have to deal with factoring them into the political equation ahead of 2019. At this point, the less, the merrier.

4. Moghalu may have jeopardized his campaign

Kingsley Moghalu was certainly flying high before PACT’s consensus election. He was putting in the work, working his base, dancing on the streets, scoring points during interviews, dining with the locals and charming first time voters.

Until the PACT election where he came across as a bitter, sore loser.

“Clause 13 of the PACT Memorandum of Understanding asserts the supremacy of the constitutional rights of the aspirants to pursue their political aspirations”, Moghalu said after the election, egg smeared all over his chubby face.

He should have quoted the clause before and not after the election.

It will be nice to see how Moghalu bounces back from last night and how he plans to keep his campaign from careening at this point; because not a few are now of the opinion that he has completely lost the plot and that he's the kind of man who can't be trusted to abide by an agreement. And who can blame them?

5. Voters are interested in presidential aspirants outside of the establishment

Kingsley Moghalu, Fela Durotoye and PACT were some of the trending topics on Nigerian social media all through Thursday night and Friday morning.

Of course trends mean nothing in the grand scheme of things and should be treated with spoonfuls of salt on occasion, but they can be used to predict behaviors, patterns and outcomes.

After PACT’s consensus election, you have to say people are just as interested in a Moghalu or Durotoye as much as they care about Atiku, Saraki or Buhari.

To break the yoke erected by the establishment and their moneybags, an anti-establishment candidate would have to keep up the intensity, rally the base, pump more funds into campaigning in rural Nigeria and stay on message.

And based off last night, it appears Nigeria may not be so far off after all.

Although you have to say a PACT that can’t organise a crisis free election of 11 voters, has a long way convincing millions of Nigerians to trust it with their votes.

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