By Eteteonline
In the June 12, 1993, presidential election, it was generally anticipated that Chief Moshood Abiola, the Social Democratic Party’s (SDP) nominee, would choose Alhaji Atiku Abubakar as his running mate. Atiku was one of the candidates for the SDP’s presidential ticket. At the Jos convention, he withdrew following the first ballot.
Due to political pressure, Abiola might oppose pressure from certain SDP governors who were advocating for Alhaji Baba Gana Kingibe, whom he defeated to second position in the convention. According to analysts, Abiola’s decision would be influenced by a purported “gentlemen’s agreement” that he was unable to ignore and the reality that the SDP could not afford to select a Christian from the north if the party wanted to win the June presidential election.
They claimed that despite his religious inclinations, Abiola, a Muslim from the South, would garner a significant number of votes among southerners.
The analysts stated that the party could not find a Christian crowd-puller from the far north and that choosing a Christian from the north would mean risking the chance of pairing two minorities.
Abubakar, a Hausa-Fulani who was thought to be the result of an alliance that guaranteed Abiola’s election, was therefore viewed as a superior candidate for the vice-presidential position.
It would seem that the SDP had no place for the Hausa-Fulanis in the Third Republic presidency, as Alhaji Bashir Tofa, a Kanuri from Kano State, emerged as the National Republican Convention’s (NRC) candidate, which would select a running mate from the East.
In line with its equitable distribution of political offices, which led to the Senate President coming from the Middle-Belt, the Speaker of the House of Representatives from the East, and the party’s national chairman likely from Eastern Minority, the SDP would, by choosing Abubakar as the running mate, provide a place for the Hausa-Fulanis. According to the analysts, this was because the SDP was taking the national question seriously.
According to accounts, Kingibe was a highly esteemed party member and a prominent senior who had made significant contributions to the party’s expansion. Regardless of whether he was chosen as Abiola’s running mate, he would bring his bloc to the SDP because he represented the Kanuris, a significant bloc inside the party.
According to the experts, the party was depending only on Kingibe to provide Bashir Tofa with a strong fight in the Kanuri region, where he was born.
Eventually, the political calculations favoured Baba Gana Kingibe, and he was picked as the running mate to Chief Abiola.
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