Why PACT has no IMPACT on 2019 Presidential Election

Everest Nwagwu
Aug 31, 2018 · 3 min read

A group known as PACT ‘Presidential Aspirant Coming Together’ ( This mnemonic acronym really needs help, but that is insignificant) was formed earlier in August by a group of 18 Presidential Aspirants including Omoyele Sowore, Fela Durotoye, Tope Fasua, and Kingsley Moghalu. This group is not a political party but a group of ‘visionary’ Southern Presidential hopefuls (Only Ahmed Buhari is a Northerner in the fold) who believes that they are the new Nigeria and being YOUNG is their USP (Ignore the fact that Kingsley Moghalu is 55yrs!).

The PACT held an election yesterday to pick a consensus candidate, however, out of the 18 members of the ‘club’ only 7 were present for the final stage of the election and 4 out of the 7 withdrew their candidacy at the venue, those 4 includes Sahara Reporter’s Omoyele Sowore and Kingsley Moghalu. With only 7 (3) aspirants out of 18 registered members choosing the motivational speaker Fela Durotoye as their consensus candidate. Governance is beyond beautiful words, you cannot ‘aspire to acquire’ your way through governance. Without sounding bias, let me state clearly why PACT is of no political value, and why qualified candidates with the economic know-how and leadership experience like Kingsley Moghalu need not associate with the PACT or go down any consensus path.

  1. The members of the PACT are a bunch of ‘young’ politicians with little or no political muscle or network. With the exception of Kingsley Moghalu, none of the PACT members can win close to 20,000 votes in the 2019 election. A group with such meager and insubstantial political bravado at it’s disposal need not make anyone lose sleep over the 2019 election.
  2. Nigeria is a nation almost evenly divided among the Muslim North and Christian South ( Yes there are Christians in Borno and Muslims in Edo, let’s not digress), PACT should know better that gathering a group made up of 95% Southerners will have no ripple effect at the national level. In a presidential election in Nigeria, Tribe and Religion is rated above competence. In the 2011 election, former president Goodluck Jonathan, added Ebele and Azikiwe to his name(these names were not on his official documents previously) to gather the support of the Easterners although Jonathan is an Ijaw whose knowledge of Igbo language does not go beyond ‘bia rie nri’. Identifying with a major ethnic group and appealing to more than 3 geopolitical zones is the key to winning election in Nigeria. But PACT is being idealistic with politics they forgot that debates and fancy words does not win election here.
  3. The Twitter generation has the lowest voters turn out on election day. The demography that PACT is appealing to are the least registered voters and they would rather retweet than vote. If PACT wants to be taken serious, they need to see election in Nigeria as what it is…votes,votes and votes! How many polling units can PACT members win, 1 maybe 2? Nigeria has 774 LGAs, any group without grassroots structure in at least 300 LGAs should just ‘aspire to acquire’ imaginary votes.
  4. Kingsley Moghalu seems to be the only member of PACT that has a potentially potent political clout that can go beyond savoury words and Twitter retweet. Why he decide to enter and pull out (no pun intended) of the PACT is still mildly bewildering and honestly perplexing. He probably assumed that he will emerge the consensus candidate and only left when he realized that ‘inspire to acquire’ seem to be the chosen one.

In conclusion, the PACT is nothing but a tiny drop in the ocean of Nigerian presidential politics. It’s impact is non disruptive, irrelevant and can be best described as an imaginative product of some politically inexperience not too old ambitious politicians. The solution? If you want to be taken serious in presidential politics, go beyond Twitter and hotel halls, fold your sleeves, tour the country, grassroots remains king. To win their hearts cost as much as opening boreholes and as little as a cup of rice (cooked or raw) or maybe go the Kogi way and share onions. Whatever you do, go grass root!

Everest Nwagwu

Written by

African, Igbo, Digital Strategist and Communications Executive, Physiologist,Volunteer,passionate about Africa

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