2023 Presidency: Analysing Chris Ngige’s Decision To Stay On The Fence

The 2023 presidential election is the closest national engagement in Nigeria today. The Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, has said he has no preferred candidate among the four frontrunners for the seat.

Having served as a Federal Minister of Labour and Employment for two terms under the reign of the APC, one would think that the former Anambra State governor would throw his back behind the eventual clincher of the party’s ticket.

But Ngige said he is on his own, only determined to ensure President Buhari starts and finishes strong.

Is he one of the saboteurs?

As ridiculous as it sounds, during this election period, it became clear that some gladiators would work against or become indifferent to the presidential aspiration of their party’s standard bearer.

In a statement his media office made yesterday in Abuja, Ngige said, “Recall that earlier on January 2 this year, while distributing his annual Christmas largesse to APC members, indigent, widows, and aged persons in his hometown, Alor, Idemili South LGA of Anambra State, I stated in black and white that I had no preferred candidate out of the four frontrunners, namely, Peter Obi of Labour Party, Atiku Abubakar of PDP, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu of our own, APC and Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of NNPP."

He said he would like to declare that the four leading candidates are good people with cognate experience at the federal and state levels and all his friends.

But this was not his position when his boss, President Muhammadu Buhari, was running.

Besides, the only political message the indifference sends to the general public and the political environment is that he is against his party’s candidate even when he doesn’t say so.

Ngige said no one should incite him

Ngige not only stays on the fence but he has also played down all the insinuations that he would be demarketing any of the other candidates.

Ngige cautioned the Southeast APC Presidential Council member, Josef Onoh, for mentioning his name among Igbo political office holders who benefited from APC but refused to give back to the party.

He said a particular social media post which he knew nothing about credited him to have said that both the Labour Party (LP) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are a bunch of PDP looters, with the aim to come back to power to continue inflicting pains on Nigerians through the instrumentality of corruption and looting.

That has been the APC's standpoint and USP (Unique Selling Point) in this election season.

For Ngige to release a statement to counter the argument means a lot to the political momentum.

A particular statement claimed, "I boasted that the progressives will remain in power in 2023 and that Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu will take over from President Muhammadu Buhari."

Is that not the ultimate aim of the leadership of the APC?

Why does Ngige have to tell the world that he thinks otherwise if the party is in order?

The moment of reflection

“Once again, for the records, Dr Chris Nwabueze Ngige, the Minister of Labour and Employment, has made it abundantly clear that he would not campaign for any of the four frontrunners for the presidency because they are all his friends and brothers.

“He had one or two political dealings with each and every one of them, and hence, his conscience will not permit him to do so.”

The above illuminates the shade of the division pundits have pointed out in the leadership of the APC and its coup against the party’s candidate.

Maybe Tinubu is right for distancing himself from the APC

If a cabinet member of the APC is distancing himself from the enthronements of his boss’s successor, it is then safe to say that one should not pin the failure of that president on that candidate.

The general phrase has been that the APC as a party does not deserve re-election.

If we are not re-electing the party because the incumbent government has failed, maybe this is a clear juncture to deduce that the APC and the presidency are two different entities.

In our previous pieces, we have reported the views of some APC in-house chiefs and their administrative divisions.

This time around, the latest bomb by Ngige displays power dysfunction in the leadership of the party.

Ngige declaring that on Election Day, he would pray for all the contestants and vote according to the dictates of his conscience is a disservice to his party three days before the presidential election.

Ngige said he would rather concentrate on his national assignment of assisting the present administration to finish strong than help his party retain its national significance. 

Clearly, Chris Ngige is just one out of hundreds of APC gladiators who have decided to remain indifferent rather than go all out for the party at the polls, a decision that could cost the party in the forthcoming presidential election.