In Chess, one of the most dreaded pieces on the board is the Knight. This is because, it can attack several positions at the same time. In the hands of a skilled player, the knight could attack eight positions at once! The term, “Knight Fork”, therefore, is used to describe a situation where the knight is placed to attack two important officers of the opponent in such a way that the opponent has to choose which to sacrifice for the other. It could be between the Queen and the Rook, if Knight B1 advances to C7, or it could be between the King and the Queen, especially in the later stages of the game where saving the King means sacrificing the Queen; and save the King, the opponent must or else, he surrenders the game.
The Nigerian political atmosphere is in very many ways like a chess game and the politicians are the players. In the build up to the 2023 general elections, this has become more apparent with the game being played between the North and the South. The grandmasters of the North do not care about any other thing except to retain power, which is akin to keeping the King alive, and they started scheming for this long before the primaries were conducted.
When PMB sacked the National Working Committee of the APC, it was a very strange move which I likened to the, QE6 move of the rest of the world against Kasparov which was never played in recorded chess game before. The World team had passed up an opportunity to castle Queen’s side which until then, had been the move of choice at that point in the game. (See my earlier piece, Qe6: The Intriguing Move in The Chess Game of Nigerian Elections).
When it was time to nominate candidates, especially for the most important office in the land, the North engineered the jettisoning of the existing zoning arrangements in the two major political parties, akin to White and Black. This was done with the sole aim of ensuring that come sun or shine, power remains in the North. In fact, the APC wanted to even deny Bola Tinubu, the opportunity of contesting the primaries when the National Chairman of the Party announced Ahmed Lawan as the consensus candidate of the party. But at this time, the PDP had already chosen Atiku as her presidential candidate and the APC needed to react to that. And their reaction is a Knight Fork! When clever players like El-Rufai started insisting that there must be a Southern candidate in the APC, it was not for the love of the South. It was more of the fact that come what may, power would still remain in the North.
Against all their expectations, Bola Ahmed Tinubu clinched the presidential ticket of the party and, therefore, is confronted with this Knight Fork. He has to deal with it even as the game is dangerously turned against him. Bola is a minority Muslim from the South squaring up against a behemoth of a Muslim from the North. He, therefore, has to make a choice of a Vice-presidential candidate from the North. How does he play here? Presidency is the King and the Queen here is the Vice- presidency. The Knight is the choice he has to make.
As it is poised, head or tail, Tinubu is likely to lose out. Would he go with a Christian Vice-presidential candidate? If he does that, he is sure going to lose the votes of the North. Why would they have a Southern Muslim and a Christian Vice- president when they can have a Northern Muslim president? And should he opt to try and break into the Northern Muslim votes by going for a Muslim Vice-presidential candidate, he still would not scratch it because he would lose the votes of many Southern Christians and still gain very little in the North because the presidency would still be too appealing to be ceded to the South against a Fulani Muslim that Atiku is. Forget what happened on June 12 1993 when a Southern Muslim and a Northern Muslim, MKO Abiola and Baba Gana Kingibe, combined to defeat a Northern Muslim, Bashir Tofa and Sylvester Ugoh. The dynamics have changed and religion is playing a more important role in the forthcoming elections than it ever did in Nigeria.
All these were carefully considered from the beginning that was why the parties were forced to abandon their zoning arrangements. Once that was achieved, the King was adequately cushioned in such a way that head or tail, rain or shine, it will be in the grips of the North. However, like it is with all traps and plans in the game of Chess, even this one is likely to be spunned. But till then, Tinubu is left to sweat and contemplate his next move on this Chess board.
– Orngu is a public commentator and analyst