It is about 2 years and 2 months to the next general election in Nigeria and it is a fine time to begin to discuss who should be Nigeria’s next president. I have a few personal choices that I believe will work fine for my interest and national interest.

If the APC wants an easier way to stay in Aso Rock, an Osinbajo/Umahi or Fashola/Umahi ticket will be a dream one. I won’t have minded a Peter Obi as VP on the ballot, but it is up to him if he really wants it. The quicker he dumps the PDP the better for him.

The natural, common sense progression would have been for Nasir El Rufai to ascend to the presidency, but the complexity of Nigeria does not favor that at the moment as I am strongly in support of a Southern president. El Rufai remains one of Nigeria’s best options.

If track record and pedigree is anything to go by, Bola Ahmed Tinubu ticks all the boxes. The bile that certain politicians have successfully bred in the easily impressionable minds of a number of automatons on social media notwithstanding, Tinubu is president material.

However, I would prefer for Tinubu to remain a kingmaker. He has shown he has the 3rd eye for talent - he spots them from afar. He has also shown he is a political juggernaut who can, with his stature, protect the most profitable state in Nigeria from cats. It is my opinion...

... that he should shelve his presidential ambitions if he has any.

Yahaya Bello has already started campaigning. His campaign style is to show himself as a guy who is in disagreement with Buhari,probably as a disguise to make anti-PMB elements forget he is the Yahaya Bello. For me that is failure out of the blocks- political harakiri. Buhari,...

as long as he is alive, has a major say in who gets on the ballot for APC.
For a man who does not really believe in the existence of the pandemic, who is very likely an anti-vaxxer, who has done all in his power to suppress COVID-19 cases in Kogi state,...

...I will definitely not feel comfortable with him as president in the event of the next pandemic.

I don’t really care for the PDP, still feel strongly about that party never ever smelling Aso Rock again, but I will spare them a few comments considering they will most likely be the 2nd fiddle on the ballot in February 2023. Their main contenders are...

...the make-believe president who exists only computer systems and 280 characters - Atiku Abubakar. He should call it a day and go into retirement with Buhari. He has done enough. He will most likely not make it into even the PDP primaries if the abrasive Wike has his way.

Speaking of Wike. He wants to be the PDP flag-bearer in 2023. He has not hidden that ambition. In fact, he believes it is a birthright - considering how he has nearly singlehandedly taken care of all of PDP’s bills since 2015. Methinks he has earned that right too.

The main pretend-aspirants are the guys from PACT in 2019 - Kingsley Moghalu and Yele Sowore. They will be back in time for 2023. And just like it happened in 2019, they will both between them share under 100k votes and will go back to bellyaching and plotting “revolutions”.

Moghalu will continue to be condescending, considering he is the first ever CBN deputy-governor to run for president, and he is more brilliant than the rest of the country. He still won’t get up to 50,000 votes.

Sowore, who to this moment, on the cusp of half a century, lives on his glory days as SUG president of Unilag. He actually thinks governing Nigeria will be way easier than calling out alutas. He will probably move from miss-colored berets to fedoras after 2023, not Aso Rock.

Him and Moghalu will not be president.

That sums up my preliminary view of 2023. More events will happen in 2021 that might change a few things about who the serious contenders are and their chances. When that happens, I might do a follow up to this.