After months of high-wire politicking, alignment and counter-alignment, National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, and former governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, yesterday, won the party’s 2023 presidential ticket in style.

He polled 1,271 delegates’ votes, which is more than the 831 combined total of his 13 other opponents at the two-day primaries held at Eagle Square, Abuja.

His closest rival, the former Transportation Minister, Mr Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, garnered 316 votes; Vice President Yemi Osinbajo polled 235 votes; and Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, got 152 votes.

Earlier report has it that the contest would be a three-horse race featuring Tinubu, Amaechi and Osinbajo.

Although the party said it had 2,322 delegates, only 2,203 were physically on the ground and accredited for the exercise. Of the figure, 13 votes were invalid.

Details of votes polled by other aspirants are Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State, 47 votes; Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State, 38; Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State, 37 votes; Senator Sani Yerima, four votes; Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, one vote; and Chief Emeka Nwajiuba, one vote.

The other aspirants — Pastor Tunde Bakare, Senator Rochas Okorocha, Tein Jack-Rich, and Chief Mokelu Ikeobasi had zero votes each.

Chairman of the Election Management Committee, Governor Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, who was the chief returning officer, returned Tinubu as validly-elected to fly the party’s presidential flag in next year’s general election.

With his victory, Tinubu has been handed APC’s political arsenal to face Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of  Peoples Democratic Party, PDP; and Mr Peter Obi of the Labour Party, LP, among other opponents in the 2023 presidential poll.

Lead up to the March 26 national convention of the party, report has it that the APC governors struck a deal with President Muhammadu Buhari by trading off the national chairmanship position for that of the Presidency.

At the time, the governors were negotiating that one of them be supported by the president to emerge as the standard-bearer of the party.

However, as the Special Convention and Presidential Primary of the APC, drew closer, it became apparent that the president wanted to have a lot of input into who succeeds him. He had begged the governors to allow to him pick his successor.

While negotiations were ongoing, the northern governors’ forum in the APC resolved that power must shift to the South, essentially trying to force the president to support a Southern aspirant, following speculations that the president wanted Senate President Ahmad Lawan.

Efforts by the National Chairman of the party, Senator Abdullahi Adamu to impose Lawan on stakeholders as the adopted consensus aspirant were, however, resisted especially by the Northern Governors who were later joined by their Southern counterparts within the party.

For about five days before the primary, the governors engaged in a series of stakeholder meetings. The Northern governors met with political stakeholders from the region and then later met with President Buhari to demand a power shift to the South.

They, thereafter, stormed the national secretariat of the party on Monday night to meet with the Adamu-led National Working Committee NWC. But after about an hour of waiting and Adamu was nowhere to be found, they filed out to the Presidential Villa area where the national chairman lives.

The governors were said to have conveyed their position to their representatives in the NWC and Abdullahi Adamu himself. They also guided their delegates on the need to vote for Tinubu.

At the convention, delegates of virtually all the governors, except four, voted for Tinubu.  The four governors include Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State  who participated in the primary; with his delegates voting for him; a North Central and South Western state governors and Yahaya Bello of Kogi State, who also participated in the primary

Indeed, Tinubu’s margin of victory is large but it did not come easy. It was a product of 30 years of political association with stakeholders across the country; weeks of energy-sapping negotiations to get opponents to lay down their weapons; and several days of wooing entrenched interests in the party to his side.

Some of the battles he fought include getting APC power brokers in the North to back power shift to the South; wooing delegates across the country including “unfriendly” states; stopping moves to use consensus to decide the candidate; and eventually the conduct of the primaries.

Said to enjoy the backing of many presidential aspirants who bought the APC N100 million expression of interest and nomination forms, sources said Tinubu got political and traditional leaders in the South-West to prevail on aspirants from the zone to step down for him.

The series of meetings and negotiations continued even at the convention ground. It led to four of the seven South-West aspirants and three aspirants from the other zones to back down.

The yeoman’s job was done by 13 Northern APC governors, some Southern governors and members of the National Working Committee, who first fought against moves to make Senate President Lawan the consensus candidate; and later delivered their states’ votes for Tinubu at the convention.

On Monday, the eve of the primaries, the National Chairman, Adamu, told members of the NWC that Lawan had become the consensus candidate for the primaries on Tuesday. Members of the NWC kicked against the move and insisted that other aspirants must take part in the primaries. The news filtered to 13 of the 14 APC governors in the North, who stormed Aso Villa to meet with President Buhari and insisted on a power shift to the South.

Thereafter, President Buhari, the governors, and members of the NWC disowned Senator Adamu over Lawan and the stance paved the way for all the 23 aspirants to contest Tuesday’s primaries.

Signs that Tinubu would win the contest emerged early when many delegates from many states wore Tinubu-branded clothes and sang praises of the former Lagos governor all through the event.

Things became clearer when aspirant after aspirant started stepping down for Tinubu. In all, seven aspirants did so cutting across South-West, South-East, South-South, and North-West

Those, who stepped down for Tinubu were Governors Kayode Fayemi (Ekiti) and Mohammed Badaru Abubakar (Jigawa); Senator Godswill Akpabio; Professor Roberts Ajayi Borroffice; former House Speaker Dimeji Bankole; Senator Ibikunle Amosun; and Mrs Uju Ken Ohanenye.

Pastor Nicolas Felix stepped down for Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, and nobody stepped down for Amaechi.