Who will be APC’s consensus candidate? on september 06, 20

The above question was asked by The Cable, the new but increasingly popular online newspaper in its analysis of the different aspirants on September 1, 2014, and I expected that the analysis will go all the way to answer the question.
Perhaps the first question should be: Does the APC really want to win the presidential election next year? If they want to win, then, they must do their homework. As it appears today, there is nothing to suggest that they want to win. Any party that wants to choose a consensus candidate among several aspirants must use certain objective criteria devoid of selfish interests. To do so, the APC must ponder what the key issues are right now that are likely going to influence the direction of voting next year. In my opinion, there are four key issues today:
1.Nigeria has become dangerously polarized on the issue of religion caused directly by the Boko Haram phenomenon and President Jonathan’s divisive actions along those lines. This appears to be PDP’s main strategy for 2015 as the party’s big wigs continue to associate the APC with Boko Haram without bordering to back up their assertion with any evidence. It would also appear that the PDP has enlisted the SSS in this dangerous strategy considering the fact that Marilyn Ogar, the spokesperson of the SSS has started echoing that line too recently. The PDP has continuously referred to the APC as an Islamic party from the first day it was established.
2. Beating a sitting president has so far not been possible in Nigeria no matter how unpopular he is. To defeat particularly this one will require the mobilization of the entire country, in order to neutralize the rigging machine.
3. Jonathan has currently been roundly branded, and rightly so, as incompetent and unfit to govern, and therefore extremely unpopular but because of (1) above, that does not necessarily mean any APC candidate can defeat him.
4. The unity of the north shall also be key as this will determine whether a northern candidate can win in 2015. To defeat Jonathan in 2015, APC must field a candidate who has the capacity to unite the whole north and who can be supported by all the contending and power centres within the party. The credential of that candidate must also be such as to be able to neutralize Jonathan and PDP’s strategy of balkanizing the nation along petty religious lines in the 2015 election.
So in determining which of the APC presidential aspirants comes closest to qualifying as a consensus candidate using these criteria, let us re-examine the names mentioned by TheCable viz Muhammadu Buhari, Atiku Abubakar, Rabiu Kwankwaso, Aminu Tambuwal and Sam Nda-Isaiah.
I will also examine the prospects of Rochas Okorocha and Bukola Saraki
• Muhammadu Buhari: Buhari is a very well-respected former head of state. He is straight as an arrow. His greatest strength is that he is very popular among the masses of the far North. But history has shown that politicians with such massive following among their people are held in suspicion in other parts of the country. Consequently, such people usually cannot garner the national appeal to become president. Very popular politicians of old who fall into that category and never became president include Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Mallam Aminu Kano and Dr. Joseph Tarka. That is the real reason Buhari lost in 2003, 2007 and 2011 and will lose again in 2015 if fielded by APC as its presidential candidate. Buhari’s case has also been worsened by the fact that his opponents have successfully branded him as a fundamentalist. Even though there is no evidence to support this, the perception has stuck. It does not matter who Buhari’s running mate is, that perception will stick. That is why in spite of Pastor Tunde Bakare,
a well-known Christian clergy, being his running mate in 2011, he lost almost all of the Christian votes in Nigeria. Buhari’s supporters always brandish his over 12 million votes in the 2011 presidential election as the strongest reason he should be APC’s candidate, but they forget that of this more than 12 million votes, less than 250,000 v