What kind of race is this?

I am not even going to pretend to understand Nigerian politics, aside from the fact that we are horribly divided along tribal lines (which never ends well) nothing else makes sense. This past weekend political parties held their presidential primaries with interesting results. Buhari secured the ANPP ticket (no suprise there), Atiku the AC (an amalgam of AD and PDP rejects) ticket (in my opinion that pretty much puts an end do his dream to rule from Aso Rock) and Yar' Adua the PDP ticket suprise suprise. I haven't been following Nigerian politics as closely I used to so I was really suprised to learn this to me the guy came out of nowhere. So what happened with all the people throwing their hats in the ring, notably IBB? With all the noise that had been made I thought he would have left the primaries and moved straight to Aso Rock. I am assuming he is rather content with the role of king maker for now. I hear that Yar'Adua has a good record in Katsina as the incubent governor. I wonder what good that ecord will do once/if he gets into Aso Rock. Not much if the puppet masters are as rotten as we know them to be. God help us all.