Prophet never did anything without the permission of Allah. The prophet has said similar things about all of his close sahabas. All with the permission of Allah. The prophet said about Hazrat Umar that if the prophet (saw) wasn't the last prophet then Hazrat Umar would've been the next prophet. However the followers of Hazrat Umar did not create a new sect because Hazrat Abu Bakr became the first khalifa and not Hazrat Umar.On ghadeer Is declaring Ali(as) as Maula by prophet(pbuh) a myth. By whose permission did prophet(pbuh) proclaim this.
The shia stringent way has created corrupt Dais, and hidden Imams. Hazrat Ali accepted khilafat. That is a fact. Imamat, however, no one knows about. Not since the last Imam went into hiding and his representatives started callings themselves kings and princeses.Shias have a very stringent way of accepting hadis from prophet(pbuh) which depends on many factors, Quran, chain of narrators, the credibility of narrators etc. I would suggest we should study what procedure shias and sunnis follow in separating right hadis from false. It is a intresting topic to know.
Hazrat Ali disowned the people during his time who wanted him to fight for the khilafat.
So, then do we have Imamat or no? If we do, then why do shias still curse the first 3 khalifas? If we do not, then it wasn't an order of Allah.The reason for this was imamat was required/important to protect the orders of Allah(swt) (refer hadis-e-thaqlayn).
mutameen
As I said, if it had been the will of Allah that Hazrat Ali succeed the prophet, then no one could've prevented it from happening. But it wasn't.besides that compare the xploits of war of the so called first three via a vis that of ali-compare the ilm and intelligence of ali with those 3-its plain that ali and only ali qualified to succeed rasul e khuda and none else