Leading opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate Mohammadu Buhari laughs during an interview on February 6, 2015. Nigeria's main opposition candidate Muhammadu Buhari on Friday told AFP he was expecting to win next week's presidential election by a wide margin, despite talk of a close race. The February 14 poll, in which he is challenging incumbent Goodluck Jonathan, has been seen as too close to call, leading to a possible run-off if neither man secures a first-round majority. AFP PHOTO /STRINGER
Dripping with bile and inundated with a list of how, 10months after, Nigerians now wallow in unprecedented suffering, I was moved to ask whether some people really thought they elected a magician, a Professor Peller who, with a silver bullet, will cure Nigeria of all her problems at a go.
This past week was a particularly interesting one on our e-forum as we discussed the above topic which was the caption of an open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari. Dripping with bile and inundated with a list of how, 10months after, Nigerians now wallow in unprecedented suffering, I was moved to ask whether some people really thought they elected a magician, a Professor Peller who, with a silver bullet, will cure Nigeria of all her problems at a go. There has, of recent, been a slew of such letters, incidentally, literally all authored by persons from the same part of the country; some claiming they prefer the Jonathanian regime of corruption to what now obtains in Nigeria. Since I do not have their permission, contributors’ names, except mine, will not be given. In summary, the letter, like others, is a damning critique of the Buhari administration and, corroborating its claims, a member wrote: ‘Buhari has a one-year grace period, starting from his inauguration. A grace period for him to demonstrate performance inertia. The masses are not happy with him so far. His electoral value has been dwindling in the last six months”. He was immediately challenged by another to speak for himself and not for the generality of Nigerians. Wondering why anybody would take these 3-a penny letters and their authors seriously, a Diasporan member interjected : “these wailing wailers are also the thieves who are being exposed and tried. It would make sense for them to wail. It wouldn’t make sense for us to listen to them. A ruined Rome was not built in a day. The Ebelechukwu disciples ruined Nigeria. It would take years to rebuild.” Stung by that massive shellacking, the member who had given President Buhari a year of grace hit back, widening the canvass to take on both Buhari and his party headlong: “the southern division of APC is not really in power. They have been checkmated by their northern associates within the party. Chief Oyegun, Chief Akande and Alhaji Bola Tinubu have been very quiet for some time. They are probably attending a refresher course on political theory and political strategy, in preparation for 2019. In terms of memorandum of understanding on power sharing, party ideology, party manifestos and cardinals, the APC merger was not properly consummated. The party never thought that they could win, hence their poor preparation for governance. Also, APC as a party thrives on propaganda. The effects of their poor conceptualisation of governance are apparent now. If a selected team of southern APC members are deeply involved in the kitchen cabinet of this government, Buhari will not be making these avoidable mistakes. In public, as in business administration, when a manager assumes a position of authority, he/she inherits the associated assets and liabilities of that institution or position. Blaming your predecessor is not acceptable because it is expected that you will take charge, you will start on a clean slate and perform, based on predetermined goals and objectives.” Performance evaluation in an organisation, he said further, “is not based on EFFORTS but on RESULTS. All these blame game and name calling are mere propaganda.”
It was at this point I weighed-in showing my disappointment with both the president and his party even as I appreciate the militating factors, especially Jonathan’s Augean stable and the slump in oil prices. I wrote: ‘I agree with many of the points raised but disagree where you think that after 16 years, and the bottomless hole PDP put Nigeria, a successor party would simply close its eyes to the past. Where in the civilised world is that done? What killed off Jeb Bush campaign if not the consequences of the Bush wars? In view of the government’s avoidable errors, however, many must have seen the president’s mistake in appointing an insular, literally all-northern kitchen cabinet which has shut him out of much needed quality advice as many of these persons are inexperienced in public service. Their incompetence has merely opened wider the doors to the likes of El Rufai and sundry northerners we may never know, calling the shots in almost total exclusion of those from the South, who not only helped in conceptualising the merger, and did as much as any other person, if not more, in ensuring its victory. I also agree with you that those mentioned in your post seem hardly involved in decision making today. The result is that whether or not President Buhari contests in 2019, this is bound to have serious repercussions for the APC. Indeed, with the ruckus in Kaduna and Kano, we are already beginning to see ambitious northern politicians angling for that position ahead of 2019. Matters will become more worrisome for the APC when you factor in the likes of Saraki, with his many problems which he says are political, Dogara, with how he generously gifted PDP members chairmanship of critical House committees, as well as their soul mates in the National Assembly and elsewhere, who are now most probably already out of the party. These are some of the reasons PDP can now begin to hope ahead 2019 although that is bound to be a chimera given how prostrate they laid the country in their 16 years of the locust. Unlike you, I see nothing wrong in not fully adumbrating all the issues among the merging political parties ahead of their victory as defeating a powerful, seemingly omnipotent Jonathan and the octopoidal ‘largest rally in Africa’ was enough motivation. Their victory, I surmise, should have strengthened the bond amongst the merging political parties. Unfortunately, there were a sprinkle of the likes of the ever ambitious Sarakis and the Dogaras who have since successfully widened their grasp through political enticement. Ever scheming and conspiratorial, they gifted a defeated PDP, via the likes of Ekweremadu and Akpabio, such positions and inherent powers it now looks like APC is, indeed, the opposition party. About the only way out for the APC, is for the president to know that he may belong to all, but not all belongs to him or love him. He must go back to those God used in bringing this dispensation about.
Of a truth, mistakes were made on both sides. Even if Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu had some recalcitrant younger colleagues with whom he disagreed, he should have used his well known perspicacity to win them over; not try to deny them the opportunity of being part of a government to whose victory they hugely contributed, as was widely believed. Agba ti o binu, lomo e npo jojo – it is the elder who forgives that has children/followers aplenty. Asiwaju, like Uncle Bola Ige, had intended to do, i.e return to the Southwest to shore up the Alliance for Democracy (AD) before he was cut down by enemies of the Yoruba race, should now reconcile with these young men who I know appreciate him and hold him in great esteem. He is a Lodestar, our undisputed Pathfinder and, as he preached at the launch of Chief Lanre Razak’s autobiography this past week, he must continue to make that sacrifice. Once he has solidified the home front, then he can go out, pan-Nigeria, and together with other leaders of the party, help put out the fires now simmering in places like Kano, Kaduna and Edo. Ondo State, in particular, should be of concern to him as APC must win the coming governorship election. There is need for a very transparent, totally unimpeachable process to be put in place. It is only in these ways that APC can re-invent itself, and help President Buhari to succeed. Finally, I must make the point again, that the president must remove all appointees of the last administration holding critical positions because their loyalty is to the former president and his wife – as they all made good in those posts but they should be replaced only by persons from their states of origin who believe in, and would like to see President Buhari succeed. A lot of sabotage is still going on in government as we saw in the budget padding and it remains completely inexplicable that the president refused to sack those found complicit in that horrendous act. The president must also be guided by the Federal Character Act in his future appointments if he wants to be seen as president for all’.
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