By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye
One of the most
astounding surprises of the current political dispensation is the ease with
which the National Leader of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed
Tinubu, has allowed himself to be convinced that in the event of a General
Muhammadu Buhari win in the February 2015 presidential election, that there
would still be anything like another “national leader” of the APC aside from
Buhari himself.
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| Bola Tinubu and Buhari |
I have not read the
APC constitution, but even if there is a provision in it fueling such a grand
assumption, such an office can only exist in name. It would amount to the
greatest delusion of the century to imagine that any other “national leader”
can co-exist with the President
and Commander-in-Chief of Nigeria’s Resources, and that such a
“national leader” would still be able the wield enormous influence and retain
the loyalty of the governors, other elected officials and party leaders, even
those he anointed and installed who had all along been very loyal to him.
Now, no matter your
view about Tinubu, you cannot accuse him of lacking in political shrewdness.
One readily remembers what happened during the build-up to the 2003 elections
when President Olusegun Obasanjo deployed a very simple, well-worn “we-are-brothers” strategy at the famous meeting with
the leaders and “elders” of the Alliance for
Democracy (AD) in Lagos and
changed the political equation in the South West in favour of the Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP). The only governor who survived that great onslaught which prepared
the ground for the untimely death of the AD was Bola Tinubu of Lagos State. And
from the rubble of that “earthquake,” Tinubu built what later became the Action
Congress of Nigeria (ACN) which surprised many people with the kind of progress
it recorded within a very short time.
But as things stand now, would it be safe to
describe the APC as Tinubu’s last political gamble? Or is there something the
man knows that he is not telling us? Is it likely that his interest might even
be in 2019 instead of 2015? Could it be that having failed to persuade Buhari
to give up his very problematic ambition, Tinubu has merely agreed to back him
fully convinced that he would fail? And since everyone knows that this is
Buhari’s “last card,” Tinubu can now persuade him to remain a “father figure”
in the APC in order to retain his supporters up-North and then prepare the
party for a real electoral contest with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in
2019? Because, it is difficult to imagine that the Tinubu we all know would
just open his eyes and enter into an arrangement that would make him lose in a
moment the enormous political clout he has worked so hard to accumulate just
because he wants to witness a Buhari presidency!
Okay, let us look at
the issues involved. No matter how we choose to view it, the APC is nothing but
an assemblage of strange bedfellows with clearly conflicting narrow interests
held together by the secret hope in each person (or group) to outsmart and use
the other to achieve his (or its) own personal agenda. In the APC, we have the
defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) which derived its strength and
following from the deep conviction in the North that its leader, Buhari, could
be a reliable tool for the gratification of the hard-to-disguise desperation
of the core North to take back “its
power”. The defunct New-PDP,
the second group that came together with others to form the APC, is, however,
very easy to describe.
It emerged from the sentiment fueled at that time by the
Niger State Governor, Dr. Babangida Aliyu, (who incidentally is still in the
PDP and one of President Goodluck Jonathan’s strongest supporters in the North)
that it was the time of the North to produce Nigeria’s president. And so it had
no other agenda except the realization of a president of Northern extraction.
And that is why the unduly loud presence of the Rivers State Governor Rotimi
Amaechi in that group (who was reportedly seduced by a “vice presidential
carrot” dangled before him by Northern political strategists in order to use him
against Jonathan in the Niger Delta to return power to the North) looked (and
still looks) quite ridiculous to many people. We, also, have the defunct ACN
led by Tinubu which saw in the North’s mad quest for power (as represented by
the CPC and the New-PDP) an attractive opportunity to play on the national
league – to lead a party whose influence and presence could be felt everywhere
across the nation.
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| *Jonathan |
On its part, too, the “Bring-Back-Our-Power”
groups within and outside the APC easily saw in Tinubu an
opportunity to use the ACN’s South-West’s supporters to realize their
undisguised agenda. But to conceal their real, individual interests, these
groups found a ready, mutual target in President Jonathan. And as they direct
all their energy and focus on Jonathan whom they are attacking relentlessly,
each is able to remove attention from its own motive and moves. Everyone is
waiting for the right moment to remove his own mask. That was why it was
so easy for the APC to agree that their presidential candidate should come from
the core-North. (Forget the suspicious appearance by Rochas Okorocha at the
primaries).
That was also why the
North could easily concede virtually every important and powerful post in the
APC to others once they secured the assurance that the presidential candidate
would not just be one of them, but one fully trusted to shun all pretenses and
“political correctness” to emerge and act as a truly “Northern president”! And again, that is why no one
has raised any objections to Tinubu’s continued reference as the “National
Leader” even after the ACN where he firmly held that post had ceased to exist.
They know that raising eyebrows now is a needless distraction. The preoccupation
now is to put Buhari in Aso Rock and every other thing will fall in place
and every water will find its level.
What further compounds
matters for Tinubu and the South-West he is trying to pull along with him is
what Buhari truly represents despite what some pundits are telling us. The Chairman of the Arewa Consultative
Forum (ACF), Ahaji Ibrahim Coomasie, did not mince words when he said: “I am the Chairman of
the Arewa Consultative Forum and we have said it before, but we are reiterating
it, that we are going to support the northern candidate. The APC has voted a
northern candidate, so we are going to support him 100 per cent. So, Buhari is
our candidate for the 2015 presidential election.”
Northern leaders have
never been able to conceal the sole motivation behind their stiff opposition
against Jonathan. That is why no matter all he has done in the North all they
want is for him to go away and hand over not just to anyone, but a person from
the North. And not even a person from the Middle-Belt or a Christian from the
North is good enough! That is the truth many people know but would never admit.
Indeed, if this
election is about the possession of better ideas and competence, why on earth would
any sincere, rational person be presenting Buhari as the alternative to
Jonathan? The only coherent thing I have heard from Buhari since he indicated
interest to run for president is that “the PDP government has failed.” Of
course, anybody can say that – it does not require even a less-than average
brain to be able to say it. Then he would start rolling out a catalogue of what
he would do if elected president including a promise to “stabilize the oil market”! If I did not hear this myself during a
Channels TV interview (still available on youtube), I would not have believed
anyone hoping to be taken seriously would say such a thing. But that’s Buhari
for you. Is he going to issue another Decree 2 to regulate OPEC activities?
Okay, that aside, what are his strategies for achieving all the paradise-on-earth he is promising? No one has heard him
utter a single one!
In the interview
he granted an online medium, TheCable in October 2014, a very simple question was asked Buhari to outline
his policy direction, to show how he would do things differently from the
current president whom he has been criticizing and recover the country as he
has been promising. When he failed to give any coherent answer, the question
was rephrased two more times, yet the Daura General just left what he was
asked and continued saying every other thing that entered his head except the
answers required from him.
Buhari announced the
other day that if elected president, he will gather some other generals
together to help him devise a strategy for ending the Boko Haram menace; in
other words, right now, he has no idea how to end the security problem for
which he and his party has fiercely attacked the present administration and
which they have also made the backbone of the Buhari campaign. Given the very ugly developments (and
his own pronouncements) in the course of his collection and submission of his
N27.5 million naira APC nomination forms which
grossly discoloured his so-called anti-graft credentials, and how dollars
reportedly competed with naira to buy him delegates at the APC convention in
Lagos, how can anyone possibly invest trust in Buhari’s ability to fight
corruption given these early signs? Okay, his party has said that all public
officers that looted the treasury in the past would not be bothered by a Buhari
regime, but only new thieves would be dealt with, is he now saying that all
those APC stalwarts (it was reported that a certain Southern governor was his
biggest financier) who poured out all those wads of naira, dollars and pounds
to generously bribe the APC delegates to vote him would not want to recoup
their investments, plus the profits? Can Buhari say in all sincerity that he
was not aware that corrupt elected officials and party moneybags deployed huge
piles of public and private funds to outspend his co-contestants to purchase
him the APC presidential ticket as was widely reported in the media? Now, assuming he was not aware,
when he found out later, what did he do? Did he try to distance himself from
the horrendous sleaze? Was this what informed the pledge to not probe past
corrupt public officers who had looted the treasure pale?
I do not believe that
those pushing Buhari into our faces are just being motivated by an Anything-But-Jonathan mindset. Indeed, they know exactly why
they want to foist him on us, and they have not been able to hide it. It
is the army of “brilliant analysts” in the Lagos media
that are overstretching their optimism and unduly embellishing very clearly
declared intentions to confuse themselves.
If then Buhari proves book
makers wrong and wins the presidency, it is difficult to see how the Ango
Abdullahi-led Northern Elders Forum (NEF) and other fire-spiting “Bring-Back-Our-Power” warriors who will immediately form a
ring around him can tolerate another “national leader” calling the shots out
there or the interest of those he is pulling along with him. One only
hopes that this merger which is clearly a bad marriage still held intact by the
anticipated realizations of private interests is not a disaster waiting to
happen which, perhaps, only the failure of the APC in the February election
will save us from?
Also, those who have
chosen to relapse into convenient amnesia and are busy celebrating the
emergence of Prof Yemi Osibajo as Buhari’s running mate should hasten to recall
the kind of vice president Jonathan was for Yar’Adua, how a tiny cabal ruled
Nigeria in place of an unconscious president after brutally shutting out the
vice president and threatening fire and brimstone against anyone who dared to
suggest that their “son” was simply too incapacitated to continue to rule
Nigeria. The constitution has not changed on the status of the vice president.
He is still a “spare tire,” and would be even more so in a Buhari presidency.
So, could it be that
the Asiwaju of Lagos is taking his followers, especially, in the South-West on
a road that leads nowhere instead of, perhaps, exercising a little patience to
give the ACN a little more time to grow and gather more weight and then really
confront the PDP? Is he stretching optimism beyond its malleable limit? Or
could it be that he has his own secret plan for beating in their own game those
scheming to use, outwit, and relegate him? Indeed, we have interesting times
ahead of us.
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*Ejinkeonye is a columnist with Daily Independent newspaper
where this article was first published. (scruples2006@yahoo.com) Twitter:@ugowrite
