By Dan Onwukwe
Like a broken family whose members would prefer to destroy their father’s inheritance rather than share it, shame has become a passé to the managers of the Presidential candidates of the All Progressives Congress and that of the Peoples Democratic Party, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar. As the Feb 25 Presidential and National Assembly elections draw feverishly near, the desperation in the camps of these two presidential candidates seems to have reached a new low.
With the many gaffes and seeming lack of tact by Tinubu on the campaign hustings, a sense of ennui has set in. His desperate efforts to be the next President of Nigeria appear to be bogging down. But he keeps blowing hot. As respected columnist Sonala Olumhense wrote in the SUNDAY PUNCH of January 29, if there’s one political party that ought not to be on the ballot in the February/March elections, it’s the ruling APC.
But, is the PDP better? For Atiku, there’s
no silver lining yet. Though the crisis rocking the party, no thanks to the G5
Governors, remains unresolved, the intensity of the G5 attack on their own
party is waning even as Atiku’s men are reported to be articulating new
strategy to go into the election without any the support of the disgruntled G5.
Put together, the back and forth accusations
between the camps of the two presidential candidates can be likened to the
popular cliché in professional Basketball game that says, when you have
the ball with time running out on the clock, there’s only one thing you can
do: Throw the bomb. That’s why you see the managers of the two presidential
candidates in a dogfight, pulling some last-minute ploy. We can see how desperate
their ploy has become.
The Tinubu
camp was the first to go on the offensive. At a press conference by its battery
of spokespersons, led by Junior Minister of Labour and Employment, Festus
Keyamo, the party took a swipe at Atiku over allegation of corruption bordering
on money laundering, criminal breach of trust and criminal misappropriation. It
has since petitioned the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission(EFCC), the
Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Offences Commission(ICPC) and the Code
of Conduct Bureau, to immediately effect the arrest and prosecution of Atiku.
Keyamo has gone to court for that purpose.
The Tinubu camp is relying on the allegation of
one whistleblower, Michael Achimugu, who claimed to be a former aide of
Atiku when he was the Vice President. The whistleblower alleged that Atiku
laundered money using what he called “Special Purpose Vehicles”. He also
claimed that Atiku used trusted allies as shareholders and directors.
Not to be outdone by Tinubu handlers, the Atiku
camp, launched a counter-offensive against Tinubu, and urged the EFCC and
the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency(NDLEA) to arrest, prosecute Tinubu
over drugs allegations and money laundering.
This is a running story. In the days ahead, more
allegations from both camps will likely emerge. Don’t be surprised if you hear
APC and PDP accusing each of being responsible for any miscarriage by women.
Where is the issue-based campaigns that Nigerians clamoured for at the beginning
of the campaigns?
While the Tinubu campaign’s relentless
pursuit of Atiku seems to be backfiring, the Jagaban himself threw himself onto
another vortex of the storm, again in Abeokuta, Ogun state, where he made
the infamous “Emi l’okan”(it’s my
turn), the baptism of his presidential quest. This time around, he went
overdrive in an outburst in which he attacked his own party on many
fronts.
He also made a veiled attack on President
Muhammadu Buhari administration. By so doing, he literally threw the entire
party structure under the bus. His outburst contains not just innuendos but a
trove of contradictions and outright lies that his handlers are struggling to
do damage control.
It all
happened at a campaign rally in Abeokuta, where he delivered a hard-hitting
speech. He cried out that the current fuel scarcity nationwide and the
redesigning of the Naira by the CBN were plots by some “powers that be” to
sabotage his presidential quest. However, he said the obstacles would not stop
his march to victory. He called the ‘powers that be’ mischievous. “If they
like let them hoard the fuel, we will trek there…if they like, let them change
the ink of the naira , we will shock them…we will win the election’.
He described the forthcoming elections as a
“revolution”. Isn’t this a hate speech? Does Tinubu know that revolution is
often a messy affair? Or is he planning to use the “Jagaban Army” to
actualise his revolution? Since he made that fiery speech, reactions have been
coming like claps of thunder. Questions have also been asked: Who are the power
that be that want to sabotage his presidential quest? Is President Buhari not
the Minister of Petroleum Resources and leader of the ruling APC?
Is Chief
Timipre Sylva, the Minister of state for Petroleum Resources not a
high-ranking member of APC? Who was Tinubu referring to when he said, “we will
vote them out”? Is his party not the one in power? Is Tinubu no longer the
“national leader” of APC? You see, sweet and bitter things don’t emanate from
the same foundation.
You cannot be consistent and contradictory at
the same time. The truth is that, Tinubu has stepped through a minefield,
knowingly or unknowingly. He has undermined his own party and the
administration of President Buhari. Perhaps he’s frustrated by his inability to
stop the cashless policy and currency redesign meant to bring sanity in the
economy and curb vote buying. That’s why CBN extension of the old naira
banknotes deadline till Feb 10 looks like caving in to political pressure.
Could what is unfolding now be the unseen hand
in the recent attempt by the Department of State Service (DSS) to arrest the
CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele? And, again, you ask: how does the Redesigning of
the naira and the lingering petrol scarcity affect only Tinubu’s campaign and
not other political parties? Putting things in context, Tinubu has doubts about
the support he is getting from his own party, including the President, even
when the presidency has refuted that.
Do we need any reminding that the cashless
policy is the policy of his own party through the monetary authority- the
CBN? At the Abeokuta outing, Tinubu was unequivocal about who he was directing
his jab at. Is he not aware that only the government in power has the
coercive instruments of state to scuttle an election? And who has that raw
power at the moment? APC, of course.
Clearly, Tinubu’s latest outburst, in my view,
is the most striking, most astonishing part of this whole campaign season.
That’s what you get if a presidential candidate is lacking
self-awareness, too desperate for power for the sake of it, not seeking
power to achieve great things for his country. One would have advised that his
handlers should save him from himself.
But it appears they are either ‘playing’ him to
get whatever they can from him, or setting him up to fail, or both. If not, how
then can you explain blaming the main opposition- PDP for- for the
nationwide fuel crisis? What sense does it really make? In all my career in
journalism, this is the first time I have seen a presidential candidate with a
stardust of media professionals at his disposal, yet the performance of these
men are below that of amateurs.
Perhaps the worst of this was the recent claim
by the Lagos state Organising Secretary of APC, Mr Ayodele Adewale in ARISE
News interview that the bullion vans seen driving into Tinubu’s
residence at Bourdillion Road, Ikoyi on the eve of 2019 Presidential
election “missed their way” to come to Tinubu’s residence.
Adewale’s position is at variance with Tinubu’s
position in 2019 when he admitted it was his right to use his money as he
deemed fit. From one damage control to another, it has always been a
near- fatal mistake by Tinubu’s handlers, and each time, they struggle to
wiggle off every minefield they set for themselves after the damage had been
done. Remaining comfortable in your own skin until a damage has been done, is
not the way to wage a winning election.
After the
Abeokuta fiasco, Tinubu was reported to taken three Governors of the party to
Daura, Katsina state, last week, to plead with Buhari that his
outburst on the fuel crisis and the Naira Redesign Policy was not meant to
undermine his administration.
Buhari is not
naive not to understand. Going forward, this is my advice to Tinubu, his
campaign managers, and other presidential candidates and their handlers. I am
borrowing from the time-tested counsel of George Stephanopoulos, former
President Clinton’s Senior Adviser, in his book: All Too Human, in which
he says, “separate what you thought was right and what you thought would work”.
This, he stressed, “is a skill that will serve
you well – at a price”. According to him, judging how the world will judge what
you do – how a position will ‘play’ – is an essential political skill. If you
can’t predict what will work, you can’t survive in office. As he reminded
political leaders and those working for them, the “danger is when you stop
caring about the difference between being right and being employed, or fail to
notice that you don’t know what the difference is anymore “.
All things considered, the
heart of the matter is that, often, our politicians, ever so desperate for
power, make misguided correlation between winning and success in an
election. And their handlers, always desperate to keep their job, and with an
eye on getting appointments as part of a post-election gratification, often
struggle to enjoy their accomplishments because they focus primarily on winning
and let the loser go to court. They forget that when a candidate wins by hook
or by crook, he has dug a deep hole, which sooner than later may consume him.
Democracy offers options. This is the clearest message to Nigerians: Vote
wisely.
*Onwukwe is a commentator on public issues
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