What do these PDP people take Nigerians for; a bunch of fools? Why, sans the giddiness of his new office then as new PDP Chairman, did Secondus apologise to Nigerians, promising never again to tread their old dishonorable ways of literally eating Nigeria out of existence, only to now take us back to the Siemen’s scandal days ?
If PDP meant well for Nigeria, as it never ceases to proclaim from rooftops , and it seriously intends to change the ‘change’ by improving on what they describe as Buhari’s poor performance, would they choose Atiku over a cool and calm Senator Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi, a former state governor, senator and the man who, together with Prince Dayo Adeyeye, provided the rare grit, and tact, that extricated PDP from its worst ever crisis, that is, apart from Buhari’s massive shellacking of a sitting President Goodluck Jonathan in the 2015 Presidential election? Yes, governors Nyesom Wike and Ayo Fayose may have provided the funds as well as all the bravado , Makarfi was, unquestionably, the chief driver of that narrow escape as Modu Sheriff was dead set on completely annexing the party.
I have asked myself this question: Why didn’t PDP just pull together all the dollars allegedly on display at the Port Harcourt bazaar, pay their 3000 plus delegates twice their transport fares to the garden city, and promptly hand over the balance to Makarfi who, though no billionaire, has the double advantage of being the most worthy of all the presidential wannabes , as well as having saved the party at its most critical hour when the likes of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar , Bukola Saraki and Rabiu Kwankwaso were hibernating in the APC, daily planning how to make governance difficult for President Muhammadu Buhari so they could make short shrift of everybody in the party , the president inclusive, to emerge, through all manner of serpentine tactics and contrived shenanigans, as it’s presidential candidate since becoming the President of Nigeria has been, for them, a consuming ambition for which they would do anything, no matter how reprehensible . It was, therefore, no coincidence that being no match for Buhari, they all had to scamper out of the party, faking all manner of reasons.
That , Makarfi, is the man PDP has just thrown under the bus, all because he doesn’t have the billions to buy votes? The choice of this incorruptible gentleman, with both age, and experience on his side, to face Muhammadu Buhari -Mr Integrity himself – would, no doubt have given APC some goose pimples since integrity, not anything else should, and will, decide the 2019 Presidential election in a country just slowly coming out of the consequences of PDP’s 16 – year stranglehold, and rapacity.
Nigeria cannot, and must sure not go back to the Egypt of unmitigated systemic corruption. Never.
This was why, reacting to the vituperations from the Atiku campaign, the Buhari campaign organisation could not help recalling the fact that PDP had, years past, questioned Atiku’s credibility, wondering why it could now name him its candidate like a spell was cast on them. But what spell can be more potent than the almighty dollar, especially when dished out like a drunken sailor. Continuing, the BCO exploded: “It is like a dog going back to its vomit. Are there no better people to challenge President Buhari in the PDP? This people were in power, one way or the other, since 1999, only for Nigeria to have been regressing. Now, they want to take Nigerians back to Babylon after Buhari has painstakinly secured their freedom from corruption and a battered economy that was tottering towards an eclipse”.
What surprised me to no end is the fact that the Atiku campaign could, listlessly, be touting privatisation under his chairmanship as an asset when Nigerians know exactly, how their prime assets, like African Petroleum (AP) and NITEL, to mention but a few, were sold for pittance, at no more than a quarter of their book values, to his allies, friends and cronies. The Atiku campaign should go and research both Obasanjo and El Rufai’s angst against their employer. They will learn how, and why, AP is now as dead as dodo while other oil companies privatised at the same time are flourishing, as well as how over 2000 Nigerian employees of NITEL had to lose their jobs overnight.
Since many of my highly valued readers loathe having to be asked to go on the net to finish reading my articles, let me conclude this article with the following response which I gave on Face book to a gentleman whose middle name, during the 2015 Presidential election literally became ‘Buhari’ because of his total support for the APC candidate. Today, for a host of reasons which he state, President Buhari has disappointed him.
I was no less supportive of candidate Buhari but have since had cause to severally criticise him, especially for his nepotistic security appointments. I have, however, since been educated that had he not done what he did, all these generals hovering over him, these new military owners of PDP who donated their old National Security Adviser to oversee the Port Harcourt event, may have since taught him a lesson, or two, in how not to forget to learn from history. They may, in fact, have, again, changed the democratic trajectory of our dear country especially when Buhari was in London battling for his dear life and they were busy holding serpentine meetings in some eye popping hilltop mansions.
I wrote: “Lade this is a fantastic write up. Very logical, even seminal, and well presented. You’re not alone. During the 2015 campaign for the APC primaries which Buhari won, I wrote in my weekly column in The Nation on Sunday that Nigeria needed Buhari more than the obverse. While I, like you have observed very grievous errors committed by him, I have not, and will not, change my views about him. One, I knew Buhari was/is human, not an angel, and so prone to make some mistakes like you and I. The highly perceptive person that you are, judging by your post, there’s no way you, or I, could have known that Jonathan was going to hand over to Buhari a shell of a nation; almost already completely eaten up by the Ali Babas that predominated PDP then, and still do – witness, for instance, the recent dollar bazaar in Port Harcourt. I knew, like Buhari said then, that if Nigeria didn’t kill corruption, it will, in turn kill Nigeria. Fighting corruption in Nigeria is a grim war. While it was systemic in PDP days, all you can now point to are individuals abusing their positions. And they are beginning to get their comeuppance. Note too, that some of our best lawyers, especially SANs, are arrayed against Buhari on this. They get paid in millions of dollars and you will recall that for a mere election case, a South South government was said to have paid in excess of N1B legal fees . That, as you should know must have included bribes for judges. Yet, with all the opposition, Buhari has successfully retrieved over 1trillion Naira and hundreds of properties, from these marauders who are using their loot to fight the anti corruption war. Please mentally put half of that to infrastructure procurement at a time the Naira was much stronger. Would we still have this gap in our infrastructure stock? Look at the humongous efforts of this government on roads, especially in the South East & South South; see railway construction literally everywhere.
I have seriously criticised Buhari on his condemnable insular appointments especially in the security agencies. They are totally indefensible. But look at his social network programmes devoted to improving the lives of the poor, and the most at risk, in our country. They are unprecedented. So dear, when they say Nigeria hosts the most poor in the world, cast your mind’s eye back, not on Buhari alone, but on the IBBs, the TY Danjumas, the Obasanjos and, of course, the PDP predators that had us under their grip for 16 years. I will obviously score Buhari more than 55% overall. So please rethink your position and look at Atiku’s past to gauge where he will take Nigeria, if voted”
Let me quickly add this, lest Nigerians are scammed. Now Atiku is flaunting Restructuring, as important as it is, as his ‘deu ex machina’, his silver bullet, for all of Nigeria’s problems. Restructuring has, of a truth, become very lucrative since 2015. But it failed then, and will fail now. This is because Atiku, despite all his grandstanding on the subject, is a wrong candidate for it. He is Fulani, like Buhari. Add to that the fact that he is a patron of Miyetti Allah. His promise to restructure Nigeria is a ruse aimed at sucking in the Yoruba.
But we are far wiser, even more than in 2015, when we, very respectfully, gave the electoral wishes of our highly regarded Afenifere elders, a wide berth. It will be worse, this time around.
In this respect, it is with great pleasure I repeat to our Afenifere Greats, Chief Bode George’s panergyric to PDP concerning the Yoruba nation: “the Yoruba people have been openly maligned. The Yoruba have been savaged, tormented, treated with contempt, scurried, scoffed at, humiliated and denigrated by little men (Wike and co)whose sun will soon set.
Add that to Obasanjo/PDP treatment of Yoruba and think where the Yoruba vote will go in 2018.