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Tag: BUHARI

  • ‘Buhari ‘ll end crimes’

    ‘Buhari ‘ll end crimes’

    Violent crimes’ such as assassination, kidnapping and armed robbery will reduce, if the All Progressives Congress (APC), presidential candidate Gen Muhammadu Buhari is elected.

    A security consultant, Mr. Folorunsho Atta, said Buhari’s track record shows that he would curb crime.

    “Between December 31, 1983 and August 27, 1985, when he was head of state, violent crimes such as armed robbery, kidnapping, assassination and insurgency were nipped in the bud. Attempt by a religious sect, the Matai-sine, to rear its ugly head in the northern part of the country in 1984 was suppressed by the police and military,” he said, asking: “Can anyone tell me any prominent Nigerian that was assassinated during this period?”

    Atta also asked that security be tightened around Buhari and other APC leaders ahead of next year’s elections.

    He mentioned Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and the APC National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, among others, that the security agents should protect.

  • PDP defends ‘semi-literate’ tag on Buhari

    PDP defends ‘semi-literate’ tag on Buhari

    The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has defended its “semi-literate jackboot” tag on the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Gen. Mohammadu Buhari, saying the tagging was complimentary.

    A statement issued by PDP’s National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh, said with the description, the ruling party remained on course in its commitment to issue-based campaign.

    The statement said: “In the PDP, we occupy the moral high ground as far as our commitment to issues-based campaign is concerned. Our word remains our bond. Since, we made that commitment, we have focused on issues.

    “We have also taken up the responsibility of drawing the attention of Nigerians to the obvious cases of incompetence and failings of the APC and those who aspire to the leadership of our nation through that platform.

    “There has never been any instance that we have maliciously attacked the characters of those on the presidential ticket of the APC, rather, we have been alive to our responsibility of offering public service so that Nigerians will not be deceived.

    “The particular statement by Prof. Oladipo, referred to by the APC, which we even consider as complimentary, does not in any way compare with the many instances of vicious, malicious and provocative attacks on the person and office of our presidential candidate, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, after we made the commitment to engage in a decent campaign.

    “It is on record that a few days after the commitment alluded to by the APC, Kano State Governor, Rabiu Kwakwanso, attacked the person of President Jonathan, describing him as an ‘incompetent commander-in-chief.’ No personal attack could be more vicious and unconscionable.

    “Similarly, the Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, has consistently prosecuted a hate campaign against President Jonathan, describing him as ‘an enemy of Rivers people.’ I ask the APC and my friend, Lai Mohammed, if this destructive campaign sounds like a love song to him?

    “Also, the National Chairman of the APC, Chief John Oyegun, at the church event to mark the 60th birthday of APC Deputy National Chairman (South), Chief Segun Oni, in Ifaki-Ekiti, attacked the person of President Jonathan describing him as ‘a misfit’ for the presidency of the nation.

    “Even my friend Lai Mohammed is not blameless. For him to declare to the world that President Jonathan was responsible for the killings of Nigerians by Boko Haram insurgents, when he knows those whose utterances and clandestine activities fuel the insurgency, smacks of political mischief. “

  • Southsouth youths for Buhari

    Southsouth youths for Buhari

    Niger Delta youths have resolved to mobilise support and vote for the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Gen. Muhammadu Buhari.

    The youths, under the auspices of the Forum of Past Youth Leaders of Ethnic Nationalities in the Southsouth, said their resolve was caused by the backwardness of the oil-rich region, especially under President Goodluck Jonathan, lamenting the gradual collapse of governance.

    The youths, in a communiqué at the end of their meeting in Warri yesterday, signed by the Chairman, Alhaji Mumakai-Unagha and Secretary, Comrade Uboh Ekpo, decried President Jonathan’s role in the crisis, which stalled the take-off of the $16 billion Export Processing Zone (EPZ) project at Ogidigben in Warri Southwest Local Government.

    They condemned the failure of security agents to arrest and prosecute the masterminds of the kidnap of 14 journalists at Oporoza, while returning from an assignment in Ogidigben.

    The youth leaders said they wanted a change in government because of the latitude given militant elements by the Jonathan administration, which threatened the lives of the people of other ethnic groups in the region.

    They said: “We also discussed the overbearing posture of militants from the Ijaw extraction, who are being glorified and rewarded by the Federal Government.

    “Examined is the action of Mr. President on the proposed EPZ Gas Company at Ogidigben in Warri Southwest. We frown at the security agencies that up till this moment, those who masterminded the kidnap of journalists at Ogidigben are walking freely in the streets without being prosecuted.

    “The meeting observed that no developmental projects in the Niger-Delta have been put in place by the President since he assumed office, as his administration has brought hardship to Nigerians, especially those from the Niger-Delta.

    “Youths in the Southsouth  should mobilise and vote for Gen. Buhari. Machinery should be put in place to mobilise youths for him.

    “If President Jonathan is re-elected, other ethnic nationalities will go into extinction in the Southsouth. We urge Nigerians, particularly youths, to support Gen. Buhari, as the re-election of Jonathan will worsen security and cause more economic hardship.”

  • Buhari meets 22 angry Akwa Ibom PDP aspirants

    Buhari meets 22 angry Akwa Ibom PDP aspirants

    Barely four days to the closing date for the submission of candidates’ names to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the 22 aggrieved Akwa Ibom State governorship aspirants on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have been under pressure to defect to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

    APC’s Presidential aspirant Gen. Muhammadu Buhari is to meet with the aggrieved governorship aspirants, it was learnt yesterday.

    The aspirants, who had rebuffed several entreaties from the APC governorship candidate in the state, Umana Umana, are said to be considering the defection option.

    This followed the manner PDP’s national leadership handled the controversies arising from the party’s governorship primary, which produced the former Secretary to State Government (SSG), Udom Emmanuel.

    A close aide to one of the aggrieved aspirants, who spoke in confidence, said the planned defection to APC, which was the initiative of an APC governor in the Southsouth, would accommodate other politicians in the state, who opposed the imposition of his favourite candidate by Governor Godswill Akpabio on the people.

    A special reception is said to be in the offing for some PDP stalwarts.

    It is expected to be followed by a formal adoption of Gen. Buhari by the Akwa Ibom electorate as their sole presidential candidate in next year’s election.

    The aggrieved aspirants, who are likely to join APC, are: Obong Nsima Ekere, Patrick Ekpotu, Senator Helen Esuene, Assam Assam, Ekpenyong Ntekim, Effiong Abia, Asukwo Okpo, Larry Esin, Prof. Richard King and Chris Abasi Eyo.

    Others are: Okpolump Ette, Aniedi Johnny Ufot, David Okpon, Dr Samuel Udonsak, Jerome Isangedighi, Dr Peter Esu, Pastor Ita Udoh, Ime Ekanem, Micheal Sabastine Etuk, Benjamin Okoko, Ime Albert Akpanebe and Effiong Usin.

    Akpabio, last week, hinted of his willingness to resolve his differences with the aggrieved aspirants and other key stakeholders.

    In a letter on December 19 in Abuja by the 22 members of the aggrieved aspirants after their meeting at the instance of the governor, the group expressed its appreciation to the governor but rejected Emmanuel as the party’s candidature.

    The letter reads: “We unequivocally reject the purported candidature of Mr Udom Gabriel Emmanuel, your maternal cousin, as the PDP flag bearer in Akwa Ibom State, because the process of his alleged emergence was fundamentally flawed and totally unacceptable.”

  • 2015: How Buhari ’ll defeat Jonathan, by ex-Speaker

    2015: How Buhari ’ll defeat Jonathan, by ex-Speaker

    APC candidate ‘to run issue-based campaign’

    The push to win next February’s presidential race will get a fillip this week as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) get set to open their campaigns.

    At the weekend, the PDP raked in about N21 billion for its campaign. The APC is getting set for action, with a meeting today of its Chibuke Amaechi-led campaign committee.

    There is optimism in the APC that its candidate, Gen. Muhammadu buhari, will defeat PDP’s President Goodluck Jonathan.

    Former House of Representatives Speaker Aminu Bello Masari, who is Katsina State APC governorship candidate, spoke about how, in his view, Gen. Buhari will win the election.

    Masari said should the people’s votes count, Gen. Buhari would beat President Jonathan hands down.

    He spoke in Kaduna during a meeting with Katsina State indigenes resident in Kaduna.

    According to him, bad leadership, corruption and lack of foresight are the problems of the Jonathan administration.

    He said: “Take the number of votes from Northwest, take the number of votes from Southwest; 90 per cent of Northeast is APC, 90 per cent of Northwest is APC, 80 per cent of South-west is APC. Edo is APC. The worst scenario is Rivers. There we have the state government, so it cannot be easy for anybody to try and rig election there.

    “We all know that the entire population of Southsouth is not up to Lagos or Kano. We know the total number of voters in the Southeast. The only stronghold of PDP now is the Southsouth and the Southeast. As at today, the collection of PVC in the PDP stronghold is not more than 30 %, so let us see how 100 per cent will come.”

    President Jonathan’s Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs Dr. Doyin Okupe last week said election is not mathematics.

    Okupe, speaking during his visit to a media house in Lagos, said the calculation that APC would win the presidential election is “an error.”

    Gen. Buhari has mandated the party to ensure that his campaign team reflects all tendencies in the party.

    He also urged the party to seek input from all presidential aspirants, APC governors and party leaders at all levels.

    In deference to Gen. Buhari’s request, APC National Chairman Chief John Odigie-Oyegun will today meet in Abuja with the Presidential Campaign Organisation Director-General Governor Amaechi and the Chairman of the Campaign  Advisory Committee, Mr. Audu Ogbeh on how to constitute an all-inclusive campaign team.

    A source told our correspondent that Buhari unfolded his plans to key associates at a meeting in Kaduna.

    He said he would not want his campaign personalised as it happened when he contested on the platform of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and the Congress for Progressives Change (CPC).

    The source quoted Gen. Buhari as saying: “This time around, I want party ownership of the campaign. The campaign team will reflect all the tendencies in the party.

    “Some of you who have been with me over the years may not be included but I want everyone involved because this is a collective mandate. The overall target of defeating PDP is more important than personalising the campaign.”

    Responding to a question, the source added: “Buhari said all presidential aspirants, governors and leaders at all levels will be involved in his campaign.

    “So, Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso, ex- VP Atiku Abubakar, Governor Rochas Okorocha, Mr. Sam Nda Isaiah and all the governors will play key roles in the APC campaign. They have rich experience in politics and campaign that cannot be wished away.

    “The colour of APC campaign will be based on grassroots mobilisation. We want to take PDP to the cleaners. The ruling party may rely on money; we will campaign for change and explain why it is necessary to effect this change.”

    Another source added: “The APC will be decorous and lay the facts on the table for Nigerians to appreciate that a change is desirable for the nation in 2015.”

    The APC plans to make what a member of the NWC described as “substantial” inroads into the SouthSouth and the Southeast.

    The NWC member said: “APC is targeting huge votes from these two zones where it has been stigmatised.

    “ By the time the people of the two zones realise the misrule of the PDP, the story will be different at the poll in February 2015.

    Speaking on his chances in the Katsina governorship race, Masari told his supporters:”We are in democracy. We must deepen democracy. And we believed in 2011 we won the governorship election in Katsina. Even those who were responsible for the collation of election results told me personally that we won the election.

    “So this 2015, we are not afraid. All what we want is give the people what will make them vote; simple.”

    On his plans for the people, if elected as governor in 2015, Masari said Katsinans are farmers adding that he would revamp agriculture.

     

     

  • Buhari promises issue-based campaign

    Buhari promises issue-based campaign

    The Buhari Campaign Organisation has pledged to conduct a campaign focused on the issues which will uplift average Nigerian from poverty to prosperity.

    General Muhammadu Buhari is the Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

    In a statement yesterday by its Communication Director, Mr. Dele Alake, the organisation noted that “the issues of electricity generation and distribution, poverty elimination, eradication of corruption, mass unemployment and security of lives and property are going to form the focal points of our campaign.”

    It added: “These issues have no ethnic colour. Poverty afflicts the old and the young. Unemployment has no political affiliation. Insecurity damages the economy precariously. Insecurity may be more prominent in the Northeast in the wake of the Boko Haram insurgency, but the reality is that Nigerians generally have never been as endangered as they now are.

    “Our responsibility to the Nigerian people in this campaign is to articulate how to rescue Nigerians from the present danger based on the manifesto of the APC. Our responsibility is to demonstrate that Buhari has the personal virtues of discipline, honesty and transparency to inspire the change that is imminent.

    “Our responsibility is to communicate how the military skills acquired by Buhari, the generals’ general, in a publicly acknowledged distinguished career, has made him the most appropriate contestant in the 2015 election with the technical and technocratic skills to crush the rampaging  insurgency and bring peace to a nation losing  a protracted guerrilla war”.

    On the Buhari-Osinbajo ticket, the campaign organisation said it brought together two institutions, which defend the national patrimony and maintain internal harmony.

    It explained that while the military defends the state from aggression, the judicial system defends the law, which establishes and maintains the state.

    “Indeed, the intellectual, political and spiritual antecedents of Prof. Yemi Osinbajo provide the complimentary combination and collaboration that the next Nigerian administration needs – a government that respects the rights of its citizens and enforces their duty to the state.

     

  • ‘Buhari ‘ll defeat Jonathan in next year’s poll’

    ‘Buhari ‘ll defeat Jonathan in next year’s poll’

    Kano State Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso reflects on the All Progresives Congress (APC) presidential primaries, which produced Gen. Muhammadu Buhari as the flag bearer for next year’s election, and highlights the issues that will shape the poll.  KOLADE ADEYEMI met him in Kano, the state capital. 

    After the APC presidential primaries, you unfolded your senatorial ambition. Why do you want to represent Kano Central District in the Senate?

    Let me take this opportunity to thank all of you who are my friends,  including those who were not very positive. Many thought it was Buhari, Atiku and others. In any way, you have seen others now—and you have seen their capacity. We thank the Almighty God for giving us that opportunity to participate in the primary election.  It was very historic. We have done our best. I believe that our best was good enough and well articulated. Let me also at this point congratulate our leader, General Muhammadu Buhari, for such a wonderful performance. I also congratulate other aspirants, Atiku Abubakar (Turaki of Adamawa), Rochas Okorocha, and of course, my friend, your friend, Sam Nda-Asaiah.  Just as we predicted, the primary election was a family affair. It was done in sa uch way that all of us are winners and all of us pledged to support the winner before the primaries and even after the primaries. I thank the Almighty God and I also thank all the delegates and those who supported us through various means to achieve such a wonderful result. I started very late and I know up till this moment, it wasn’t up to two months that I started.

    Many people claimed that I wasn’t known in the South, and other parts of this country. Despite all that, I became number two, after our candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari. And I am happy that, at least, now I am known across the country; and that is a good story for me and a good story for all our supporters in this state and across the country. The result didn’t show delegates from Kano alone, it was delegates from across the country; because I have seen, even from the counting, from here Buhari. Buhari, Kwankwaso…and so on, which means that the support I got cut across the whole country, and I want to thank all the delegates. We will continue to build the party so that at the end of the day, the APC can win election not only in Kano but across the nation.

    On the issue of the senatorial seat, I was just coming back and we had to go and settle the Kano North Senatorial primaries. We had to move straight because we had to do it before 12 midnight and that is done. Now, the next thing is to return and consult my friends and my colleagues here find political future for my humble self and, of course, other people who working together with us here in Kano, for the next dispensation.

    But, Your Excellency…?

    Yes. You are looking at me, as if I didn’t answer your question…

    How do you compare the internal democracy between the PDP and the APC, looking at the emergence of the presidential candidates of both parties?

    You see, the difference is very, very clear. The APC is now the PDP in those days especially in 1999 and 2003. That is how we built the PDP. We allowed aspirants to show their interest, the party will support and even encourage those who are interested to go out and campaign; and it has a lot of advantages, especially if you look at it from my own contest. When I declared, I had to go round the country and convince many of my friends, many of them in the APC, many of them were in other parties. As a result of that, we have so many people who have now joined the APC as a party not because they were the APC or they wanted the APC ordinarily, but because they knew that my leadership will be good for them and will be good for the country; and that was why they came and I can assure you none of them will go back to any other party. They will stay in APC and support it from bottom to the top; and so all so, other aspirants who have gone round, especially, Sam Nda-Isaiah—many people didn’t understand the importance of those 10 votes that he got. You know you can lose or win with 10 votes, not only in the election like the one we had, even in general elections, you can lose or win election with 10 votes in this country. So, 10 votes are very critical and those 10 votes will certainly bring in so many people into our party. So, we are not even talking of the votes that were being recorded for Rochas, even Atiku himself and the ones that were scored by the winner, General Muhammadu Buhari. So, if you put the efforts of these five aspirants together, I am sure that will go a long way. We have seen a lot of changes in the last few months, especially, as it relates to even General Buhari himself.

    Ordinarily, General Buhari wouldn’t have taken so much time, so many efforts to go round the country to convince people. Now, he is a full-fledged politician who has gone round to ask for support, to ask for understanding. He has worked like any other politician in this country, and that is what we want him to do. We don’t want to sit down in a room and look at him and say ‘let us dash him this ticket.’ Now, he has earned the ticket for himself and that has gone a long way in strengthening the party. It has gone a long way in strengthening and deepening democracy in this country. Looking at what he was saying.  He was like any other polished and experienced politician; and that is how it should be, and I am sure even if by the grace of God, when he gets to the Villa, he will be a wiser politician, a more experienced politician, who will value every delegate, who will value every religion, who will value every other tribe, ethnicity and differences across the country. So, I am very happy and proud that our party decided to give us a level playing ground for everybody to contest.

    Considering your efforts before the primaries, do you feel betrayed by the result?

    No. You see, when I was going into it, I thought I was going to win, but I became number two. If you look at the quality of people, their experiences, their wealth—I think everybody should congratulate me. And many people, especially, my friends, I am sure they have seen it on papers. What I believe is that anybody who voted for Buhari is my friend; and if they had known the relationship between me and him; even those who really didn’t like me, if they had known, they wouldn’t have voted for him because I am sure you must have known that he was telling the whole world when they ask him, if you are not getting, it who else would you support and he said, ‘Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso,’ and this was just few days to the primary election. Then, what else do we want and what else do I want? This is somebody who said that voluntarily at his age and he is outstanding in the society. He voluntarily passed out this information not to me but to the whole world. He said, ‘if it is not me, I will support Kwankwaso,’ so, to me, it is as good as I won the primary election.

    Will you still contest for the Presidency in the future?

    Well, you see, I think there is a lot of difference between me and many other people. For me I have decided to go into politics as a politician. I didn’t go into politics just to get a position and enjoy myself. No. I am in politics to better the lives of our people. When I left service in 1991 to join politics, I wasn’t dismissed, or I didn’t go out as a result of frustration; in fact they have to give me two weeks to go and think—that was after I gave them my resignation letter. They wanted me to stay behind because they knew my worth—Ii was a professional by any standard, but I felt I would be more useful to myself and my country if I go into politics. So, I am a politician first and foremost—if anything comes in terms of elected position or appointed, I welcome it and I will keep on moving; and that is why for over 20 years, I have been in and out, in and out and I think I am one of the very few, if there is any politician today, who has been enjoying these experiences of going into various offices, both elective and appointed positions. And it is always good to have such experiences—now, I am in government, I know how sitting governors feel, and at the same time, I know the feelings of those who were in government and they are now outside the government, because before now, I was in government and outside the government. I know the feelings at the state level; I also know the feelings at the national level. So, first and foremost, I am a politician, I am still there.

    So, along the line, if I had won the primary election, it would have been a big challenge. Now, what we have is another challenge because I am now back to the ground to ensure that the PDP is defeated in this state and across the country. In other words, I want to deliver Kano 100 per cent to the APC. Then, some of the people I met yesterday, after declaration, they were saying look, you have to be on that ticket, you have to be in the Senate for Kano Central. With Buhari as the President, and with me as a contestant, it will be very difficult for anybody to mention any party order than the APC on the election day here in Kano. So, now is an opportunity. In the last two months, I have been on and off, now I am fully on ground to complete all these ongoing projects in the state. So, even if there is a disadvantage there, on the other side, you have so many advantages. And even on the side of the disadvantage—if you take it like that, I am happy, somebody I respect a lot and somebody who believes that in this country if not him, it will be Kwankwaso, I don’t think anybody will doubt our relationship with Buhari because this is the information that he gave voluntarily.

    While the APC presidential primary election was going on in Lagos, there was a bomb-blast in Kano, coming few days after the vicious attack on Kano Central Mosque. There have been a series of such attacks in parts of northern states. What is the lasting solution to these incessant terror attacks?

    I want seize this opportunity once again to commiserate with the families of those who were involved in the last and even previous killings in this state and across the country. It is very sad, it is very unfortunate that Nigeria as a country is facing these challenges at this crucial time and we are looking for the answer—I believe that the answer is to have a committed, an honest, determined President and Commander-In-Chief; somebody who has the political will to stop the killings not only in Kano, but across the country. Every day, if it is not in Borno, it is in Yobe, it is in Yobe, if it is not in Yobe, it is in Adamawa, it is Bauchi, Gombe, Kano; just yesterday, we learnt they struck again in Plateau and so on. So, it is a national issue which must be addressed by the Commander-In-Chief.

    And I want to say that Buhari has a military background and that will go a long way in helping him and guiding him on what to do; and by the grace of God, whether from my own house in Kwankwaso town, or from Kano in Gandu Albasa or from anywhere, we will continue to support him, and by the grace of God, when he becomes President, we will succeed; because that is very important, he has his own version of experience, I have my own version of experience, especially, experience in the area of security. And I will rally around him to help him to succeed because his success is not only his own, not only my success, it is not only your success, but the success of this country because even our friends elsewhere are very worried, especially those who have invested their money in this country, especially those who wants to invest; especially those who like or respect this country. People are wondering what is happening in Nigeria.  So to answer that question is that we need a good Commander-In-Chief and if Buhari goes there, I see no reason why all these rubbish will not stop in this country.

    You have said that with his military background, General Buhari can fix the problem of insurgency in this country. Are you saying that military Generals in politics are better than civilians in politics?

    I didn’t say so. But you see, in this political era, a General who has gone through the system over the years, under normal circumstances, is in a better position to handle the issue of security—this is very important. But that is not to say that he can…let me not go into that…next question…

    Your Excellency, we want to roll you back. If after due consultation, eventually at the end, they say you should run for the Senate Seat. Will you accept?

    I think you are just repeating what we have already discussed…I thought you would ask a different question! Well, I am consulting and this consultation will soon end because it is not an open-ended thing. We have to take decisions, but I don’t want anything that will appear tomorrow on papers or even on radio today or television without consulting with my friends here or elsewhere; because in politics, it is very important that before you make up your mind on something, at least, you have to meet your friends and ask them what they think should be done.

  • Ijaw youths threaten to attack Buhari’s supporters

    Ijaw youths threaten to attack Buhari’s supporters

    Ijaw youths threatened yesterday to attack supporters of All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, in the South.

    The youths said they would visit Buhari’s Southern supporters with violence, if loyalists of President Goodluck Jonathan are attacked in the North.

    The youth, under the aegis of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) Worldwide, said they took the decision after reading reports that some people in the North had resorted to sending threat messages to pro-Jonathan governors and other supporters.

    The youth, in a statement by their spokesman, Mr. Eric Omare, condemned the alleged threats.

    They said it was an indication of the desperation of Gen. Buhari and his supporters.

    Describing the development as undemocratic, IYC said the alleged threat from a ranking member of the National Assembly was an invitation to anarchy.

    It said: “All Nigerians, irrespective of his or her place of origin, has a right to contest for the Presidency of Nigeria and Nigerians have a right to support any candidate of their choice without molestation.

    “It would be recalled that hundreds of Nigerians, especially National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members were killed and property worth millions of naira destroyed in the aftermath of the 2011 elections as a result of similar undemocratic disposition of some elements in the North.”

    The youth warned violent persons in the North to stop their conducts ahead of the 2015 elections.

    IYC said: “We of Southern Nigeria have not, at any time, threatened or attacked supporters of General Buhari; hence, any threat or attack on supporters of President Jonathan in the North would be visited with proportionate action from us in the South.

    “Governors Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers), Rochas Okorocha (Imo) and Adams Oshiomole (Edo); former Bayelsa State Governor Timipre Silva; APC National Chairman John Odigie-Oyegun; APC National Leader Bola Tinubu and other supporters of General Buhari in Southern Nigeria are going about their campaigns for General Buhari without any molestation from Southerners.

  • A Talakawa Guide to the Jonathan/ PDP-Buhari/APC Roforofo Fight

    A Talakawa Guide to the Jonathan/ PDP-Buhari/APC Roforofo Fight

    Two people dey yab/Crowd dey
    Two people dey yab/Crowd dey look/Roforofo dey! Fela Kuti, Chorus, “Roforofo Fight”
    1. The class in power is about to kick out the party/government in power!

    The late Claude Ake, following Karl Marx, used to insist that we must always distinguish between the ruling class, the class in power, from the particular government or party that may be in power at any particular moment in history. The one is a part of the whole that is the other. In other words, the party or government in power represents only a part of the totality of the ruling class, the class in power. This is easier seen in the institutions and practices of the developed bourgeois democracies of the world. In the United Kingdom, sometimes the Conservative Party is the party in power and at other times the Labor Party supplies the government in power. In the United States, sometimes it is the Democratic Party; other times, it is the Republican Party. Though completely absent in the federal seat of power, this distinction between the class in power and the party/government in power is not unknown in Nigeria. At state and local levels, opposition parties often wrest control from the PDP as the dominant, hegemonic party of our political elites, our ruling class and vice versa. What we are about to see in the 2015 general elections is unprecedented: the ruling class, the class in power, is about to kick out, perhaps forever, the party and government in power.

    The ostensible reason for this is the abysmal record of the PDP as the party and government in power at the center. The litany of PDP’s and Jonathan’s political misrule and mismanagement of the country’s economic and human resources is all too familiar. The corruption and squandermania are so vast, so incorrigibly resistant to control that Jonathan’s own Finance Minister, Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala, once said that she would be satisfied if she could reduce the waste by as much (or as little) as 4%. 70% of Nigerians live in dire poverty, even as a minority of the wealthy lives in fabled and lavish opulence. Our youths who constitute the largest demographic bloc in the population can expect nothing but a future of joblessness and uncertainty. Under the PDP and Jonathan, our educational system at all levels has become one of the most mediocre in Africa and the world; indeed, there is now no “Nigerian science and technology” to talk about. With the exception of a small segment of elites that live in fortressed, ultramodern mansions, for most Nigerians insecurity of life, property and personal possessions has become the very texture of daily existence, month after month, year after year. Of the Nigerian “brand” in the world at large, infamy as one of the worst places on the planet in which to do business has become an almost unshakeable fixture in the minds of not only the world’s transnational corporations but also of Nigerian businessmen and women.

    As important as these factors are, they do not constitute the real basis for why the Nigerian ruling class is about to kick out PDP/Jonathan as the party/government in power. Simply put, the power brokers in the Nigerian ruling class are dumping the PDP and Jonathan simply and unambiguously in order to save themselves by expelling the leviathan before it brings the house down on all their heads. Not content to misrule, mismanage and lay everything to waste on a colossal scale, PDP/Jonathan wanted to wipe out all the other ruling class parties by transforming the political order into a fascist one-party state in which it will be the only party with a national spread, a country-wide plurality. This would have been unattainable even if PDP/Jonathan were a model, high-achieving party and government in an ethnically and culturally homogenous country. But in a linguistically and culturally diverse country with a deep chasm between the haves and the have-nots, PDP/Jonathan overreached themselves.

    Obasanjo’s relentless verbal assaults on Jonathan; the mass defections from the PDP; the revolt of many of its governors; the merger of parties with only very thin connections between them only on the basis of ousting Jonathan and the PDP from power: these are some of the manifestations of the historic fact that, as some organisms shed their skins for new ones, the Nigerian ruling class is about to send the extant ruling party into political and historical oblivion and cobble together a new one. Where this will lead us, no one knows, but the consensus is that anything at all is better than the hole, the cesspit into which Jonathan/PDP are burying us. In what follows, I contend that that is not the end of the story.

    2. APC as the new party/government in power will not commit class suicide!

    It is of course not absolutely certain that Buhari/APC will oust Jonathan/PDP. Though Jonathan/PDP cannot win on their terribly dismal record, they may well attempt to rig themselves into a perpetuation of their misrule, their ‘failing-state’ paralysis. In the governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun States, the level of militarization of the electoral process was unprecedented; and for the first time in our electoral history, we saw hooded men of the state security apparatus arrest opposition party leaders and activists en masse. PDP/Jonathan may well attempt a repeat performance of these intimidating and coercive quasi-rigging tactics at the national level.

    But PDP is a stricken, wounded formation; it is as much buffeted by cyclones of inner implosion as by the external headwinds of a realignment of regional, ethnic and religious forces in which the Northwest, Northeast and Southwest zones are the dominant brokers. To these can be added parts of the North-central and South-south zones. The PDP is all too aware of these shifts in the zonal realignment of forces. And this awareness will temper its desperate will to rig itself into a firm grip on power. At any rate, this in effect means that the APC is the product of zonal or horizontal forces within the ruling class; it is nothing remotely close to a vertical class realignment of forces across the great dividing lines between the haves and the have-nots in our country.

    Let us be completely frank and unambiguous on this point. If Buhari/APC wins the 2015 elections and replaces Jonathan/PDP as the nascent party/government in power, its priorities will be governed by a drive to present the kinder, fairer and perhaps less corrupt side of our ruling class to Nigerians. An anti-corruption zealousness will probably be its most ardent legitimating program. In Nigeria and around the world, this will win it considerable credibility, goodwill and support. But it will not differ substantially from the ideological and broad policy orientation of the Jonathan-PDP party/government. The massive and unconscionable privatization of public enterprises and national assets will continue, with its unashamed excesses of the primitive accumulation through which rich and powerful Nigerians extract capital from the state to buy and privatize our national assets. The awesome powers of incumbency and patronage of the Presidency will be left intact under an APC/Buhari government/party; indeed, it may be expanded and made more imperious. And we will continue to have one Head of State and 36 mini heads of states, with the monumental wastage in the cost of governance that this entails. Finally, massive expenditure to substantially reduce or abolish poverty and to work for full employment has never been a major ideological or policy hallmark of any of our political parties. It is a stretch to think that in power at the center, APC/Buhari will embark on this path to redressing the great gap between the haves and the have-nots when its constituent parts have never done this in the state and local governments they have controlled.

    3. A kinder and fairer face of the Buhari/APC govt. in power must be deepened by a social movement of the talakawa and those who struggle with and for them

    Because at the present moment we are in another electoral cycle, the idea, the myth is once again very current that people hold their destiny in their own hands by voting for those who will represent their interests, who will make government work for the governed. But this is a half-truth. The ultimate achievement of elections is that they ensure that rulers cannot and must not take the ruled for granted, that it is in the power of the ruled to throw out rulers who have not performed well, who indeed have performed atrociously. Other than that, when elections are over, when an election cycle has run its course, the electorate must remain vigilant and mobilized if it wants to get the same attention it got during the election cycle. Nigerian political parties and politicians are notorious in their post-electoral cycle tendency to abandon their election promises and pursue instead their individual and class interests.

    In this particular historic context, this tendency will be magnified a hundred times, a thousand times by the fact that the defeat of the Jonathan/PDP will mean that the APC/Buhari party/government will have thousands of positions to fill and new patron-client relationships to forge as it positions itself to become the new ruling party. The thinking seems to be that the one and proper way to become the ruling party is to effectively distribute the spoils office among all the competing groups of elites in the country. One does not have to be a prophet to predict that ethnic, religious and geopolitical balancing in appointment to public offices and award of contracts will be the first order of the new ruling party and the government. The tragedy of Nigerian progressive mass politics is that the masses themselves too often get sucked into this maelstrom of ruling class manipulation of ethnic and religious differences in the sharing of the spoils of office and power. I contend that the euphoria of the defeat of Jonathan/PDP will make the independent self-mobilization of the Nigerian masses a particularly onerous task. But that said, we must prepare ourselves: as one ruling party goes into the oblivion of time and history and another one takes its place, this will mark something totally without precedent in our political history. In that case, how immensely fitting would it be for the Nigerian masses and those who fight with and for them to push relentlessly for real social justice and a dignified existence for the most disadvantaged in our country.

    Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

     

  • Buhari & Osibajo: the road to fixing Nigeria

    Buhari & Osibajo: the road to fixing Nigeria

    Each village meeting concluded that Buhari is not coming back to rule as a representative of the military, should he get elected, but as a member of All Progressives Congress.

    Finally, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has given the Nigerian electorate the other side of the electoral equation to consider in its search for the right presidential ticket to govern Nigeria in the next four years. Many APC members are already calling the Buhari-Osibajo ticket the ‘Dream Team’ to fix Nigeria. As expected in the marketing of candidates that electoral contest engenders, PDP spokespersons are quick in telling voters that this team is not formidable enough to unseat the incumbent. The interest of today’s column is to share reservations and recommendations of folks in many Yoruba towns and villages (which I had visited in the last four weeks) with regards  to the two teams; one old and the other new, asking for citizens’ approval in the next presidential election.

    On questions about the incumbent team, citizens did not have specific comments. They told me that they know enough about the Jonathan-Sambo ticket already, having had the two leaders in power for close to six months. They rather threw their own questions to me: “Are you sure Buhari can fix the country better than he did in 1984?” I answered that I was there to find out what they thought as voters, not to express my thought as a commentator wanting to feel the political pulse or temperature of the masses with respect to leading contenders for the APC ticket. I insisted that I was in every town or village visited in my personal capacity to listen to indigenes and residents, not to persuade anyone with my own feeling on the important matter of fixing Nigeria.

    At a bar in Osogbo, one young man clad in a mechanic’s blue overcoat kicked off the discussion: “Should Buhari win the primaries, does anyone think that he will be in a position at 72 to fix Nigeria any better than what he did at 42?” Many okada riders in the room said between sips of beer that Buhari was too obsessed with unity and discipline in 1984 for him to be able to fix today’s more complex Nigeria. Others shouted them down that they were too young to know what happened in 1984 and should not waste the time of the visiting newspaper columnist by re-casting the prejudice of old UPN members. I quickly interjected, urging everyone to respect the view of the other and called for ground rules for the bar seminar. We all agreed in Osogbo as we did in Ipetu-Ijesa, Ile-Oluji, Ondo, Okitipupa, Inisa, Oyan, Ilese, Sagamu, Ikorodu, Ilorin, Offa, Ajase-po, Oyo, Fiditi, Ote, and for Lagos area in Ipaja, Festac, Alagbado, Mushin, and Ibafo. We agreed that each person would be allowed to air his or her views on each candidate and we would cast a vote at the end of each evening’s road-side political seminar on each issue discussed.

    If votes recorded in the informal seminars were anything to go by, Buhari’s emergence in Lagos last week as the APC flag-bearer would not have surprised anyone in many of the bars visited. Most of the discussion in various towns was about his presidential candidacy. He was the candidate most favoured and also the most scrutinised. There was no session at which the issue of his need to explain why he made certain choices during the eighteen months he was military head of state. The negative questions were many: “Why did he stop the Lagos Metro Project; why did he keep UPN politicians in jail when nobody had accused them of stealing from public till; why did he ask citizens to wait in straight lines like soldiers at bus stations; why did he order that people who threw litters on the streets be flogged by WAI brigades?” One person in Okuku even asked why Buhari wanted to bring two leading southern UPN politicians; Dikko and Akinloye, back from London in crates to come and face trial for corrupt enrichment in Lagos. But there were older persons in the room who quickly put the last question to rest by saying that Dikko was Fulani like Buhari and that Akinloye was a leader of NPN, not UPN. One matter that came up in each session was the readiness of Buhari to do the needful: re-structure the polity and allow each region or state to develop at its own pace.

    From one town or village to the other, the beer-parlour seminar was characterised at the beginning by boisterous discussions, but each ended on a sober note of philosophic reflection that many pundits would not associate with bar discussions. Many issues that could have been raised by PDP campaign managers were raised pointedly and not necessarily to damage Buhari’s campaign but to let him have the benefit of the interaction between the Yoruba political memory and electoral behaviour. One of such revelations was the point that a man’s deeds at 40 should not be used to disqualify him from any race that he joins at 70 and that thirty years should be long enough to change a man or woman that is not retarded. I was told by a clearly ‘lumpen’ group that doing something that made people uncomfortable thirty years ago is not as bad failing to grow with time to see things differently thirty years after, but that such leader must be ready to explain the reasons for his actions thirty years younger. A young woman, moving from serving beer to drinking Guinness stout, said: “It is the vision of the leader regarding the future that matters, not what he did not do to the satisfaction of everybody thirty years ago.”

    I was told that Buhari in 1984 did not do anything with a mandate. Nigerians had no power over his choices of what to do, as he was responsible to his fellow military men who picked to replace Shehu Shagari, whom citizens voted for but who was apparently unable to govern the country properly while citizens who gave him their mandate to rule were also unable to call for his impeachment. Some blue-collar workers even said that Buhari was in 1984 a loyal member of a pack, the Nigerian military class, not a party with the overarching slogan of Change. The military-ruling class was described as one that from the beginning of military rule in 1966 to its end in 1999 made too many mistakes about how to fix Nigeria. Some persons even pontificated that if we are going to hold Buhari’s performances in 1984-85 against him, we should have done the same to Obasanjo who later came to govern Nigeria as a civilian president for eight years through the proverb: “Bawoni obo se s’ori ti inaki ko se?” (What is sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander).

    I also heard that voters should hold Buhari and his running mate down to electoral promises they are able to make. One woman said several times at the top of her voice that Buhari has been saying since 2007 that he would restructure the country if elected, an indication that he was not going to be satisfied with addressing the symptoms at the expense of the causes of Nigeria’s problems which have been festering for over half a century. Nobody knew at that point that Buhari was going to choose a running-mate, YemiOsibajo, who also spent so much of his legal mind defending and protecting the vestiges of federalism in place during his eight years of serving as Lagos State’s chief legal officer.

    Soldiers in their one-dimensional thinking, one Danfo driver said, “misread the country’s political signs. They thought federalism was the enemy of the country’s unity and all of them in power worked hard to dismantle the country’s federal system, only to realise that the unity for which they broke the country into mini-states designed to survive on life support from petro dollars has remained elusive, even sixteen years after the exit of military rule. If the groups in the discussions were big enough to justify any generalisation, one would have paid substantial attention in this piece to a school teacher’s advice to Yoruba voters: “It is not enough to vote for Buhari and abandon him to his own devices; it is important to remind him at all times that he is the candidate of a party that in Yorubaland is seen as standing for Freedom for all, Life more abundant. Each village meeting concluded that Buhari is not coming back to rule as a representative of the military, should he get elected, but as a member of All Progressives Congress.