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Tag: General Buhari

  • Success recipe for General Buhari

    It is almost certain that within  weeks General Muhammadu Buhari, the President-Elect would be sworn into office as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria riding on the platform of the All Progressives Congress which swept the poll in the last presidential election. The retired but actually not tired army general put paid to the inept and arrogant reign of the Peoples Democratic Party.

    It is our belief that as a former army general with a lot of war strategies under his epaulettes it should be expected that the president elect is acutely aware that he cannot fall in the governance battle field where the landmines destroyed the PDP troops when it imploded after it began with so much goodwill from the people in 1999 at the return of democratic government following a long period of military interregnum.

    For the Nigerian League of Democrats, a very compelling issue that the president-elect should give consideration and attention to, is the number of national problem that he is contemplating line to tackle as government begins business. According to the League, General Buhari should avoid the disease that commonly plagues governments at the local, state and federal level when they try to dissipate energy in covering the entire field without getting anything done at the end of their tenure.

    In charting an uncluttered course that can lead to tangible achievements for the Buhari administration, the League advised that the general who is the recipient of the largest numbers of votes ever cast for any presidential candidate in the country, should try to streamline its projects to the critical areas and avoid an cumbersome bouquet of projects that will bog down the administration in a merry go round that will bring the nation into a repeat performance of older regimes that failed woefully and brought zero growth in national development.

    However, the organization did not specify in either ascending or descending in selecting the order or picking the preferences in development initiatives that should be the priority of the president-in-waiting. For them, any of the following: the battle to reach zero tolerance for corruption, the establishment of facilities for generating sustainable and affordable electricity, improving the level of infrastructure creation should rank very high for the administration. In the organization’s estimation, these projects will infuse the economy with a degree of strength and will by extension reduce and tame the ever burgeoning army of the unemployed

    Calculating that what has given the nation its biggest pressure is the hydra headed monster of corruption and impunity in government, the group believes that the government must deal with corruption in such a way that will ensure that the average Nigerian is made aware of the mortal danger that corruption poses not just to the growth and sustenance of the country but to the personal development of their lives and families.

    Suggesting a measure that will give added bite to the campaign against corruption, the group believe that people guilty of corruption should not only be made to forfeit the proceeds of self-enrichment but should equally serve a term of jail time, to make them suffer just in the same way they inflicted punishment on the citizens who were denied of the provisions that was due to them if the money so allocated was not misappropriated.

    The League believed that for there to be synergy that will guarantee a seamless operation in government, General Buhari must revisit the Steve Oronsaye’s report on civil service reform. The organization is of the view that the cancer of corruption can only be removed if premium is once more paid on professionalism in the civil service and the organization is insisting that a radical approach that will bring the civil service to the admirable service oriented public office of the 1960s should be the standard that the new government must resolve to reach.

    Assessing the current public officers in government the organization concluded that the change that Buhari is hoping to bring about can only be sustained and upheld if the opportunism and the attitude of self before the nation is not curbed through a mass layoff or a grand re-orientation of the staff of the civil service especially the upper echelon of the federal working force across the nation.

    The group is also suggesting that the new government should erect some of its policies on the pillar of some of the programmes that proved successful with previous governments in Nigeria. The group specifically selected former President Ibrahim Babangida’s commercialization initiative, saying it is shoulders and heads above the privatization agenda of the PDP government which is reflective of thoughtlessness and recklessness of the party.

    We are of the strong opinion too that the Buhari administration should avoid sycophancy and make deliberate efforts to hear the real issues that can drive development. The new government must reward initiative and creativity which was absent in the long hard years of the out-going especially in the public sector which is the engine room of the government.

    In line with that suggestion, the League will also counsel the forthcoming Buhari administration to ignore the clamour of the members of the PDP that Buhari should not review the privatization programme is an indication that government of PDP has special interest in how the programme was conceived, framed and executed adding that the people of the nation must come first before the interest of a few who believe that the assets of country belongs to them and their cliques alone.

    The League is confident that with the pedigree of General Buhari, his penchant for openness, his love for Spartan living, his unflinching pursuit of a high level and discipline, the goodwill he has harvested among Nigerians, that it will be an impossible if not a difficult task for him to be derailed by a highly discredited group like the PDP.

    General Buhari and the APC’s job has been made easy by the disappointment, disillusionment and despair raised to an unusually high level in Nigeria by the government of President Jonathan. All that Genral Buhari need to do is to travel the road not taken by the party it successfully dethroned in April. Long Live General Muhammadu Buhari, Long Live All Progressives Congress and Long Live Nigeria.

     

    Otunba Niyi Adebanjo, is National coordinator, Nigeria League of Democrats

  • Open letter to General Buhari (Rtd)

    SIR: I was still very young when you led this country as a military Head of State. So, I cannot claim to know much about you apart from the fact that your administration ousted Alhaji Shehu Shagari through a military coup. But during the 2015 presidential campaigns, a lot was said about your uprightness, a quality that everybody, including your opponents could not gainsay. I would not want you to derail since you have finally found yourself amidst Nigerian politicians, hence this piece of advice.

    One, you should not play the politics of witch-hunt. This is an advice from an admirer. Over these past inglorious years of the misrule of the PDP, some politicians have tried to play politics of bitterness, a game of once you are not in my party, you are an enemy that should be discarded. Few examples will suffice. Ex-Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State was a Mr. Right when he was in PDP. But immediately he defected to the then opposition APC, all his sins were exhumed. And before you could say Jack Robinson, he was given the boot. The same unholy act just repeated itself in Ondo State where a deputy governor, Alhaji Ali Olanusi was impeached and replaced with Laisisi Oluboyo all because he joined another political party. Is politics a game of vendetta? If the answer to this question is yes, then gentle and religious men like you and your deputy would have no business with such terrain. And if no, how would one explain this political rascality and outright impunity?

    The typical politicians may want to convert you to this kind of politicking. Please sir, consent thou not. Remember that every Governor, Senator, Representative, whether state or national, were all elected by the people. So it becomes subversive for opposition lawmakers to now seek to remove such elected office holders without recourse to the people. It amounts to political fraud. Even, sir, if by the Nigerian constitution this is permissible, I dare to say it is morally unjustifiable. You may not have the constitutional powers to stop such unholy move, but your body language could mean a lot. When you finally get to the office by May 29, kindly remain the man of peace you have always been.

    Second, political appointment should not be on compensational basis. Sir, you must kindly ensure that appointments are based on competence. Look out for men who have proven and tested integrity. The reason I’m saying this is because a number of your party men have different reasons for being in politics.  If not so, how do you explain why people should defect from their parties to join the APC now that it has won election at the centre? Or did you ever contemplate that when you lost to the PDP candidates three times?

    Sir, while seeking competent hands for your government, kindly look beyond party affiliations.

    Third, and finally sir, in pursuit of justice, please be fair. Remember that the symbol of justice is a blindfolded woman with a two-edged sword. This means that justice knows no party members; it is fair to all. It is better and fairer to forgive 10 people who have stolen than to prosecute nine and let one go. What some of your predecessors called war against corruption in the past were simply personal vendetta and political witch-hunt, and victimizations. Avoid these moral flaws, and you shall do well. I wish   you well.

    • Ohimai Daniel,

     Lagos.

  • Between President Jonathan and General Buhari

    Between President Jonathan and General Buhari

    Last Wednesday, this column ended with a promise that today, God willing, we’ll examine the question about whether the opposition leadership can deliver on its commitment of bringing an end to the nasty and brutish present the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has landed us in and would like us to continue with. Of course, PDP did not put it exactly this way when President Goodluck Jonathan read his acceptance speech as its candidate in next month’s presidential election during his recent coronation at Eagle Square in Abuja.

    “The choice before Nigerians in the coming election,” he said in the speech, “is simple: A choice between going forward or (sic) going backwards; between the new ways and the old ways; between freedom and repression; between a record of visible achievements and beneficial reforms and desperate power-seekers with empty promises.”

    Obviously for the president, a vote for the first options in his four dichotomies – forward/backward; new ways/old ways; freedom/repression; visible achievements and beneficial reforms/ desperate power seekers with empty promises – represents a vote for himself and PDP, while a vote for the second represents one for General Muhammadu Buhari and All Progressives Congress (APC).

    These dichotomies, to begin with, are based on certain false assumptions and some are indeed themselves false. It is, for example, not necessarily true that the future is always better than the past or that new ways are necessarily better than old ways. Certainly in the specific case of the president, his new ways have proved more disastrous than the old because, by almost every development index you can think of, it has, as I said last week, landed us in a present worse, far worse, than the past. Again, it is also not true that only those desperate to get power make empty promises; those desperate to retain power too can and do make empty promises.

    Today our economy has come to be defined not so much by its recently rebased size, which has earned it the dubious honour of being the largest in Africa. Rather our economy has come to be defined, even by the president himself, by the numbers of the new rich, who own private jets and guzzle huge quantities of expensive wines that it has created. In other words, Nigeria has come to exemplify a society with an unhealthy huge gap between the few obscenely rich and a huge number of the rest living in abject poverty.

    There can hardly be a better illustration of this new Nigeria than a seven-page article in TATLER (December 2013), the glossy British fashion magazine, headlined “THE NIGERIANS HAVE ARRIVED.” The article, which spoke about how Nigeria’s new rich fly from Lagos to London by private jets, love to live and shop in Belgravia, a wealthy neighbourhood of London, wear “bespoke suits” and play polo with princes, described the country as the second fastest growing champagne market after France. “Total consumption (of the drink),” it said, “reached 752,879 bottles in 2011 and the country is spending around N41.41bn  (£159m) on the drink annually.”

    Surely, this is not the kind of Nigeria we can all be proud to be citizens of, especially not when the inequality and inequity in the land is based, not on hard work and entrepreneurship, but mainly on cronyism. As that justly famous Justice of American Supreme Court, Louis D. Brandeis, once said of his country, “We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”

    Second, the president’s dichotomies are based on the assumption that he is sincerely committed to his oft-repeated promise of allowing free, fair and credible elections. In spite of all appearances to the contrary, the man did not deliver on this promise four years ago and the stakes have become much higher since then as can be seen from the number and the character of the country’s new rich alone.

    Four years ago the man won on the power of incumbency coupled with the power of religious and ethnic propaganda. Then public policy, the treasury, chief executives of state and local governments, and even traditional rulers, were all held hostage to ensuring victory for the PDP at all levels of government. Similarly the party succeeded in dressing Buhari, as the leading rival candidate – of course with the active complicity of the mass media – in the robes of an ethnic jingoist and religious extremist.

    Even then the PDP did not take chances with the actual voting itself. Here, it was instructive that there were high voter turnouts in virtually all the states that were the party’s strongholds and corresponding low voter turnouts in opposition strongholds. Whereas, for example, the highest voter turnout in opposition strongholds was in Kano with 52.3 %, the lowest in PDP strongholds in South-South and South-East, except for Anambra (57.3), Ebonyi (47.3) and Edo (37.2), was 60%. Indeed, Bayelsa, the president’s home state, had an improbable 85.5% turnout in a country which, like most democracies in the world, has had an average of lower than 40% voter turnout since elections started in the country.

    It therefore came as no surprise that a programme on the Federal Government-owned Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), which started an analysis of the votes on April 17, was yanked off the air “on orders from above” barely five minutes into its continuation the following day when one of the discussants, Dr Jibrin Ibrahim, who was an election expert, started raising awkward questions about the credibility of the figures.

    Four years on, it now seems the power of ethnic and religious propaganda against Buhari as the leading opposition candidate, is no longer as portent as it was on the three occasions he lost, thanks essentially to his choice of a running mate, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, who is not only a senior pastor of arguably the most influential Pentecostal church in Africa, but comes highly recommended for his intellect and simplicity and as a man of high personal integrity.

    This obviously means the president would now have to rely more on his power of incumbency than he did four years ago if he is to be sure of winning the election. So far he has demonstrated a willingness to use it at the expense of the opposition, witness, for  example, how he sided with the minority faction of a divided Nigerian Governors Forum, how the Police recently tried to shut out the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Aminu Tambuwal, from the House because he had defected to the opposition, how the Directorate of State Services invaded the Data Centre of the APC in Lagos, under the guise that the centre was forging a voters register, and from the way his administration has selectively fought its war against corruption.

    The omens are therefore not good that the elections this year will be free, fair and credible. Assuming, however, they are, and assuming the opposition wins the presidential elections, can it deliver on its promise to end the current rot?

    The answer, says conventional wisdom, lies in the parties focusing on debating issues rather than personalities of the contestants. I disagree somewhat. Issues are of course important but again as Justice Brandeis once said, “We are not won by arguments that we can analyse, but by tone and temper; by the manner, which is the man himself.” In other words what in the end makes us believe in someone is not his knowledge or competence as such. It is essentially his character.

    By all means let us discuss issues if only because therein can we tell whether someone has a grasp of the things at stake. But we must remember always that, in the end, talk is cheap and character more than even knowledge and competence, is what makes the difference.

    Clearly the leadership of the ruling party has demonstrated that it lacks the character to deliver this country from the problems of insecurity, industrial scale venality and poverty that has bedevilled it. The big question is, does the leadership of the opposition have the character to enable it turn the tide for a better future?

    As political parties I believe there isn’t much to choose between PDP and APC. But then even though a tree does not make a forest, small groups and even individuals can, as History has taught us, make a difference. I believe the combination of Buhari and Osinbajo can make a significant difference in the nation’s war against insecurity, corruption and the poverty in the land. This is because both of them possess what, to me, are the greatest virtues in fighting a successful war against any evil – personal integrity and a simple lifestyle, even if it is merely comparative.

    As a human being, Buhari, of course has his vices but many that are often attributed to him, like religious extremism and ethnic jingoism, as I’ve had occasions to point out on these pages, are simply not true. Some that are true, like his self-righteousness, rigidity and a tendency to over-delegate, he seems to have learnt to change or moderate since he entered politics more than a decade ago, as anyone familiar with the internal politics of the opposition parties he has been a member of will testify.

    Twelve years ago, on January 28, 2003 to be precise, I described the choice between President Olusegun Obasanjo as the candidate of PDP and Buhari as the candidate of the opposition ANPP in that year’s presidential election as a difficult one “between the rock and a hard place.”

    Twelve years on, the choice between President Goodluck Jonathan and Buhari couldn’t be easier, given the preponderance of the character of each of them, never mind the poor record of the incumbent in the last six years, a record which would be hard to surpass in its bankruptcy.

     

     

     

    A correction…

    Last week I referred to Major-General Ishola Williams in error as Alabi William. The error was inadvertent and is regretted.

    …and a notice

    Twenty years ago this month I was a guest speaker at an occasion during which General Muhammadu Buhari was honoured over his conferment with an honorary degree. It was a long speech but re-reading it I thought it has some relevance to the current cross-road we are in, especially given the roles some of the key players then are still playing in our politics today.

    The editors of Daily Trust, The Nation, Newsdiaryonline and Gamji have obliged my request to publish it between this Saturday and Sunday. You may wish to read it for all that it is worth.

  • Letter to General Buhari

    Our dear country, on account of its tremendous potentials in human and natural resources, was the envy of the Third World including neighbours Ghana, South Africa and the Asian Tigers, when you were born 72 years ago. As you grew up, you must have watched with high-tension indignation, like other zealous patriots, how those less-endowed competitors gradually but steadily overtook the fearsome-looking Nigeria, ultimately establishing a commanding, near-unassailable lead in the marathon race of national development. Such indignation has caused you to seek on different platforms, the opportunity to put in your

    patriotic quota in reversing the ugly trend, typified, for example, by the callous manner Second Republic politicians compounded the nation’s woes between 1979 and 1983. But the agents and promoters of rot in uniform, agbada and babariga, pampered by intellectual gangsters, have always conspired to prevent you from doing for Nigeria what Jerry Rawlings, armed with your brand of zealous patriotism, courage, sincerity and discipline, did for Ghana.

    In a similar letter of mine (Lamentations to Jeremiah of May, 2011) to “the best president Nigeria never had” in the great beyond, I lamented about how the woes of the country which he laboured hard for an opportunity to fix had worsened since he departed. You will recall that after his yet unsuccessful attempt at the opportunity in 1983, he told the nation he would not personally press for it again.

    Rather, “when Nigerians need me, they will call for me,” he had closed. Unfortunately, by the time Nigerians realized he was the best president they could have had, it was too late!

    You will recall, also, the desperate attempts, before then, by those whose very essence and livelihood depended solely on profiting from the woes of their nation, to ensure he never smelt that opportunity to do for Nigeria what he did for the Western Region. Then, raw falsehood competed violently with pure treachery. If River Kaduna overran its banks, sweeping away Aliyu’s hut, Emeka’s car failed to start in Abakaliki, or Aremu’s wife in Ogbomoso went into prolonged labour, Awolowo surely had a case to answer!

    This is why I did not start by congratulating you on your overwhelming endorsement by your party for the 2015 presidential election. Already, you have become, more than ever, the object of similar mischief, falsehood and treachery coming from your opponents and those who provide the intellectual fillip on the opinion and other pages of newspapers.

    You are such an intimidating and fearsome “semi-illiterate” that the super literates in the land have had to go on gruelling academic research in yet futile attempts to rubbish you.

    They accuse you of once threatening to “make the country ungovernable,” even though those who actually made the particular statement at the time of a tragicomic internal succession war belonged to the camp of your opponents. You are desperately labelled sponsor of Boko Haram, even when those who have been able to capture evil resources large enough to sponsor terror are as close to them as they are distant from you. They describe you, with several Christians on your intimate personal staff, as “unrepentant religious bigot, northern irredentist and political demagogue.” Yet the political heavyweight your military government packaged in a crate from London en-route Nigeria to answer for economic crime against the country was a fellow northerner and fellow Muslim.

    In other such attempts, they have found it a “visible fact” that you are not abreast of some imaginary “global issues of today and tomorrow.” Ordinary Nigerians on the streets however, know that the global issues you are allergic to are the mindless looting of the treasury, insensitive cornering of people’s commonwealth and “gluttonous accumulation of wealth.”

    You are described as one to whom “there are blue bloods and talakawas whose place in life is hewing wood and drawing water”! If you who have refused to steal from the rich, the not-so-rich and the talakawas could be so described, how then do we describe the demonic gluttons who gleefully corner talakawas’ pension funds in hundreds of billions while they watch, callously, as the poor souls perish on the queues waiting for their rightful entitlements?

    In fact, dear General, some plots have been about sheer trivialities, some so ridiculous they begin to border on intellectual idiocy. That it took you seven days to announce the identity of your running mate has become an issue of campaign of calumny, as if the time taken in making a choice is of greater significance than making a right choice. They say the firmness and activeness of your military government could only be credited to your Second-In-Command as he was actually in charge. But if your deputy was actually the one in charge, why then was he Number Two?

    The truth of the matter, however, was that you were such a liberal and selfless leader who believed in sharing service and limelight with your deputy. Hence you chose a man with similar sterling attributes, as you have done again, to do more of the interaction with the public.

    To your detractors, you are by far the oldest human being ever to aspire to lead a nation. The global icon, Nelson Mandela, fresh from 27 years in prison, became South Africa’s president at 76. Americans who elected John Kennedy president at 41 were the same people that made Ronald Reagan president at 70. Tunisians, progenitors of the recent Arab Spring, have just elected an 88-year old uncle of yours as president in continuation of their revolution.

    Unlike most Nigerian political leaders, past and present, you have not been moving in and out of hospitals on account of ill-health. Yet they accuse you of lack of vibrancy. At 99, your mother, (her first three children are all older than you), Yeye Oodua, Mama HID Awolowo, still bubbles with such inspiring vibrancy that she still coordinates the affairs of the descendants of Oduduwa.

    General, your haters are not relenting. And they are not expected to relent even though, as fresh as their focus had been presented to be, they still have not been able to clear the cobwebs of economic rascality, institutional lawlessness and political brigandage in which the Nigerian nation has been entangled for decades. You should expect them to become even more desperate, dangerous and deadly in coming weeks. They will do all in their political and intellectual capacity to cajole and instigate the Nigerian people against you. But it is left for the people to decide not yours but their fate.

    Have a fruitful, glorious campaign, General, and a Happy New Year.

  • The die is cast

    The die is cast

    •President Jonathan and General Buhari hold the fate of Nigeria in their hands. It begins with a responsible campaign based on issues.

    As a nation, we are at the point again when we try to hope, when the elections loom both as an opportunity for improvement, or as a juncture for renewal.

    It is also a chance to peer into a potential abyss of tragic proportions. In the past month, Nigeria’s two major political parties, the People’s Democratic Party and the All Progressives Congress, picked their candidates at various levels, for the general elections billed for February next year. Not all the elections have been exemplary. Contentions about propriety and fairness have plagued quite a few of them, and that shows that as a people and political class, we are yet to rise above not only sectarian foibles but also the incubus of manipulation based on money and overbearing personal influences.

    Yet, many of the exercises have demonstrated marked improvements from the past experiences. Court cases however hang over a few; and bad blood simmers over some that have been indubitably concluded. Healing within the parties may be the next step in those areas where the outcomes have left some contestants bruised. Victories of whatever type are no tea parties. Egos plummet, purses shrink, and influences come undone. But the political process continues. Tomorrow is another day.

    But of all the contests, the presidential sweepstakes take priority, not only within the parties but also in the nation at large. The president as the leader of the nation embodies the soul of the people. Hence, whether the gubernatorial candidates or the senatorial picks are consequential, all of them are subdued under the overarching heat of the presidential power.  So, when the PDP picked President Goodluck Jonathan in what was termed a consensus move, all eyes turned on the APC tussle for the prime seat. Yet the conventions took place last week, almost simultaneously. For the avoidance of physical collision and rivalry, the PDP held its own in Abuja, the nation’s capital, and the APC convoked its meet in the nation’s commercial hotbed, Lagos.

    Commentators described the victory of President Jonathan as the standard bearer of the PDP as a coronation, after some party members tried to challenge the president. In the United States, as it has happened in some parties in Nigeria at a lower level, the incumbent is given the chance of first refusal. If he wants a second term, democracies abide the courtesies of bowing for continuity. This is understandable in the case of the PDP clearing the path for a Jonathan deuce.

    In the case of the APC, the process came off transparent, and all the five presidential contenders had opportunities to orate before its audience of delegates. In the end, the votes in an emphatic victory fell on the laps of General Muhammadu Buhari.

    What we have here is a clear duel for the ultimate Nigerian prize: the presidency. It is important to note that in the barely two months left to campaign for the elections, a sense of peace and harmony must be allowed to prevail. Crowds must not turn into armies of violence. Rallies should not morph into rabble.

    It begins with the rhetoric of the contestants and their associates. Foul words and phrases of incitement must give way to civility. In a heterogeneous temper like Nigeria, both candidates should steer clear of language that emphasise why we are apart and focus on those ideals that cement our sense of community. Appeal to tribal sentiment in such a way that it rallies a people on the basis of primordial fealty only helps to rev up hate and distrust among people.

    Regional jingoists only hark back to a period of bloodshed and fear in this country. The other matter of concern is religion. If we are a multi-religious country, it only calls for toleration. All the faiths call for moderation and accommodation. It is not religion that brings us together but its values emphasize community. That is why religion should help coexistence rather division.

    What the rhetoric should focus on in the next eight weeks should be the myriad problems confronting the nation today. In the northeast, swathes of communities lie prostrate under the will of pious extremism in the name of Boko Haram. We want ideas how that will stop. Thousands of Nigerians have been killed and many more displaced since the insurgency careened out of our control over three years ago. A nation with a vibrant population and relatively robust oil wealth should not leave its fighting men without kit and unfit for battle.

    In the past few weeks, we have witnessed the Naira drop in a free fall, so that the Central Bank of Nigeria had to officially devalue it in response to a giddy market. Critical in that market is another freefall – of oil prices. This double threat amounts to a siege on the ordinary Nigerian.

    The consequence is the widening of the gap between the rich and the poor. The fear is that many will get out of job, and the army of the jobless will stoke social tension in the land. As we know, the standard of education has fallen so much so that our universities are at the bottom of world rankings. Infrastructure of roads and power are suffering from great decay, and the atmosphere for investment is increasingly endangered by these important features of development.

    The task before us is therefore grave, and it will be a disservice to Nigeria if the candidates and parties veer out of the right issues and duel on the pettifogging matters of tribes, faith and region. The ordinary Nigerian has suffered enough. It is high time we took governance seriously, and it must begin with the candidates playing the true role of role model.

     

  • Concluding the series: APC’s ideal Presidential candidate (4)

    Concluding the series: APC’s ideal Presidential candidate (4)

    Since General Buhari is known all over the country as a decent and untainted person, it should not be unduly tough to accede to his emergence in a consensual manner

    As the title goes, this concludes our modest effort at showcasing General Muhammadu Buhari (RTD) as APC’s best leg forward in the 2015 presidential election, if the party’s intention is not to be  just an ‘also ran’. Conscious of the fact that the party is out to rescue a Nigeria already clobbered by indescribable corruption, some hard truths will be told, and  pleas made to some of the leading lights of the party who  must  bend over backwards, think less of self and give  a pride of place to our hemorrhaging country.

    The first of these pleas will go to the contestants who have been to all the nooks and crannies of the country selling their visions for party and country; trying to gain members’ support. This must have been at great personal costs. Both the party and the candidates must, however, ensure that since only one of them will eventually emerge, everything must be done to avoid fallouts which the opposition could latch on to hurt the party at the election proper. That could easily happen if the contestant finally chosen is perceived by Nigerians to be morally unsuitable for the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.  Since General Buhari is known all over the country as a decent and untainted person, it should not be unduly tough to accede to his emergence in a consensual manner. This is not to suggest that others are not honest, but this is a man who has held the highest office in the land and has never been known, even alleged, to have abused his office.  This will not only demonstrate party unity but will allow every segment of the party to coalesce around his candidature and ensure that he gets everything needed for a successful campaign. After all, the party survived the serial obstacles the opposition erected on the way to its emergence. It is also to be noted that President Jonathan did not emerge PDP’s sole presidential candidate because there were no other interested party members. Even as you read this, a scion of the redoubtable Alhaji Tafawa Balewa, Nigeria’s first Prime Minister, is apparently still fuming.

    However, if settling the presidential slot looks fairly straight forward, not so that of who emerges the Vice Presidential candidate. Given the unending geo political rivalries for political office in our country, even if in reality that never translates to any meaningful advantage, as we saw in the Obasanjo presidency when infrastructure in the entire Southwest collapsed, and akin to what is  currently happening to the South South where the East-West road is taking like forever to complete, I should, ideally, be rooting for a Southwest Vice Presidential candidate. But political reality suggests differently.

    Who becomes the Vice Presidential candidate, and where he comes from, are issues that must be handled tactically and strategically. This is one position that can, and should, indeed, be used to maximally hurt the president in order to substantially reduce the advantages derivable from his literal capture of the Southeast.

    First and foremost, both General Buhari, who is my preferred contestant, and whoever emerges his Vice Presidential candidate cannot afford to be both non-current holders of a high political office given the massive logistical advantage holding such an office confers in our skewed democracy especially with regard to funding, security and overall logistics especially when they will be contesting against an incumbent who does not take prisoners.

    That fact, in my view, should, automatically eliminate any of the gentlemen whose names are currently being mentioned from the Southwest. The only remaining likely candidate is, unfortunately, caught up in the Muslim/Muslim argument which the PDP must eagerly be awaiting to latch on to. Without a doubt, trying that combination will be ill advised as it will be used by the PDP to scare away millions of voters from the party, especially in the North Central zone. So much has President Jonathan, unfortunately, imported religion into our politics that APC dares not go there at all. Nor has Boko Haram helped matters either.

    President Jonathan’s undisguised favoritism towards the Southeast from where he appointed not less than 70 percent of the headship of the country’s regulatory agencies, the Central Bank inclusive, in addition to the most important ministries in his government, has so cemented his capture of that geo-political zone that it would be unwise for the APC to consider any candidate from there. So complete is the president’s hold on the Southeast that former Governor Obi of Anambra State thought nothing of abandoning his promises to the Ikemba for the Jonathan cause, an issue that so upset Ambassador Bianca Ojukwu, the late Igbo leader’s spouse.  I say this with considerable unease given Governor Rochas Okorocha’s immense, pan Nigerian goodwill; a goodwill that is obviously only a fractional appreciation of his large heart which knows neither Jew  nor Gentile.

    It is to be noted that the Yoruba, who also voted hugely for candidate Jonathan in 2011, have been remorselessly shortchanged by his government; a fact he admitted during the recent electioneering campaigns in the Southwest.

    This therefore leaves us with only the South South as where the Vice Presidential candidate can come from. As tactics, it must be a deliberate intent of the APC to keep the president busy campaigning in that zone rather than for him to have the luxury of taking their vote for granted. He must be made to sweat for every vote he would get there unlike in 2011. Luckily, there is a groundswell of reasons to ensure that.

    Governor Rotimi Amaechi has shown conclusively that he has all it takes to emerge the APC VP candidate. He has successfully fought a ruthless opposition to the hilt. Many in his situation would have crumbled, if not cave in to the multi-pronged attacks spearheaded, no doubt, by the presidency. The governor enjoys tremendous support in a state where, since 1999 PDP has routinely allocated its massive two million plus votes to itself. The APC must not let that happen in 2015 and with Amaechi on the ticket that will be an absolute impossibility.  Additionally, the massive anti-Jonathan sentiments arising from the Bayelsa/Rivers Soku oil wells crisis and the deliberate, inexplainable  impediments placed on the opening of the Abonnema  seaport as well as the Soku gas plant projects approved by the late President Musa  Yar’Adua will ensure that many  will not be favorably disposed to Jonathan’s candidature.

    This article was about concluded when Wale Adeoye, a former Senior Special Assistant to Governor Fayemi and a top chieftain of the O’odua  Nationalist Coalition, sent me the Coalition’s resolutions at its Ibadan meeting of October  7, 2014.

    The relevant part, to this subject, reads as follows:

    1. The coalition believes that it is more strategic for the Yoruba and the APC to present and support a South-South candidate as the Vice President in the forthcoming election. Such a person will neutralise the passion of PDP’s ethnic minority campaign tactics as well as strengthen confidence in the APC among ethnic minorities across the country.

    2. The coalition resolved to have its contact committee meet with the APC in Yoruba land to recommend Governor  Amaechi in view of his dogged spirit and libertarian heritage in the belief that given that he is an Ikwerre, with close genealogical ties to  the Igbo, he would certainly enjoy a modicum of Igbo support and so break into the president’s near monopoly of that zone. Also, the fact that the governor is highly regarded both in Nigeria and internationally, has vast political linkages across the country and can be trusted would be added advantages.

    What more can I say?

    As for the Yoruba, the most suitable post in an APC- controlled federal government, would, in my view, be the Senate Presidency. Given Ashiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s yeoman’s contribution to the emergence and sustenance of the party, it should not be too much to cede this position to him, either in his personal capacity, or to his nominee.

    And the nominee could very well be his spouse, the highly effective Senator Oluremi Tinubu who would be returning as a second term senator.

    Concluded.