REFERENDUM on honesty”. That was the way The New York Times captured President Muhammadu Buhari’s victory in the February 23 presidential election. It could not have been more apt. Unfortunately, this was the point missed by those who had been hallucinating about an Alhaji Atiku Abubakar victory at the poll. I had made the point several times; that Atiku and Buhari are not mates when it comes to electoral contest. Atiku may have all the money, he may have been in the trade for decades; but money and experience alone cannot ensure victory for him in an electoral contest with a man like Buhari, given the fanatical support Buhari enjoys, especially among the talakawa (the poor) who constitute the majority of voters in the north.
I have said it several times , and it bears restating that whatever might be Buhari’s shortcomings in the last three and a half years, Atiku cannot be the solution. I cannot imagine a Nigeria in the hands of an Atiku. A major point that Atiku’s backers missed and continue to miss, and to their own peril, is that Atiku’s baggage is too much of an albatross. It is immaterial whether the baggage is real or perceived. That perception has come to stick; and unfortunately so. To the extent that Atiku has not succeeded in shaking off that tar, he would keep losing elections to a man like Buhari again and again.
Buhari’s victory only shows that there are some things money cannot buy. The victory is indeed a victory for democracy with its ‘one man, one vote’. Left to the country’s rich, Buhari would not have had the opportunity of even a first coming. And if by some error he got that, they would make sure he never got the revalidation of the mandate. Those of them in the north who know the consequences of openly opposing Buhari after the announcement of the result have since held their peace. They know that denying Buhari’s victory would attract sanctions of unimaginable proportions from the talakawa that they (the political elite in the region themselves bred).
Indeed, to say that Buhari is a movement, especially in the northern region, is saying the obvious. So, that he got 15,191,847 votes to defeat Atiku who had 11,262,978 should not have come as a surprise to any rational observer of his antecedents since 2003 when he had been contesting for the office of president, before he finally made it in 2015. In 2003, he had 12,710,022 votes; in 2007, he had 6,605,299 votes; in 2011, 12,214,853 votes and in 2015, he had 15,424,921 votes. Except in the 2007 elections which were known to be generally flawed, Buhari had been reaping millions even when he was not in power. So, what is the hue and cry all about now that he had 15,191,847 votes?
Pray, where did the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) get its 24.4 million votes in 2003; 24.6 million votes in 2007 and 22.4 million votes announced for it in 2011? In all those elections, Buhari believed he was elbowed out by the powers that be. In all of those years alone, over 35 million voters were recorded for the PDP and Buhari on the average. Yet, his was a lone voice in the wilderness. The man was in and out of courtrooms in his efforts to seek redress for what he saw as electoral injustice. He got none; until Dr Goodluck Jonathan was magnanimous enough to concede defeat to him in 2015. And now that he repeated the feat by getting the same 15 million plus votes that he had in 2015, Atiku is crying foul. What happened was that apart from retaining his hold on the north, Buhari was able to use the power of incumbency to garner votes from other regions, including the southeast and south-south where some of the political bigwigs there aligned with his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC). That did not happen in 2105, or before.
The problem with many of our politicians, especially the moneybags, is that they find it difficult to believe that there is nothing money cannot buy. Ask the Late M.K.O. Abiola, he would tell you that he knew money was shamed when, in spite of his billions, all he could do was watch his dear wife (Simbiat) die slowly in the hands of some of the world’s best physicians that money can assemble. One needs to be close to these politicians and their foot soldiers to know how the latter flatter the former at election times, just to get money from them, ostensibly for their campaign. I guess this is one of the things that happened to Atiku that kept giving him the impression that he could floor Buhari. He had probably been deceived by his campaign handlers that the entire country was in his pocket. I do not know how much Atiku committed to this battle of his life; but I know it must have been humongous. Just as I predicted in my column last Sunday, Atiku has indicated interest in seeking redress in court. I wish him whatever he deserves.
But then, it is pertinent to ask who Atiku’s campaign managers were that gave him the audacity to be hopeful. Senate President Bukola Saraki was the director-general of his presidential campaign organisation. Former Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, led the South-west axis.
We have now seen that Saraki is only living on past glory; he is indeed a spent force. ‘O to ge’ has silenced him in Kwara State. How could someone who could not save himself in his state and got mercilessly shellacked all round in the presidential and National Assembly elections there have been chosen to lead the campaign of a serious presidential hopeful? If Atiku did not see what happened to his campaign director-general coming, he must have been naïve indeed. Then, what is Fayose’s political worth in the southwest? Atiku aligned with all the spent forces in the region, including Afenifere whose members cannot win elections even in their homes, and hoped to win election. Things don’t work that way. Even former President Olusegun Obasanjo who endorsed Atiku after saying God would never forgive him (Obasanjo) if he ever supported Atiku, has always been a political Lilliputian in his sphere of influence. As a matter of fact, the way things are, anyone supported by Obasanjo is likely to lose in the southwest. The people are too sophisticated to be led by a man who is swinging support at every turn. The dynamics have since changed from the perception of Obasanjo of 2015. It is too bad if Atiku did not reckon with this too. We can go on and on.
The point is; only Atiku has the kind of money to throw away on a dicey mission as challenging Buhari, with all of the latter’s imperfections. Others who might have coveted Buhari’s job saw through the futility and decided to keep whatever was left of their money for something viable. Even if someone else had emerged as the PDP presidential flag bearer, it was unlikely Atiku would support the fellow financially the way he did himself. This is only natural. Hence, they all conceded to Atiku at the party’s primaries on the ground that the exercise was transparent and fair, as well as pledged their support to him. Indeed, they had no choice; they have a common enemy in Buhari who they could not predict what he could do to them if he got a second term.
In essence, therefore, Atiku failed to understand that with the massive captive kind of supporters that Buhari has, it would be difficult to push him over in an electoral contest, despite how sunk values have even in our country. It is the kind of thing that money cannot buy. Let Atiku shut the tap of funds, look behind him and see how many ‘yes orchestra’ would still be following him. The opposite is true of Buhari; his supporters are simply crazy about him and would follow him come rain, come shine. In sickness and in health.
I do not know what Atiku is looking for in court beyond exercising his democratic right to seek redress for real or perceived injustice in the election. I would rather suggest that he does forensic audit of the cash he disbursed to his campaign managers for onward transfer to his supporters. I guess Atiku himself is not a nincompoop in this business. He knows that many of those given cash for sharing to party supporters are not honest enough to share everything. As a matter of fact, those of them who shared between 40-50 percent of the money would have been deemed very honest indeed. What is more? In most cases, these people ‘edit’ such money into their pockets when they know that their principals do not have any chance of winning. So, they want to take care of their pockets so they do not lose out completely when the results are eventually announced. Meanwhile, they would have started addressing their principal as ‘Mr President’, ‘His Excellency’ for governor, or ‘My Chair’, depending on the office the principal is seeking. The good news for Atiku from me is that I have the rare gift to sniff out such people and what they had embezzled, and I am hereby offering myself for this noble service. But that is only for a fraction of what he spent on the election! Or, am I not entitled to that?
Anyway, since Atiku has decided to go to court, I guess it is time for lawyers and probably judges who are yet to get their billions to smile to the bank. God probably wants to bless some of them too. By his decision, Atiku is only exhibiting one of the known traits of our politicians; they are incurable optimists. And who would blame him if the money in his arsenal is crying to be spent? Even the international community that seemed to be on his side has since abandoned him, seeing the futility of his agitation. That is how, one after the other, his backers would continue to thin out till he remains the only man standing for himself. Such is life.
Finally, I enjoin Atiku and his supporters to go and read the The New York Times editorial after the election. Buhari’s victory was a referendum on honesty. No more, no less. Honesty is one of the few things money cannot buy. It was one of the major determinants of the presidential election. Ordinary Nigerian voters took the bull by the horns and seized their destiny from a tiny minority living on our rentier economy that has held them down for decades. Buhari happens to be the face of these hapless hoi polloi.