ON Friday, 23rd August, 1985, the military government of Major-
General Buhari decided to place me under arrest. My crime
was that I wrote, among others, an article entitled: “Counter-trading
Nigeria’s Future” in the National Concord, exposing the government’s
scam of diverting public funds into private coffers through barter-trade
with Brazil. A man by the name of Benson Norman was sent from the
State Security Services (SSS) to my office to get me. Not finding me, he
left a note that I must present myself unfailingly at the SSS office at 15
Awolowo Road, Ikoyi Lagos the next Monday morning.
However, on Sunday, 25th August, 1985, Lateef Aminu came first thing
in the morning to my house to inform me that the government of Buhari/
Idiagbon had been overthrown. For this reason, I am fond of telling
people that God brought about a change of government in Nigeria just
because of me.
Coup-plotter
Under the Buhari/Idiagbon regime, once you ended up at 15 Awolowo
Road, you may never be heard of again. Decree Number 2 of 1984
empowered Tunde Idiagbon to arrest and detain anybody indefinitely
without trial and without legal reprieve. After Buhari was overthrown,
Mohammadu Gambo opened the prison doors of 15 Awolowo Road on
public television, revealing people in various stages of undress and
malnutrition that had been kept in the dungeons without trial by Buhari’s
hound-dogs.
As self-imposed Head of State, Buhari had no regard for human rights.
Immediately he seized power, he announced that he would “tamper with”
the press. Soon, the infamous Decree Number 4 was promulgated which
made even the publication of the truth a punishable offence. Under this
cover, Buhari jailed innocent journalists, including Tunde Thompson
and Nduka Irabo. He abolished civil liberties, promulgated retroactive
decrees enabling him to kill Nigerians through jungle justice, proscribed
civil society organizations and professional groups and exercised
“absolute” power.
This same Buhari would now have us believe that he has gone through
some metamorphosis and has become a democrat. I am sure you will
forgive me if people like me don’t believe him. Buhari is not, has never
been, and will never be, a democrat. Only in Nigeria would a man with
his track record, who came to power through a military coup that
illegally overthrew a democratic government, now be acclaimed as a
democrat. It is on record that Buhari’s military regime is the only one in
Nigeria’s history that failed to promulgate a programme for return to
civilian rule.
Facts and fiction
So what exactly qualifies Buhari as a democrat today? Precious little!
There is nothing democratic about forming and joining political parties
just in order to be the presidential candidate. Little wonder then that
Buhari’s parties have a short shelf-life. Buhari would like to be Nigeria’s
head of state once again. He can no longer achieve this through the barrel
of a gun. The only route now open to him is through the democratic
process. That is the reason he now conveniently fashions himself as a
democrat. It is merely a means to an end; no more, no less.
Buhari’s reputation as an anti-corruption crusader is also a myth. As
head of state, he did not make any dent in Nigerian corruption. All we
got was a cosmetic “war against indiscipline.” The counter-trade scam
happened under his watch. Rather than deal with it, he sent his hound-
dogs after nonentities like me who dared to expose it. That scam was no
different, in scope and scale, from the petroleum subsidy and other
corruption scandals that have since plagued Nigeria. The Petroleum Trust
Fund (PTF) that Buhari headed under Abacha was also a citadel of
corruption. While Buhari himself might not have enriched himself, his
cronies and those who worked under him did so handsomely.
On three different occasions, Buhari has run for the presidency. On three
different occasions he has failed. That should really be enough. If, as
seems likely, he were to run for the presidency a fourth time in 2015,
there is no question that he would fail yet again. Try as he might again
and again, Mohammadu Buhari can never be President of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria.
Buhari’s sectarianism
There is a fundamental reason behind this. Buhari is a bad politician. He
is an unbending former military dictator and not a democratic consensus-
builder. Like his new ally, Bola Tinubu, Buhari is a regional, sectional
politician. Such politicians are practically impossible to package and
market nationally in the ethnically-delicate Nigeria of today.
Former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Malam Nasir El’Rufai,
one of those Northerners who deserve to be serious contenders for the
presidency of Nigeria, observed that Buhari remains “perpetually
unelectable” as a result of his “insensitivity to Nigeria’s diversity and his
parochial focus.” This is an elegant way of saying that politically, Buhari
has an uncanny tendency to put his foot in his mouth. He talks before
thinking of the political implications of his words. He shoots from the
hip.
The strength of Obasanjo, which enabled him to capture the presidency
on two different occasions, was that he was perceived as a broadminded
politician, not overly partial to his people in the South-West. As a matter
of fact, in his first election, his people did not want him. The strength of
Goodluck Jonathan, which propelled him to win the presidency, was that
he was able to string together a coalition that stretched both north and
south of the Niger. The weakness of Buhari is that he is totally
unacceptable to people outside his region.
Buhari is a Northern regional champion. As head of state in the 1980s,
his government was unapologetically Northern. No attempt was made to
balance the ticket at the top. It was the only regime in Nigeria’s history
headed by two Northerners. When he seized power, Buhari put Shagari,
the Northern head of state he overthrew, under house arrest. But then he
jailed Alex Ekwueme, the Southern vice-president. You may well ask
what makes Shagari less culpable for the misdeeds of the Second
Republic than his number-two man. The simple fact was that Buhari was
Fulani as was Shagari; but Ekwueme was Igbo.
Impolitic words
At the height of the Sharia debate during the Obasanjo administration,
Buhari declared that Muslims should vote only for fellow Muslims. This
was politically suicidal for a man seeking national office. He became an
advocate for implementation of Sharia all over Nigeria. He protested to
the Oyo State governor, in the context of a dispute between Fulani
herdsmen and indigenous farmers in the state, that “your people are
killing my people.” This turned out to be unfounded and perhaps the
reverse.
His threats during the campaign for the 2011 elections incited
widespread violence in the North after he lost. His supporters went on a
rampage; looting and killing; in spite of the fact that, by all accounts, the
elections were adjudged the most free and fair in the history of Nigeria’s
current democratic experiment. By the time the mayhem had subsided,
over 1000 people had been slaughtered in cold blood and some 65,000
displaced.
Forgetting that a statement made in Hausa would readily be translated
into English, Buhari later declared unapologetically in a BBC interview:
"
If what happened in 2011 should again happen in 2015, by the grace
of God, the dog and the baboon would all be soaked in blood.” These
are the tokens of an irresponsible politician, whose ambitions for
power supersede the national interest. Who then are the dogs and
baboons that Buhari has in mind to soak in blood if and when he
loses yet again come 2015? Are they his children or are they those of
others?
With the Boko Haram insurgency in the north, Buhari played to the
Northern gallery yet again, calling the Jonathan government “the biggest
Boko Haram.” Wole Olaniyi was a fly in the wall at a meeting in Kano
Government House designed to persuade PDP rebel governor, Rabiu
Kwankwaso, to decamp to the APC. Assuming that only Northerners
were present, Buhari declared the Boko Haram was a “strategic plan” by
the government of Goodluck Jonathan to “destroy the North.” When
Jonathan declared a state of emergency in Yobe, Borno and Adamawa
states, Buhari still saw this with Northern goggles, insinuating that the
President is waging war on the North.
President of the North
Without a doubt, Buhari has massive support in the North. Indeed, he is
the most popular Northern politician in the North today. But that
precisely remains his undoing at the centre. The more he has been
identified as a Northern champion, the less attractive he has become as a
national choice. Even in the North, his support base is limited to the
Muslim population. He does not appeal to Northern Christians. Then
there is the added factor of the opposition of his implacable opponents
among the Northern elite. Men like Babangida and Atiku would rather
die than allow Buhari get to Aso Rock.
One thing is certain, the South-South and the South-East will not vote for
Buhari in 2015. Not only that; there are no buyers for Buhari’s sectarian
politics in the South-West. No matter what Tinubu might be telling him,
the people of the South-West will not vote for Buhari in 2015. We
already had the template in 2011, when Buhari tried to sell himself, first
by balancing his ticket with a Yoruba man; and then by making sure the
Yoruba man is a Christian; a pastor no less. But it just did not wash. It
will not work in 2015.
The worst thing that can happen to Northern presidential aspirations in
2015 is for Buhari to be on the APC ballot. That is a sure guarantee that
the North will not be providing the next president. Buhari would be a
shoo-in in an election for president of Northern Nigeria. But in an
election encompassing the entire country, the best he can envisage is to
be a kingmaker. He cannot be king. The nearest Buhari will get to Aso
Rock in 2015 is by attending the Council of State meetings.
Source:-
Vanguard
.png)
