United Kingdom

mjyushau@yahoo.com

 

With the 2007 elections approaching, discussions among Nigerians regarding the election, the kind of candidates courting the country and what may likely be the outcome of the elections are common these days. But the most interesting, yet worrisome of these discussions is on the calibre of candidates aspiring to lead the country from May, 29^th 2007. To quote a reputable Nigerian professor living in Canada who recently visited Nigeria and reviewed the political situation, he said “The calibre of people being mentioned for the presidency in 2007, plus the quality of political discourse going on in the country left me in no doubt that we are doomed.  I never thought I would ever say this, but Buhari seems to be the only reasonably good candidate (with a reasonably decent track record and personal qualities) to support in the next elections.  All the other potential candidates being mentioned are jokers.  We are in a serious mess as a nation, and we need serious people to solve them.  I am not a Buharist, no doubt.  But the circumstances of the (current) time demands someone of his personal qualities to come forward.  Although I always advocate for young and progressive leaders, I think the peculiarities of the current time, plus the mess we are in, demands that we simply cannot afford the luxury of some (new) untested leaders”

 

Certainly the position of the professor reveals a lot, it shows the hopeless situation in the country, the absence of credibility among the political actors, and the need for a tested and trusted hand in the race to Aso Rock. Interestingly the professor, despite his reservations identified one person who distinguished himself among the presidential candidates, and who possesses the qualities required of a candidate to lead the country in the person of General Muhammad Buhari, the 2003 ANPP presidential candidate and former Head of State.

 

But one question that keeps recurring in mind is how can General Buhari make it to the presidency in 2007 considering our experience in 2003?  How can Nigerians avoid investing their energy in vain when perhaps, the ruling party has already decided who should be the next president? especially if we take the statement made by Chief Lamidi Adedibu that President Obasanjo has told him his successor. In fact the president himself recently made similar remarks using different words when he said there would be a change of President, but not the change of political party.

 

But another way of looking at it is to ponder upon the challenges and issues General Buhari should address if he is to become the next president of Nigeria; and I could at least find five. The first is The Buhari Organisation, his campaign platform, the second are the ANPP Governors, media management is the third followed by the Nigerian electorates and finally incumbency factor.

 

The Buhari Organisation (TBO) is the platform for General Buhari’s campaign, but Buhari shouldn’t just relax and think every person in TBO is working for his interest. General Buhari should be part of each decision that would be taken by TBO, in 2003 we saw how some retired individuals tried to oversee the presidential campaign, but a number of them got missing when their services were needed most, and General Buhari ended up fighting the legal battle alone apart from the casual appearance of some ANPP Governors. Buhari should carefully look at the TBO members who will suddenly disappear and come to London for medical check-up or holiday few days to the party primaries or even the presidential elections, it could be genuine, but I don’t think I will be completely wrong if I say some will do so to sabotage the campaign process. Buhari needs to take this stand because his financial position, his stand on openness and transparency may not necessarily be at home with some members who might be there to make material gain. The unity and cohesion of TBO, its strategic innovations, method of outreach, and willingness to accept suggestions, amend its shortcomings, monitor the political atmosphere and respond to issues in line with the mood of the nation would determine how successful the entire campaign would be.

 

The main task before General Buhari at the moment is to ensure that he has full control of TBO. He should take it upon himself to woo back his teeming supporters who were part of the TBO in 2003 but at the moment are either discouraged from politics or decided to abandon Buhari because of some disagreements, not necessarily with General Buhari, but with some members of the TBO. Though Buhari is a military General, but what is expected of him at the moment is to open the store of public relations and employ reasonable tactics, first to ensure the loyalty of current TBO members, secondly to bring back those who have decided to leave, and listen to their grievances and then begin to shop for those who are in other parties and either share his ideology or they have the likelihood of working with him. Part of the way of doing this is for Buhari to call them himself or pay them visits and have frank discussions with them.

 

At the moment a number of the TBO members are retired civil servants, military officers and technocrats, which is a good thing. But they should understand the difference between politics on one hand and military and civil service procedure on the other. The language and procedure of politics are different, unlike the military where you are suppose to obey before complain, in politics it is complain before you obey. Unlike the civil service where procedures are laid down, all you need is to follow, in politics the rules of the game can change at any minute.

 

This therefore brings me to the second challenge facing General Buhari, ANPP Governors. The first thing for Buhari to understand is that two of these Governors, Alhaji Ahmad Sani and Alhaji Bukar Abba Ibrahim are already in the contest, therefore they are more likely to have control over the delegates of their states. So the Governors likely to be open are Mallam Ibarhim Shekarau, Alhaji Adamu Aliero and Alhaji Ali Modu Sheriff. If the news going round that the relationship between him and some of these Governors not being cordial is true, then their support may not be automatic, here is the big challenge, and the only way out is for General Buhari to produce effective weapons of mass reconciliation. Interestingly, these weapons are easy to produce, and the catchword is personal contact. I do not think any of these governors will refuse attending to him once he makes such requests. Other presidential contenders who may not be the proper candidates for the presidency are doing exactly the same. Human mind is both strong and flexible, and the way to conquer hearts is through effective human relations. The ability of General Buhari to get the support of these Governors is an inevitable equation whose answer most be correct in the current political arithmetic. Whatever the differences, whatever the misunderstanding, they have to be part of the team. Their presence would help in rallying the support of other states.

 

The third challenge, effective media management during the campaign should as well be taken seriously. Buhari knows that he is not in the good books of the Lagos-Ibadan media, and they control the largest share of the newspaper industry. Just recently, precisely on 27/11/06, Leadership and Daily Trust newspapers carried as their lead Story “Seven parties adopt Buhari for 2007”, immediately I saw that, I checked the other newspapers, non of them carried the story as far as I can see in the online versions available from here, even if they do, possibly in the hardcopy, the story wasn’t given prominence. I just compare that with mere rumours about the presidential ambitions of others that have been making headlines months before their declaration. In fact one of the papers, the one responsible for derogating Buhari’s name few years ago was carrying a negative story about him. But that should not be discouraging, there is no permanent enemy in politics, weapons of mass reconciliation should be extended to them. TBO should establish a special media monitoring squad, to use a military language, which will monitor the media coverage of Buhari and his campaign. The squad should employ every strategy to attract the attention of the entire south-western media, and there is no reason to fail on this, Tony Momoh is heading the campaign team.

 

The success made in addressing the discussed challenges would help in securing the remaining two challenges. First the interest of the electorates who are the main asset and political base of General Buhari would be strengthened and their level of awareness and cohesion are the essential ingredients required to defeat the power of incumbency.

 

The challenges ahead are enormous, but the road to success is in most instances full of potholes. Not every individual is qualified to lead Nigeria at the moment. The country is looking for a father who will give direction for the country. As the elections approach, Buhari should weigh his words carefully, and should avoid unnecessarily mentioning the names of his opponents, where he does so it should be in proper context, where there is need to respond to controversial issues like what happened during the ANPP convention where the current leaders were elected, his spokespersons should handle that, and he should use his personality and image to strengthen his relationship with the current ANPP leaders.

 

The last time I saw General Buhari was last year at the South Kessington Campus of Imperial College, London, a week before the court verdict on 2003 election where he delivered a lecture at a conference organised by the Foundation for Good Governance and Development in Nigeria. As he entered the venue, I carefully observed his response to the greetings of the participants, among them were serving Governors, Federal Legislators, retired senior military officers and other political juggernauts, and what I saw was respect, humility and even treatment between the heavyweights and the rank and files among us, and I said to myself, this is the man Nigeria is looking for, to whom the mighty and the downtrodden deserve equal treatment.