A Plea From An Avid ANPP SupporterBy Ibrahim Dan-Halilu idanhalilu@yahoo.com
As an avid supporter of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) I was shocked to read a contemptuous rejoinder to my article “The Buhari Ticket and ANPP’s Challenge) from one Yunusa Tanko Abdullahi of Gwamna Road Kaduna which was published on page 15 of the Daily Trust of January 8.
My immediate reaction after reading the rejoinder was to ignore the writer. My reasons for taking the initial position are that first and foremost, I considered most of the responses as being out of context, besides gross misrepresentation and misinterpretation of my position. I was under the impression that either Yunusa was being mischievous or he did not understand the focus of my article, which is proffering suggestions on the roadmap to ANPP electoral victory in 2007.
The second reason for opting to ignore the rejoinder was the impression I got from the tone of his article. I was made to believe that his cantankerous tone was a depiction of youthful exuberance and an infectious crave for publicity. But on a second thought I realized that someone that was in secondary school in 1983 cannot be that young even if he were in his first year. Perhaps, the latter was the case and would not like to give him the opportunity.
The third reason was based on my principle of not responding to rejoinders that tend to generate unnecessary controversy on pages of newspapers. I remember that few years back Dr. Magashi from Kano and I engaged in a media debate on the polio vaccine controversy to the extent that many of our readers missed the point we were trying to make. I also faced similar assault from one Hannatu Mohammed in far away London who was not happy with my article on Governor Ibrahim Shekarau. She expressed disdain for scoring the Rabiu Kwankwaso’s administration very low.
I believe as a contributor to national discuss on such serious issues as presidency, I should not waste my precious time promoting arguments that will not yield any positive dividends. But I am compelled to respond to Yunusa’s for two reasons. First to correct the wrong impression that the writer might have created in the minds of our numerous readers. I also intend to advise Yunusa and his ilk not to interpret opinions like a piece of prose or literary writing. Much of what I wrote is hard facts that cannot be denied.
In his piece, Yunusa has made about five allegations against me. First, he has claimed that I do not support the ANPP and I do not support the endorsement of Buhari as its presidential candidate. Secondly, he insinuated that I rejected the ANPP position that Buhari did not lose the 2003 election but blamed it on his faith. Thirdly, he emphasized that while I conceded that the Court of Appeal had agreed with Buhari’s position that the elections were rigged I rejected the claim that Buhari lost due to election rigging.
Fourthly, he accused me of whipping up religious sentiments by asking Buhari to reconcile his differences with the northern Christians and to initiate a process of dialogue with those that misinterpreted his position on Sharia. Fifthly, the writer also alluded that I ignored Buhari’s performance and competence and engage in primordial and religious sentiments (sic). The last but not the least was Yunusa’s expectation of me. He suggested that I focused on the three leading presidential candidates.
Having considered all the allegations in context, I came away with an impression that Yunusa totally misunderstood me. He read my article with the passion of a blind supporter for a cause. For while he was promoting Buhari ignorantly, I was assessing the military General and his platform on the basis of a general perception or a majority perception, to be on the safe side.
The labeling of Buhari as a religious bigot is not my opinion. I was only stating the views of many people I have heard speak or write about him and his aspiration, people who matter in Nigerian politics and many of the average Nigerians in the middle and lower classes that constitute the bulk of the Nigerian voters. I was not whipping up sentiments as Yunusa insinuated. As an avid admirer of Buhari, I was only trying to offer some useful suggestions on how the ANPP candidate can overcome the image problem. And I am glad that his colleague and a presidential aspirant of the same party, Dr. Bashir Othman Tofa has reiterated some of the views I expressed in his article published in the Daily Trust of January 5 (page 17). 17.
The good thing is that I have stated clearly that the image problem was a creation of the Nigerian press but it will take a persistent dialogue for those who hold strongly to the press image of Buhari to have a change of heart. This is why I suggested to him and his party to engage the Nigerian media in a dialogue over issues so that the true Buhari will finally come to light. Like we all know, politics is not about the truth or morality, especially in our own part of the world. It’s all about name-calling, distortion of credentials and fabrication of lies to destroy a candidate. The ANPP and Buhari should not give the PDP a chance to employ this tactic.
I regard the first claim therefore as an insult because I have been an avid supporter of ANPP since its formation. Following Buhari’s joining the party I solidified my support to the extent of engaging in an aggressive media campaign in his favour. I urge Yunusa to read some of my articles on the gamji site like “Buhari and Democratic Struggle,” “Of Reality and Sentiments,” “After Round One,” “After Round Two,” “Before Round Three,” “Letter to my Countrymen I & 2,” and “Countdown to April 19” to appreciate the contributions I have made to ANPP and Buhari.
As a matter of fact, I have given moral support to the gubernatorial candidate of the party in Katsina State during the 2003 elections. I attended some of his political rallies because of the love I have for him and the Buhari presidency. This support was extended to the polling booth where I cast my only vote for Buhari during the 2003 presidential election. I voted for him not because someone persuaded me or induced me materially to do so but because I believe in him and stand for the principles he professes - the principles of integrity, honesty, accountability, and discipline. It is indeed a tragedy for someone to call me a non-supporter or rather an enemy of the Buhari presidency because all my adult life I have been an admirer of Buhari’s leadership qualities, especially his stand on corruption and indiscipline.
So for someone to accuse me of being prejudicial to Buhari’s personality is to state the opposite of where I stand on his presidential aspiration. As a matter of fact it was the love I have for him and the enthusiasm I nurture over his victory that landed me into the trouble I found myself with people like Yunusa.
Much as I wanted to resist the temptation to respond to the assertion that I do not understand the true concept of democracy, I found it insulting to accept that I was giving democracy a layman’s definition when I criticized the manner Buhari emerged as the ANPP consensus candidate. I would like Yunusa to tell readers the major differences between the ANNP convention that returned Buhari as a consensus candidate and the one organized earlier on by PDP, where Governor ‘Yar Adua emerged as its flag bearer. I think the only difference is the personalities involved. But the process was very much similar.
It is therefore wrong of Yunusa to interpret my criticism of the process as a mark of opposition to ANPP and the Buhari presidency because only those that like you will look you in the face and tell you your shortcomings. I want Yunusa to take his time and read the article of Dr. Bashir Tofa, one of the ANPP presidential aspirants published on page 17 of the Daily Trust of January 5. I believe he will appreciate the potential impact the same contributions that he criticized as jaundiced would possibly make in the ANPP hierarchy. It was like Dr. Tofa and I shared notes before we sent our articles to the press.
On the contrary, the truth is that we both have the interest of ANPP, the Buhari presidency and the nation’s progress at heart. We like the ANPP to be fully prepared for victory not to give anything to chance because as Dr. Tofa noted in the last paragraph of his article “We must not take anything for granted. This is Nigeria.”
In case, Yunusa does not know, it is because of my love for the Nigerian people, for their emancipation from hunger, ignorance and disease that I threw my weight behind Buhari since 2003. I was so concerned with his victory that I do not like any lapse or traces of blunder either at the nomination or the campaign stages. My castigation of the nomination process was therefore based on principles and out of a desire to help ANPP build a stronger opposition and viable alternative to PDP. If the PDP organized a kangaroo convention to rubber stamp Governor ‘Yar Adua, many of the ANPP supporters and I expected the party to be much different.
In case Yunusa does not know, many Nigerians judge the political parties by the quality of their leaders not the aspirants or candidates because the belief is that the blue-prints for delivering the dividends of democracy to the people are produced by parties NOT by flag bearers. The logic is that a party that cannot manage in-house squabbles well will hardly manage national crises with the precision and efficiency they deserve. The key to success in every contest is confidence building. The ANPP has yet to build such confidence in the Nigerian people and my article was a sounding reminder to the party’s leadership and teeming supporters.
Indeed Nigerians desire a change of government but they want assurance that the alternative government will come from a party that takes governance a serious business. I was not comfortable with the manner the ANPP convention committee manage the process to the extent that the coordinators were not even sure of the section of their constitution that spells out how a candidate would be nominated. There was a hot argument over this during the convention.
It is true that democracy is about concessions, dialogue, lobby, subtle coercion and many other nomenclatures as Yunusa siad but not to the level of getting viewers and audience involved in the process, not to the level of giving people a bad impression of oneself. I agree totally with the Buhari presidency but I still maintain that the ANPP needs to put its house in order if it is really interested in capturing power.
The fact that the party leadership could not reach a consensus position until right at the convention venue signifies a serious weakness of its leadership and incompetence of the coordinators of the convention. I believe even in the PDP not all the presidential aspirants were in agreement with the President’s choice and endorsement of ‘Yar Adua but they did not show it at the convention venue. This is a tactical approach that portrayed PDP as a united and organized party, which the ANPP lacked during its outing at the convention.
I still maintain that the confrontational attitude of Governor Bukar Abba Ibrahim after all other aspirants but two have announced their withdrawal was not in decorum with what is expected of a disciplined and united party. The dramatic manner all the other aspirants also withdrew has left much to be desired. We expected the party to either conduct an election or announce the withdrawal of other aspirants right after the usual speeches instead of taking all the convention time to negotiate a consensus candidate. But this is a subject for another day since the nomination process is over. I was only making the point so that the party leadership can take note and avoid a repeat of the same mistakes in future conventions.
It may not be disappointing to Yunusa for the party he cherishes to be projected as unserious and the presidential candidate he admires as an opportunist. This is my worry with the ANPP convention and I hope those that matter in the party will see things in this light instead of regarding my views as inimical to their electoral victory as Yunusa did. I have a strong dislike for PDP due to its poor performance and insensitive policies, and cannot afford giving the party another chance to produce the next president. The bottom line is I can do whatever I can within my own means and capability to ensure the victory of ANPP at 2007 presidential polls.
It is indeed true that I made a reference to the Court of Appeal ruling on the Buhari suit to the effect that the court had agreed that the 2003 presidential election was rigged but it did not support Buhari’s claim that he lost due to the rigging. In fact, it is on record that the court had cancelled the presidential election in Ogun State but not in all the states that ANPP claimed rigging was perpetrated because the appellant could not substantiate its claim beyond reasonable doubt. Its case was further destroyed by INEC’s failure to produce authenticated voters register for that election. Despite all this, I still maintain my position that rigging was not the only factor that led to Buhari’s loss in 2003. For the records, I would like to quote the paragraph where I made my position very clear.
“I failed to see the ANPP loss from that perspective (of election rigging). I believe the party lost because its leadership was so carried away by the popularity of Buhari in the North that they did not do sufficient campaigning to deal with key issues denigrating the image of Buhari and making his presidency a mirage.”
It is gladdening that Dr. Bashir Othman Tofa, one of Buhari’s former contenders, has drawn attention of the party leadership to the Herculean task ahead. He reiterated some of the issues I raised in my article, including the need for Buhari to build bridges and reconcile differences with some of his detractors. These are hard political facts that no sane person can dispute or ignore. The question of whether the issues raised are sentiments or not is something entirely different. Yunusa should understand that perceptions could cause lots of damage to persons and nations. Perceptions therefore count in politics.
I have noted Yunusa’s enumeration of the credentials of Muhammadu Buhar, and would like to reiterate that I was in a better position to appreciate them because as a student of tertiary institution then, I was among the frontline supporters of Buhari’s War Against Indiscipline (WAI), which Yunusa probably knew only in name. I can analyse and give a critique of all the phases of the WAI because I memorized them. I still remember how I quarreled with my friends and even elders during that time because while they disagreed with Buhari’s method of instilling discipline, I was totally in support of the purge he was carrying out. I always told them that the cankerworm was so deep and gigantic that it required a long and sharp knife to cut it off the flesh.
It is therefore erroneous to conclude that I ignored the good credentials of Buhari out of mischief. My focus was not on his strength because I was under the impression that he needed no introduction as a former head of state and someone that brought about significant positive changes in just twenty months of his stewardship. The focus of my article was the challenges of his presidential victory and how they could be overcome. Despite all the distorted achievements of Buhari as presented by Yunusa, I still believe the Daura born general is one of the few credible Nigerians that can provide good direction for the nation. His tenure as head of state and as Chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) under the Abacha regime are living testimonies to his untainted credibility, forthright ness and sound vision.
I am happy to hear that so far over fifteen political parties have formed a collation with the ANPP to support Buhari’s candidature and campaign for him. Buhari should take it on himself to make a follow up overtures by traveling the length and breadth of the country to reconcile any differences he might have with some of the leading politicians of other zones.
The issue of campaign funding and mobilization of voters should take center stage in the ANPP agenda. The Nigerian voters will also be interested in understanding the manifesto and programmes of the party before the election day. I believe with proper planning and meticulous implementation of the presidential campaign, success is just few meters away. I wish ANPP and Buhari a landslide victory in 2007.
For my detractor, Yunusa Tanko Abdullahi, I thank him so much for his suggestion of a more suitable topic to me. But for the meantime I will prefer concentrating on my role model, Buhari than doing a critique on the three leading presidential candidates – Buhari, ‘Yar Adua and Atiku. I will do the other beat at appropriate time. We still have two solid months for campaign, and as the saying goes “In Aski Yazo Gaban Goshi, Ya fi Zafi” meaning “barbing is more painful when the barber reaches the forehead.”
In conclusion, I would like to reiterate my appeal to ANPP leadership to go beyond relying totally on Buhari’s popularity in the North and the choice of an Igboman as his running mate as the party’s winning points. Doing so will be suicidal. They should explore other suggestion provided by Dr. Tofa, Dr. Hassan Indabawa, I and scores of other admirers of Buhari. I wish them and their presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari a landslide victory in the April polls.
Ibrahim Dan-Halilu Badarawa -Kaduna |