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Buhari’s Supporters or Spoilers? By Hassan S. Indabawa
Kano - Nigeria
While he was alive, Wada Nas, a minister under late Sani Abacha, was a man of candour. He pursued to the very end any issue he believed in. This would be why he could become a lone voice defending the name of Abacha while other people, some of who benefited more from Abacha than himself, liked to pretend that they never knew Abacha.
Relatively, Nas has much in faith in General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd). He believed Buhari was the best among those in contention that should preside over Nigeria most effectively. So he threw his weight behind him, deploying all he had, including his peoples salvation party (PSP) at Buhari’s disposal.
It was the same indefatigable late Wada Nas who made a strong case for appointing Buhari as the national leader of All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP). He made the suggestion, as he put it, because Buhari’s popularity base was bigger than that of the ANPP.
“The proper role for Buhari is to be appointed party leader with responsibility above that of the National Chairman”, Nas said in a press statement in 2003. He explained: “Buhari’s ascendancy over ANPP was illustrated by results in several states which were more than those the governors pulled in their own states.” He was talking about the 2003 elections in which Buhari contested for the presidency under the ANPP’s banner. He concluded his case in that press statement by saying: “In quite a number of states, Buhari had more votes than the gubernatorial candidates of the ANPP. In other words, those who voted for Buhari in the last election (in 2003) were not members of ANPP alone but also members of other political parties”.
Nas, whose PSP adopted Buhari as its presidential candidate in the April 2003 general elections, said the ANPP’s constitution could be amended to make way for Buhari to resume leadership with power superior to that of the National Chairman, if for nothing else, but to appreciate Buhari’s popular rating in most states of the country.
That is how much Nas thought of Buhari. Were Nas to be alive today; he would mourn the treacherous ways of the so-called supporters of Buhari who are actually doing nothing to support him. We are looking at people who are fighting the highly rated national figure from within. Betrayers, who are directly disinclined to the diligence and uprightness that make Buhari a man of honour.
Late Wada Nas came in early in this discourse as a reference point, because, he dared to stand up for what he believed in at a huge cost to his personal interests. At a time he was letting known to the whole world that he was for Abacha, he was not in the best of terms with the late head of state’s family. He had nothing at the time to gain from the family. He could quite conveniently have recanted his opinion of the name Abacha, and, turned over to the person and government of President Olusegun Obasanjo where he would have had material gains been splashed on him. But not Wada Nas. Even when he felt he could not be relevant enough with his PSP, he turned to Buhari and his ANPP, not to Obasanjo, who had had enough of his harsh criticisms at the time to have been inclined to pay for his loyalty at almost any price. Nas stood against Obasanjo instead because he could make a difference between gains that defile a man and gains that honour him.
The likes of characters in the supposedly defunct The Buhari Organisation (TBO), particularly the Kano Chapter, know nothing about honour and so do nothing to earn it. That is why they will sit back in the organisation, go out now and then, collect crumbs from the opposite camp, and come in to smear it on Buhari’s name.
The double-crossing lot had a time of their life in the dirty game until the lead broke open last week when one of their self styled “Commander”, went on Freedom Radio, Kano to heap insults and threats on all who oppose to their crude and paedestrian politics. The ranting of this glorified thug confirmed that they had indeed been eating from the political enemy’s hands.
Although many are in the race for the Kano State government house, the big fight will be between the incumbent governor Malam Ibrahim Shekarau and his immediate predecessor, Rabiu Kwankwaso.
By the yardstick of Shekarau’s achievements and the love they generate for him from the people, Shekarau should have his return in May as governor a done deal. But this will not happen unless Shekarau’s house remains one united force, not when some in the house have one leg in and one leg out.
In fighting Shekarau, the undesirable elements within the TBO’s ghost either do not know that the success of Shekarau with particular reference to his second term ambition is the success of Buhari and the success of the ANPP by extension, or they are simply being mischievous because of the personal gains that accrue from such double dealing as have been indicated here already.
When Buhari contested in the 2003 presidential election, kano was the state which contributed the highest number of votes that saw Buhari being outdone by incumbent Obasanjo in such number of votes which was not enough for Buhari’s supporters to bury their heads in shame. Obasanjo polled 24,456,140 votes against Buhari’s 12,710,029. Buhari, thus, came a proud second in an election exercise that gave other presidential candidates only a few thousand votes and made the whole thing a strictly Obasanjo - Buhari affair.
Knowing how Shekarau’s achievements and Buhari’s popularity can swing winning votes for Shekarau and ANPP by extension in Kano state, the Kwankwaso camp decided to look into the ANPP camp, or more directly the Buhari camp for such people as would be willing to play the spoiler’s role. Sadly, for those who truly believe in Buhari, many offered to play that role to satisfy personal greed for money not minding wherever the money comes from.
They had been faithfully playing that dirty role trying hard to discredit Shekarau and make his second coming difficult, a possibility that would no doubt affect Buhari’s chances in the state and much of the rest of Nigeria adversely. This would be because Buhari draws such following in Kano as had made the state a reference point. If Kano then no longer sees in Buhari the qualities he is believed to possess, why should other states bother about him? This could very well be the calculation of these perfidious lots.
But the game is up for the dubious characters who have been so busy biting the fingers that feed them. We now know there indeed exist in the supposedly rested TBO certain sordid characters who were working within the ANPP family to destroy the family by causing disaffection between the two prominent members: Buhari and Shekarau, so that their paymasters outside could achieve their aim of dislodging the ANPP in Kano State.
We now also know that although the TBO has been collapsed into the bigger ANPP family in principle; in practice, TBO is still very much around, at least in Kano, where envy, hate and treachery seem to be the guiding principle for these Buhari’s “supporters”. And because they were using it for their own personal interests, they were going on as if TBO was never proscribed.
Here is calling on all who identify with the ideals that Buhari and Shekarau stand for to join forces with other well-meaning people in what need to be concerted efforts at consolidating the gains of both leaders and the ANPP so that they could shine even brighter in the April elections.
This will be done in part by being carefully watchful over those who make open profession of loyalty to either Buhari or Shekarau only to go out through the backdoor to do the very opposite of what they profess. This fight against undesirable elements is a noble one which all legitimate members of the ANPP family should want to join.
Indabawa, wrote in from No 15 Zoo road, Kano. |