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Seeking The Centre: When Will Buhari Start Campaigning On Issues? By Saint Azuh
This is the first time since the current political dispensation that I have been tempted to think in tandem with the wide-mouthed PDP National Secretary, Chief Ojo Madueke when he said that “General Buhari’s wild allegations are not just laughable, but honestly reflect his routine desperation and unlearned response to imminent electoral failure”.
Nothing could be closer to the truth than saying that since the General is furiously clubbing his way to be recognized as the nation’s leading opposition figure, “Nigerians must indeed worry at what manner of opposition that is not concerned with constructive issues but is ever willing to drag to the gutter, every other person especially those perceived as threat to his unrealizable ambition”.
The time has come for Nigerian career political office seekers to learn or rather appreciate that the political landscape is changing fast. Only those who can proffer quality and workable ideas on thorny national political and socio-economic issues will find relevance.
Rather than expend all his energy disqualifying and condemning opponents in the forthcoming presidential elections, the former military junta should pick a fight on the real issues and stop boring the public with the loser lamentations as was rightly advised by the PDP scribe.
Though propaganda is permissible in political contests or rather conflicts, I fully agree that such propaganda must have some closeness to reality, otherwise it will collapse like Obasanjo’s trumpeted gains of his economic reforms initiatives that succeeded only in selling all the lucrative national assets to the President and his cronies with their fronts from Asia Minor.
Gen Buhari, the ANPP presidential flag bearer, rather than concentrate on marketing and selling issues and programmes to the Nigerian electorate, had spent more of his campaign time either disqualifying Atiku or accusing Obasanjo for having perfected plans to actualize the PDP rigging wizardry haven produced the yet-to-be -conducted election results.
Buhari’s peculiar style of campaign has obviously confirmed previous allegations that his democratic credentials have always been at best, suspect and worst blurred and obscured.
There is a great need for the ANPP presidential flag -bearer to clear himself from the current obvious manifestations of outright treachery. Rather than focus mainly on running down opponents especially those perceived to be stronger contenders, the military democrat should strive to sell his agenda and convince Nigerians to vote him into office. It would be a rude shock as Buhari may well discover again after April polls that it is one thing to charm voters but it is quite another to do it and get credible results.
Hear the former military junta on the feud between Atiku and Obasanjo: "By the Electoral Act 2006, with the indictment of Vice President Atiku Abubakar, he cannot participate in the election as a candidate. He is finished politically”. How can Buhari just sit down in his small dictatorial world and issue disqualification decrees and uninformed assessments of political opponents simply because he failed to cajole the Vice President to step down for him and his ailing all disgruntled Nigerian peoples party? The General decided to run down the candidacy of Vice President Atiku simply because (as widely reported in the Nigerian media) the vice president rejected the option of stepping down for Buhari in the ill-fated joint venture between Action Congress (AC) and the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP). Come to think of it, in political mergers who steps down for the other, the more popular or the very unpopular party? Buhari’s problem has always being that he rates himself far above where he actually stands on popularity and acceptability ranking. And the ANPP would wake up to yet another mistake in its selection of their flag bearer, a man who can neither tackle issues frontally nor market whatever idea he thinks he has.
On Obasanjo and his PDP on the forthcoming election, hear what the former military ruler had to say: "But really this government is making it almost impossible for free and fair elections to take place. Since third term fail, this government doesn't want to go in peace. It is therefore in their own interest, to go in peace by conducting credible election. If they don't, we will advise Nigerians not to participate even in the interim government.
"Nigerians must not allow this government to extend itself by a day. If they can’t do it, the National Assembly must impeach the president and let him go and the Senate President be sworn in and conduct elections. I hope these people will live to answer for the atrocities they have committed against Nigeria”. Haba elder statesman! Since when did the General become a pro-democracy campaigner or civil rights activist? The junta uptil now has not realized that he has no single band of informed followership except those youths he contributed in making unemployed in Kano and some other places. There is no right –minded Nigerian that would go on any form of protest based on Buhari’s call because he is not only part of the current problem, he was heavily responsible for majority of the socio-economic dislocations currently being suffered by Nigerians due to his failure to prudently and proactively used the huge resources of Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) in social infrastructural development apart from procuring paracetamol and chloroquine for hospitals. Rather than this current adventure into sterile constitutional interpretation aimed at smearing everybody perceived as opponents in the forthcoming April elections particularly Vice President Atiku and Gen Obasanjo, the PDP flag-bearer or rather presidential campaigner, Gen Buhari should seek divine intervention to help him convince Nigerians that the present Buhari is a born again version of the alleged jihadist Buhari.
SAINT AZUH, AP PLAZA ANNEX, WUSE II ABUJA. (saint_azuh@yahoo.com)
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