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Challenge Before Bafarawa as Opposition Leader By Ali Alkali
With a population of 140 million, Nigeria is the 10th most populous country in the world, and the most populous African nation on earth. Yet, almost 47 years, and many missed opportunities, since the country became a sovereign republic, the democratic leadership we would swear by and die for still remains in the realm of dreams.
Although, in the last eight years, the PDP government has been implementing various policies and economic reforms they say are aimed at jumpstarting the economy and, by extension, improving the living conditions of the Nigerian downtrodden masses, these reforms have failed to offer even a ray of hope for Nigerians; let alone a real life. Though the country is ranked among the most resource-endowed countries, Nigeria is today also ranked among the 20 poorest nations, with majority of its citizens living in abject poverty as basic amenities such as food, water, shelter, electricity and security are almost totally absent. It is very obvious the party’s men have absolutely no answer to the nation’s problem. Not only that they have no care whatsoever for the agonizing people, the situation is so bad that Nigerians are so disenchanted to the extent that they expect no succor or help from anywhere. Not from the main opposition party, ANPP, whose national leadership and elected members succumbed to the ruling party in order to get a slice of the cake. Not from the PDP-controlled National Assembly; and of course, not from the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) whose leadership was, for long, compromised. Nigerian electorate are so afraid that the PDP government may, again, get away with every misrule and transgression no matter how grievous, just as it eat its cake and had it in the last eight years.
So what’s the way out of this dark smelly tunnel of despair? The way out is to search for a credible leader who can mobilize resources, political support and good will, form a new strong, formidable opposition and lead the country out of the woods. In search of such a leader, some concern citizens have, for several weeks, been making consultations with political parties, pro-democracy groups, human rights organizations and the civil society associations in order to come up with a person who is well-groomed in the arts of politicking and skillful enough to lead the new opposition to the ruling party. A dogged politician, who cannot be intimidated, should be the man for the task.
Right from the beginning, three people were named for consideration: General Muhammadu Buhari of the (now dead) All Nigerian People’s Party (ANPP), Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar of Action Congress (AC) and Former Governor of Sokoto State, Alhaji (Dr.) Attahiru Dalhatu Bafarawa, Garkuwan Sokoto, of Democratic People’s Party (DPP). But even before the end of the first round of the consultations, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar were knocked down. Many who opposed their candidature argued that while Buhari is still in ANPP, he is also still unable to get rid of the dictatorial attitude he acquired in the military. He still ignores any counsel once it is contrary to his views. And democracy is about consultations and the pursuit of collective interest. Another snag on Buhari’s way, they argued, is that the many thousands of politicians his iron hand squeezed when he was a military Head of State have not forgiven him, yet. As for the candidature of Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, it was brought down by a single shot – that as a former number-two man in the PDP’s Government for eight years, he was part and parcel of all the evils visited on Nigerians and perpetrated by the party against the nation. He cannot, therefore, exonerate himself from the sordid atrocities simply because he fell out with his boss and was humiliated out of the party.
That left Dr. Attahiru Dalhatu Bafarawa as the last man standing.
When Bafarawa was unanimously elected by his party members as their presidential candidate for the 2007 elections in December last year (after serving for eight years as Executive Governor of Sokoto Sate), even his political opponents attested that should he win, it shall be the beginning of a new dawn. It shall be the beginning of a people’s government that knows it gets its legitimacy and power from every Nigerian, not just the rich and the powerful. A government that would do everything within its power to harness the nation’s resources for the development of the people. Hon. Salisu Matori, a former Senator from Bauchi State, said, “People like Bafarawa are guiding lights and source of inspiration. He is a good leader who is fair and sincere. Such a person who can dedicate his entire life to the service of his people is the type of leaders we need in this country.”
Although many a politician’s views are usually different from his interviews, Bafarawa is known to be a man of his words. All his political associates across the nation trust him because of this leadership quality, a quality lacking in many politicians. In typical characteristics of a Sokoto man, Bafarawa can be so frank and blunt to a fault; yet very understanding and forgiving.
According to Alhaji (Dr.) Yusuf Maitama Sule, Danmasanin Kano, “Bafarawa is a peculiar character… of all the governors Sokoto State has had since creation, he is about the best of them all. His political sagacity is superb, and he is always ahead in terms of practical politics. Humble, simple, gentle, Bafarawa has always been realistic, very diplomatic, and respects elders. When he invited me as the chairman of his campaign in 2003, he did not launch the campaign with fund-raising but with development project, awarding a road contract worth over one billion Naira in an opposition controlled local government area. He is the greatest politician in the North today.”
Moreover, in the 30 years he has been in politics, Bafarawa is known to be a notoriously dogged fighter and astute campaign strategist. Attesting to that, Owele Rochas Okorocha, former PDP presidential aspirant, once said, “Bafarawa is a man of the people and a strategist… Here is a man who knows what people want, and knows how to give it to them. A man that shares the feeling of his people and always thinking ahead and confronting challenges with courage. The real man in Bafarawa has been revealed through his performance and achievements as a man of vision and substance. He is indeed a strategist.”
Right now, the new opposition leader is said to have gone to the drawing board mapping out plans and strategies to make sure that his party’s alliance with other parties and groups to form a strong opposition is built on a staunch, durable foundation not lose formations formed on the basis of temporary exigencies. He intends to make the new opposition alliance a phenomenon of societal value strongly cemented and blended with formidable roots of common stand and collective destiny, not easy to be split or broken, viable enough to institutionalize purposeful opposition and strong enough to nurture Nigerian democracy to fruition.
He is also said to have already put his political machinery in motion to mobilize materials and people with integrity, people who are not only enlightened and strong enough to articulate the opposition’s collective interest but also to checkmate those with personal interests from jeopardizing the pursuit of that collective interest.
As he takes on his new role as leader of the opposition, he is, no doubt, quite aware of the enormity of the task ahead. For, the ruling party, PDP, can be notoriously ruthless. Prof. Wole Soyinka once described the party as “a nest of vipers, which dangerously strike in all direction.” A political analyst and commentator attempted to interpret Soyinka’s metamorphic definition of PDP in a simple language. He wrote “Soyinka may have said that vipers masquerading as leaders are in charge of one federal Government and 28 states of the Nigerian Federation.”
An African proverb says, “When a snake visits, the owner of the house willingly surrenders ownership”. No wonder, Dr. Alex Ekwueme and a good number of G34 founding members who created the nucleus upon which the PDP was formed have since surrendered ownership to the “vipers”. For, after every PDP convention and primary election many a member will come out crying that he had been struck dead by the “vipers”; that he was in the wrong place and in the midst of the wrong people. For instance, consider the anger and curse showered on the party by Chief Sunday Awoniyi when he was beating a retreat, “It is almost an insult to be called a politician along with some of these disreputable, back-stabbing, shameless, bribe-taking individuals who masquerade as progressives; and yet switch result of party primaries many times over in favor of the highest bribe giver”.
Equally, before Chief Don Etiebet stormed out of the PDP, he made sure he painted his frustrations on the party’s walls quite graphically: “This is not the party’s founding fathers’ plan. Some Satanic forces have taken over the party and the State.”
All PDP members know that they do not share any permanent filial duties and obligations, as is the case at all levels of affliction. In plain language, politicians in the PDP are not held together by a common ideology. Everybody is at once a brother or an enemy - depending on what is at stake. Members operate at parallel frequencies and on several occasions when some “vipers” were angered, there were death threats and even actual killings.
So, if the party had no problem humiliating its founding fathers such as Ekwueme, Awoniyi, Etiebet and Ogbe at will, what guarantee do those who are now in cahoots with it have that the invitation to “come and eat” will be extended beyond the morning after the cocktail party?
No doubt, it is still fresh in the minds of Nigerians how the PDP government used intimidation, blackmail, mass arrests and open physical attacks on Bafarawa’s supporters as a prelude to the mass rigging on the election days (which the entire world election observers attested to) before it could “capture” what it called “the Bafarawa territory”. So, with him now as opposition leader to the PDP government, it is not likely that Nigerians have heard the end of his troubles. It is a dirty, dangerous job. But someone has to do it. And he, courageously, accepted to do it.
Of course, it is incumbent upon every patriotic Nigerian to support Bafarawa, and help him carry out this Herculean task because as a philosopher said, “All it takes for evil men to take over society and poison it is for the good men to stand aloof and do nothing.” Equally, the great poet, Dante Algheri once wrote, “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a time of great crisis, maintain their neutrality.” The onlookers should listen.
On the so-called “Unity Government”, it is a known fact that in all the countries that have, at one time or the other, tried this alternative such as Poland (1945), Austria (1947), Yugoslavia (1953), Israel (1984), South Africa (1994 – 97) and Palestine (2007), the contraption was formed to “bribe” the opposition by offering them ministerial posts, in exchange of which they are supposed to soft-pedal on their series of protests whenever the government breaks the law or try to implement unpopular policy.
Here, in Nigeria, the carrot was dangled before the hungry rabbits in order to decapitate the opposition parties and, thus, halt their call for protest and mass action in reaction to the massive malpractices that characterized the 2007 elections, which imposed Umaru Musa Yar’adua on people as their President and brought other PDP stalwarts to power. So, in its desperation to legitimize its illegal existence, the PDP government had to pretend that it cares for the unity of the country when it never cared for even the unity of its own members.
Revisiting our past, we will find that similar alliance, to form a Unity Government, between the ruling Northern People’s Congress (NPC) and National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) in the early 1960s collapsed due to insincerity; as it was not sincerely meant to bring the opposition into mainstream national politics but to pacify one major opposition (NCNC) and weaken another (AG). Again, nothing tangible was achieved from the alliance between the ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN) and the Nigerian People’s Party (NPP) during the Second Republic because of the same insincerity of purpose and lack of trust by both sides for each other.
What will make this one different?
Alkali writes from, Kaduna, Nigeria. |