In
next month’s presidential election are nine people – eight men and one
woman. Their mission is clear, their goal is overt; they are sure they
have a lot to offer Nigerians better than what the sitting President,
Goodluck Jonathan, has dished on the dinner-table for Nigeria and
Nigerians. So, they are desirous to bring some kind of change, and they
are promising, and campaigning, trying to unseat a President with good
luck.
But only one of the challengers stands out with a big
momentum on his side. Physically shoulder-high standing at over six
feet. A bony, bold, venturous and venturesome retired Army General; a
former platoon leader, former military governor, former head of
sumptuous petroleum parastatals, and former Head of State and
Commander-In-Chief of Nigerian Armed Forces. Gerrymandering geeks and
masters of greed and graft in government hate him and wish he dies soon.
But he is globally adjudged a man of unquestionable integrity who
loathes corruption and indiscipline; and perceived a tower of threat to
terrorism and lunatic Islamic insurgency. This is his fourth swing at
the presidency, and he keeps coming back, and now in this election
cycle, he has a monumental momentum. He is Muhammadu Buhari from the
sleepy desert town of Daura, Katsina State, and he is the leader of the
pack of those hungry for a big piece of Goodluck from Bayelsa.
To
dethrone an incumbent President anywhere in the world cannot be
achieved with a recumbent approach. To defeat Goodluck Jonathan next
month can be likened to a 90-year-old man climbing a rugged mountain
solo. Only one person did that in history. It was the biblical Caleb.
But a lot of Nigerians believe this time it is doable; some even believe
it is done already. Ask Baba Olusegun Obasanjo, the man who used to be
Goodluck’s mentor and benefactor. He said last week; “I see Buhari as
the next President and Jonathan is aware of that…a General is always a
General…”
If you don’t want to believe Obasanjo, evidences
abound in the General’s rallies all over the nation. Uncontrollable
crowd, tumultuous and enthusiastic with boisterous shouts and screams;
“Sai Buhari, Sai Buhari….” To many of these shouters, Buhari is a god
who did not slither into human existence via the birth-canal of a woman.
To some, he is not just a Muhammadu, he is a prophet; and to many
others, Buhari is nothing but an old, brutish bully who is only
desperate for power to stock up his Hausa/Fulani clan at all costs at
the expense of a neglected, pillaged and deprived minority group.
Do
not mention Buhari’s name too loudly in some parts of Nigeria; these
are parts that love this President. The South-South zone where the
President was born see the transfer of power to any other as a heinous
heisting of their exclusive heavenly-endowed right to the presidency at
least until 2019. Anything short of this, their acrimonious militants
want us to believe, will be an invitation to pandemonium unimaginable.
They have said it openly that the Nigerian Presidency is their exclusive
property.
A former Governor of Bayelsa State, Chief Diepreye
Alamieyeseigha, has declared, “We shall not allow the Presidency to be
occupied by the opposition. It is our bonafide property in the
South-South for now and we will not allow it to slip off.” The
coordinating chairman of the Southern Nigeria People’s Assembly, Chief
Edwin Clark, who is an unrepentant backer of the President recently said
that the President has outperformed every president in history but
“some unrepentant irredentists want him out of office. The simple reason
is that as a minority, he is seen as an intruder to what rightly and
exclusively remains a preserve of the Hausa-Fulani hegemony.” If the
option of no-election is on the discussion table, the President’s men
will jump on it like hybla-bees around stripped sugarcane.
Unfortunately, in a democracy, elections are the hallmarks.
Mr.
President’s stronghold, however, does not have the number to give him a
clear victory over the opposition. According to figures from the
Independent National Electoral Commission, the South-South (Ikwere,
Ogoni, Kalabari, and all), and the South-East (Igbo) boast 17 million
voters while the rest of the nation, the North (Hausa, Fulani, Kanuri,
Tiv, and all), and the South-West (Yoruba) have about 54 million voters.
To lock up victory on February 14, Jonathan’s Goodluck must shine
throughout the North and South-West too, not just the areas where he is
considered a son and an in-law.
From readings on our political
barometer, a thrashing and trouncing may be lurking around at the polls
for our President, except if something changes between now and
Valentine’s Day, and except Buhari is less hungry for a big chunk and a
piece of Goodluck in this election.
To the best of his ability,
the President believes he has worked hard enough to unquestionably
deserve to be re-elected. Anyone who says that Jonathan has achieved
nothing is not fair to this President. He has done well in some road
construction, the face of the vital railway infrastructure in Nigeria
may still be considered Neanderthal compared to other nations of the
world, but it is not what it used to be six years ago. There is no doubt
that Jonathan has done equally well through his Agricultural
Revolution. There are evidences.
However, governing Nigeria
requires a lot of hard work, not just good luck. Living and doing
business in Nigeria are a lot of hard work. Killing the viruses of
corruption and dishonesty in public office is a lot of hard work. I
believe the President has a heart to do good, but I also believe like
many other Nigerians that he has assigned governance to some ogres whose
hearts pant to serve self and self alone. What he boasts about as
achievements do not measure up one scintilla bit to the people’s
expectation of a President who promised so much just four years ago.
With his own hands, he has created an environment for nine other
contestants to challenge him and stay hungry for a piece of Goodluck.
In
2011, Goodluck brought the Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Niger Delta together
under an umbrella. Four years later, the same Goodluck has torn us far
and wide apart. The umbrella under which Nigerians expected help has
become an umbrella of hell leaking untold pain and suffering on a nation
in pervasive agony. If the President’s men had invested same amount of
energy they unleashed trying to dig up Buhari’s 53 years old School
Certificate on revamping electricity, silencing Boko Haram, and finding
the Chibok girls, very few people will be talking about Muhammadu Buhari
for president today. Jonathan had all the opportunities to be the
greatest Nigerian president that ever lived, but today, he is a statue
of ridicule that is detested home and abroad.
To this writer and
many people I know, all the voices of approbation suffusing the air in
favour of opposition party, the All Progressives Congress, is not about
Buhari, it is about CHANGING how government works, CHANGING the mindsets
of political office-holders that public service is not about the people
serving a leader, but about the leader truly serving the people. Buhari
is just the immediate beneficiary of the clamour for CHANGE, and
Jonathan may be the unfortunate victim of the people’s sledge hammer of
hunger for something different.
In this election, it will be too
naïve for anyone of us to leave God out of the equation because only He
rules in the affairs of men. That is why in a moment like this, you
cannot count out anybody. Not just yet, especially if he is a Goodluck
that Buhari the General is hungry to dethrone fifteen days from today.
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