Leadership (Abuja)
Suleiman Uba
16 October 2007
opinion
Abuja — The politics of blackmail, as played by many Buhari disciples in Kano (Buhari's main bastion of support) and elsewhere, succeeded in alienating the General from many respectable people in the state. It attracted a large dose of public sympathy towards his victims, especially Shekarau. Instead of campaigning for the General, many people in Kano did not even go out to vote for Buhari when the presidential election held a week later, eventhough the governor had made a passionate appeal for all his supporters to go out en-masse and vote for Buhari and the ANPP. Apart from the fact that Obasanjo's INEC supplied only about two million voters cards in Kano, the peoples disenchantment largely explains why Buhari got only barely a million votes, out of over four million registered voters in Kano, the one Nigerian state he received most support. The fact is many Kanawas opted to stay at home during the presidential election, out of frustration with his politics of vengeance.
Worse of all, Buhari had always claimed that he had nothing personal against the candidates he vigorously sought to undermine. But his handlers at the TBO had a contrary opinion, and they insisted and succeeded in having their ways. They pointed at a White Paper the PDP Government cooked up to create advantage for its own candidates. They made all sort of spurious claims. They insulted Shekarau and others and accused them of 'biting the finger that fed them,' while providing no credible, other than personal and selfish proof of such. They are so carried away by the political favours done to these people by Buhari that they shut their eyes against any good thing done to him and/or the TBO in return, by these people. No effort to appease them was ever enough.
Not even when Governor Shekarau led other ANPP governors to ensure victory for Buhari at the presidential primary election did they accept he is truly loyal to the man. They claimed General Babangida was instrumental to the withdrawal of the aspirants seeking the ANPP's ticket, for Buhari. But posterity soon proved them wrong, as Babangida was nowhere to help them during the election proper, as he is known to have wined and dined with the PDP. And even when Buhari had made a show of dissolving the TBO, it was only on paper, as its leaders allowed then Governor Ahmed Sani no room to operate in his position as appointed head of Buhari's campaign because of their distrust of anyone outside their fold. The man became so frustrated that he had to throw in the towel, diplomatically claiming he needed medical attention abroad, though he was later begged to recant and return to the fold.
In Kano when Shekarau's supporters took stock of the great role the governor played in ensuring Buhari's emergence as presidential candidate of the ANPP and opined that he has paid back the General for his earlier support in 2003, the TBO disagreed, claiming God and no one else made Buhari's victory possible. But when reminded in like manner that Shekarau's emergence in 2003 was also God's making, they always counter by crediting that victory only to Buhari. That is the TBO for you.
They were so sure that Shekarau and other ANPP candidates in their bad book could not make it to the governorship for the second time without Buhari's support, that in Kano for example, some TBO members destroyed most billboards showing the governor and General Buhari. They did not want the Governor to gain from Buhari's famed popularity. At the end, Shekarau rode on his own goodwill and won the election with God's support, while both Buhari and his TBO toiled in vain to make sure he failed the election! So unhappy with this victory is General Buhari that he could not, even as presidential candidate of the ANPP, call the governor on phone to extend his congratulations, several months after the deserved victory.
Talking about the government of national unity which President Yar'adua proposed to three opposition political parties that have succeeded in winning at least a governorship seat, what the ANPP did only amounts to democracy in action. When the idea was broached to the party, it consulted Buhari and invited him for discussion where decision as to whether to accept the president's offer or not would be taken. But what did Buhari do? He simply stayed away from the scheduled talks. Typical of him, Buhari did not take into consideration the fact that politics is all about consultation and not issuing directives. Anywhere in the world, politics is a game of number, with the majority always having their way and the minority having their say. Betrayal would only have set in if at the time the "carrot" was dangled on the ANPP, it did not inform or sought to involve Buhari in its discussion. He did not even give the ANPP the chance to resolve the matter on consensus as Daily Trust was advocating. He only insisted on imposing his personal opinion on the party, constituted of many established adults, in a manner school headmasters talk to their pupils.
As I said earlier, rather than healing wounds, Buhari only exacerbated them. For example when former governors Attahiru Bafarawa and Saminu Turaki of Sokoto and Jigawa States , respectively, left the ANPP for other political parties, Buhari woefully failed to play the role of an elder statesman that was expected of him. Instead of attempting to woo them back to the ANPP, he issued a statement describing their exit as good riddance to bad rubbish. The governors naturally felt offended, and this was how Bafarawa ended up contesting the presidential election alongside Buhari. The loser in this case is Buhari because if Bafarawa had supported him, he would certainly have got more votes in Sokoto and perhaps elsewhere, though Bafarawa himself ended up making a dismal showing in the election.
By his very exclusionist style, Buhari obviously thought that he could rely on his famed popularity and successfully go it alone. Those around him must have made him believe he is a man of limitless political possibilities. During a meeting of the ANPP's leadership, he once ordered Alhaji Bashir Tofa, one of the founding leaders of the party, out of the meeting for merely disagreeing with him on an issue. This is the quintessential Buhari, almost always believing only in his own ideas, refusing to even consider other peoples perspectives on almost any issue.
While I am not in a position to speak for the ANPP, I agree with its leadership's claims that it based its action of joining the GNU on survival of the nation's democracy. Whatever anyone might say, the acceptance by the ANPP has gone a long way to lessen the tension in the polity, which was fraught with possibilities of military take over, given the widespread condemnation of the conduct of the presidential election. The acceptance has served to remove any excuse that the military could possibly have latched on to seize power and once again derail the nation's democracy, which eventhough imperfect, is agreed to be better than the noblest military regime.
And in fairness to the ANPP, it accepted the GNU proposal with dignity, far from the impression of hungry and malnourished politicians that the Daily Trust created. It intended to pursue its petition against the presidential election to its logical conclusion, until TBO members characteristically started calling them names. Should the ANPP cling to the petition when the person in whose interest they instituted the petition no longer has confidence in them? Certainly there is no basis, and this is why the party had to withdraw. But talking about the coalition with Yar'adua, we should not forget the fact that this type of coalition has always been in our politics since the First Republic , and is very popular even with established democracies that resort to it for strategic reasons, such as what obtains currently in Germany , France , etc.
And apart from orchestrated cases of some negative write-ups in the media, I cannot remember any major case of disapproval of the party's acceptance of the GNU offer by its membership - apart, perhaps, from isolated individual cases - anywhere in the country. So we should not be disparaging our politicians and building unnecessary mountain out of molehill for accepting what is legal and conventional. Such respected national icons as the late Sardauna and Azikiwe did embrace the idea of GNU at one time in our history or the other, even when the election in their time was also reported to be massively rigged.
Obviously if Buhari had agreed to join forces with Atiku and form a grand alliance as many Nigerians called on them to do to forestall Obasanjo's plans for rigging, the story may have been different today, as the PDP would have found it virtually impossible to impose itself. But each of them held on to his individual position, ignoring peoples' opinion, and now that their intransigence did not work, they have turned to the people, seeking for blind support. Both Buhari and his handlers have stated in media interviews before the election that this time around, they are not going to court if the election is rigged, that they are going to sort it out with the riggers on the streets, as they are going to call out the people on a mass action. We should not so quickly forget history. Why did Buhari accept to go to court? Could his rigid personality have allowed the ANPP to coerce him to go to court as now being claimed? The simple reality is that his calls for mass action were generally ignored by the people, as the people are now wiser. Neither Buhari nor any TBO member would allow their children to partake in the mass action they called. Yet, they want children of others to risk their lives in defence of his so-called mandate! Buhari went to court as a face-saving measure to mask peoples' rebuff of him.
Such Buhari handlers as Adamu Adamu, Buba Galadima, etc, have in recent press interviews always harped on the view that Buhari cannot withdraw his petition because the fight is not his alone; that the General has to defend the interests of those supporters of his who were allegedly killed or suffered in the course of the election. But this argument is as hollow as it is preposterous. Is it only now that Buhari wants to be president that he sees human life as sacrosanct? What of the several thousands of innocent people that were killed when the General led a military coup in 1983? When would the Adamu Adamus and the Buba Galadimas of this world fight for the rights of these cheated people and get justice for them? Are they less human beings than those who were allegedly killed voting for Buhari?
When Sheikh Dr. Ahmad Gumi urged Buhari to withdraw his petition in the interest of northern unity and Islamic brotherhood, these writers and more condemned the Islamic cleric for supporting injustice. But what injustice are they talking about? Where were they when Buhari denied justice to Ahmed Aruwa, Nura Khalil and many others in recent past just because he was made to believe they no longer belong to his fold? Are these people not servants of God whose interests he should protect? And what of those former leaders ( Second Republic governors, ministers, etc) that were wickedly clamped into inhuman detention and imprisoned by Buhari without caring to know their culpability or otherwise? Some of them ended up dying of ailments contracted in Buhari's gulag. When are the families they left behind going to obtain justice? Didn't Buhari know the demands of justice in respect of the sanctity of the accused, presumed as innocent until and unless proved guilty?
Is there any justice in allowing such characters as Buba Galadima and Adamu Adamu to be insulting respected Nigerians just because they subscribe to a different opinion? How, for example, would the highly respected Emir of Kano feel when Buba Galadima (in his latest interview with Weekly Trust newspaper) categorically insulted the northern emirs and even suggested that the institution would be wiped out all because he has not seen them being supportive to Buhari? Did the Emir of Kano or Sultan of Sokoto facilitate the so-called rigging of the presidential election or asked Buhari to withdraw his petition to deserve this insult? And what did Buhari do to ensure justice for these innocent leaders? Absolutely nothing, just as he did nothing when they were insulting the ANPP governors and other leaders for selfish reasons.
When asked to assess President Yar'adua's first 100 days in office, Buhari answered that there was nothing to assess, as Yar'adua's was an illegitimate government! But this is laughable. Which, between the governments of Yar'adua and the one led by Buhari is more illegal? At least President Yar'adua has the decency to admit flaws in the election that saw him to office and he seems serious about ensuring a better election in future. But eventhough he truncated democracy and came to power courtesy of the barrel of the gun, Buhari is still carrying on as if he led the most democratic government, when our history has recorded his government as the most high handed and repressive.
While there is nothing wrong with anyone who feels cheated to seek for justice, it is important for General Buhari and his handlers to remember that the justice that they now claim to pursue at the tribunal is what they have been denying others for ages, and that the whirlwind that is injustice is what has now come back to them. Make no mistake about it. They should also remember that if you destroy others in order to succeed, you must await destruction at the post of your success. They have in the course of history done worst things to others. So they must accept the fact that what is happening to them is just nemesis at work. Arrogance an d heaping insults on innocent people cannot make Buhari president. I await my own portion of the insult, as is traditional with them.
Suleiman Uba Mohammed is a member of the Kano chapter of ANPP and the senior special adviser on special duties to the Kano State governor, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau. This piece is, however, his personal opinion and not that of the state government.
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