APC presidential candidate… IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN SOMEONE ELSE WRITTEN BY: Justin akpovi-esade MEMBERS of the All Progressives Congress (APC), may not like what they are about to read. Some would even call me names and insinuate that I had ‘fallen’ to the almighty ‘federal might’ perceived inducement being dished out per minute by President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. But just like the great Mahatma Gandhi would say, “there is no God higher than truth” and the truth as viewed from the lenses of most Nigerians, is what I am about to write. The APC presidential candidate, Mr. Muhammad Buhari, in next year’s election would lose. Painful as this sound, even to me, but that is just the stark reality of the situation on the ground. I was praying, hoping that the main opposition party would not field Buhari to take on the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Jonathan. In fact, when the APC was formed, I prayed and hoped Buhari would drop his presidential ambition and give way for someone else, but alas, that was not to be. It seemed the ONLY reason Buhari agreed to team up with the likes of former Governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu among many others was to be offered the presidential candidate of the party. The APC presidential primary held last week in Lagos was a mere formality (so it seemed) to rectify the ‘agreement’ reached with Buhari long ago to be offered another opportunity to take a shot at the presidency of Nigeria. This line of thought was formed against the backdrop of what happened during the botched merger between Buhari ‘owned’ CPC and Tinubu ‘owned’ ACN in 2011. That was one great opportunity missed to unseat President Jonathan and because of the powers each heavyweight from the two defunct parties wielded (still wield even in the new APC), it became paramount to pull resources and powers together this time around, peacefully. And the only way to achieve some degree of peace and stability in the APC was to offer Buhari the presidential candidate or else, Buhari would walk away, form another party and rely on his legendary northern votes to still take yet another shot at the nation’s number one office. So, the APC had to arrive at a convenient arrangement and hand the reserved slot to Buhari to avoid tearing the party apart. Buhari will not stop to run for the seat of the president of Nigeria, if he loses this time around too. There is something, a voice that keeps telling him to run in every election in the last 16 years. Buhari is a good, honest man, but over the years, his political opponents have successfully built around him a very bad image. In fact, they have painted a picture of a Buhari walking around with two horns on his head, like the ‘devil’ so many have got use to in children story and Christian books. It is not a hard task to convince anyone, especially young, misdirected, misruled Nigerians that ‘there goes a bad man’ and he is Buhari. Sad! So many young Nigerians castigating him now were not old enough to feel his governance first hand when he ruled in the early 1980s. They rely on what political detractors write and say to form their judgment on a good man. His public relations experts have done a great deal of work in the last couple of weeks, but the desired result is disappointing gauging the feedback especially online. Yes, many people are desirous of change, they are tired of this Jonathan’s government that gives excuses daily like a cry baby. The people need a leader and not one that has an excuse for every misfortune and or looks for who to blame for it too. But because of the success of the smear campaign on Buhari, some people do not see him as the proponent of that change Nigeria so desperately need at this moment. Buhari may however still win in a free and fair election, but his candidature will sure give room to some form of ‘government magic’ as regards the election and at the end of the day, it would be blamed on the fact that opposition fielded an ‘unpopular’ candidate. There is still little over two months to the election, the APC still have some time to ‘clean’ up its presidential candidate the more and inform the already misinformed Nigerians about the good sides of the retired army general and hopes the cleaning up exercise works. But I am still of the opinion that the party should not have thrown up Buhari again even if it must field a northerner as it presidential flag bearer, which is another moral burden going by the wide belief in some parts of the country that the north feels ruling Nigeria is their birth right; another smear campaign that has worked. The APC should have beamed its searchlight on a younger candidate from another geo political region of the country if it wanted to wrest power from the PDP. It should not have been Buhari. At his age, with his wealth of experience, I expected the former head of state to be an adviser to the party. Someone everybody turns to for valuable advice and direction, having successfully once governed this knotty country as a military leader. So unless by divine intervention, there is no way the APC will win the on-coming presidential election, sadly.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 07:57:21 +0000
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