WHY BUHARI ELICITS SO MUCH DIFFERING PASSIONS FROM NIGERIANS There is perhaps no public figure that elicits so much passion, one way or another, in Nigeria’s contemporary political scene as the figure of Buhari. As we have been witnessing, many people are willing to lay down their lives down for the man and what he represents, and, make no mistake, this cuts across the country, from Potiskum to Port Harcourt, from Jigawa to Ogoja. There are also many, especially the thieving politicians and aspiring looters, who suffer from Buhariphobia, and who are very willing to enter all sorts of diabolical compromises; and to kill as well, just to keep the man out of power. Perhaps it’s time to ask ourselves why this is the case. If we can answer that question, may be that could explain the vituperations of cowards like Mr. Ejiogu who are so fixated on the figure of GMB that they are pitiable. Now back to why GMB elicits so much passion on the current Nigerian political scene. I think the answer is very simple. The man is so un-Nigerian. He’s probably the only General, the only former head of state, the only former petroleum minister, the only former governor, etc, that is not super rich. He has no petrol station. He lives a very modest lifestyle on his pension (which he refused while he was the chair of PTF, arguing that he was already being adequately remunerated by the same government as PTF chair). He has two modest houses: one in his village and the other in Kaduna. He doesn’t have a foreign bank account. Those who know this is true revere the man, and those who are challenged by it try to smear him. As petroleum minister he conceived the building of refineries so we shouldn’t be importing refined petroleum products, eliminating the very possibility of the so-called ‘subsidy’. As head of state he left a lasting legacy with his trade mark WAIC which survives today in the tepid environmental sanitation exercise and the farcical war against corruption. He was the first head of state to fight corruption to a standstill, mostly by example. He confronted the double menace of drug and currency trafficking with creative solutions. He categorically refused the impositions of the Breton Woods Institutes. For those who don’t understand his advice concerning Jonathan’s budget, they should go to the archives and read the man’s budgets. The advice he gave concerning the budget is a common sense advice that a 7-year old can understand. You can’t set aside 72% of your budget for recurrent expenditure (that is for paying politicians, their cronies and lackeys) and then expect a miracle to happen and turn your economy around. Nigeria is the only country in the world where political office holders make millions of dollars annually as ‘allowances’ a.k.a abuse of office. Finally, GMB is so far the only person with any real chance of becoming president who has said repeatedly that we need to address the structure of our federation, but that we should not do it in a hurry. We need to stabilize first, and then take a critical look at ourselves. Many people mistakenly think that GMB is just an anti corruption crusader and nothing else. Fighting corruption may be good, but it’s reactionary. Preventing corruption, or making it unattractive, is creative. You get both with GMB. So, if you ask me why GMB elicits intense and differing passions from Nigerians, I’d say that it’s because many of us, while acknowledging the man’s weaknesses, see him as a statesman, a role model, a bright light shining in the valley of darkness, while others, the powerful movers and shakers who are profiting from the darkness, see him as a serious threat. This latter group, through their effective use of the media, has defined GMB to people, they cleverly linked GMB to the fictitious Hausa/Fulani oligarchs. But the truth is that those so-called oligarchs, like Umaru Dikko, are even more scared of the prospects of another GMB presidency that they’d do anything to stop it. If GMB were part of the mafia, he would be a member of the PDP, like the gap toothed general who pushed GMB aside in order to rehabilitate his fellow oligarchs whose grip on power was being loosened by GMB. If you read the BBC, the influential British voice that sometimes says things as they are, they will tell you that the political elites in Nigeria are very uncomfortable with GMB because of his discipline. And that is the reason why they may never allow a free and fair election as long as GMB runs. Right now they’re already perfecting their rigging machinery in readiness for 2015, one can’t be too careful, you see.
Posted on: Tue, 23 Jul 2013 09:44:37 +0000