pes Raised, Punches Pulled:Alexander Ifeanyichukwu contends Muhammadu Buhari is not electable January 2, 2015 Issues/Policy Share on facebookShare on twitterShare on emailShare on pinterest_shareMore Sharing Services It is 31 years now that General Muhammadu Buhari led the military junta that marred the New Year celebration of Nigerians springing from the joy of successful general election and the commencement of a second tenure of President Shehu Shagari of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN). Buhari in the company of power drunk soldiers chose December 31, 1983, as the auspicious time to truncate Nigeria’s Second Republic and by brute of force removed Alhaji Shagari as President, by fiat decreed the 1979 constitution into oblivion and through sheer demonstration of his innate hatred for democracy, rounded up several state governors of that republic and threw them into prison because he had no appetite for democracy and the rule of law. Three decades after, the same man who has severally displayed his disdain for the people’s expression of free will; is without shame for the fourth time, defiantly urging Nigerians to hand him the democratic office of President of the Federal Republic. Only a people devoid of sense of history and without a hope for their future will make what will amount to a grievous mistake of electing as President General Buhari. At 72 and three decades out of public office and without an enviable track record of active engagement in productive and gainful private business, what else outside of inordinate desire to conclude a short-circuited vendetta against his perceived enemies, would General Buhari be seeking election as president of Nigeria? For the All Progressives Congress (APC) the choice of General Buhari is another confirmation that the party is clueless to the immediate challenges that the nation is grappling with and which only a level- headed and democratic personality like President Goodluck Jonathan can deal with. That we are set for an encore as far as the presidential elections of 2015 is concerned, is not in doubt because the same lack of convincing stance and insincerity for seeking to become president and for which Nigerians have rejected him thrice, in 2003, 2007 and 2011, has not improved even in this fourth attempt. This man is not electable. Indeed it would amount to a wasteful and futile exercise for anyone to dare look in the direction of the Daura, Katsina State- born APC flag-bearer, not after he has vowed, in the aftermath of his woeful outing at the 2011 poll never to ask Nigerians for votes in any election. So, what prompted this turnaround move? Has he been able to convince anyone on why he changed from this position less than four years after? What difference can he possibly make knowing that the last time he held any public office was in 1985, after he usurped power and ruled Nigeria with iron hand? Times have changed, political leadership has acquired a sophistication that makes a reticent image of General Buhari, unacceptable in the 21st Century. Nigerians must guard against nostalgia, against the idea that things used to be much better in that obnoxious Buhari/Idiagbon regime. There is no doubt they were not. Between December 31, 1983 and August 1985 when that contraption held sway before it was eased out by General Ibrahim Babangida ostensibly on the ground of promoting injustice, we saw a mark of a man who has no tolerance for the very essence of democracy. The black stripes on the Zebra are indelible, they cannot be wiped off. Armed with a pathological disdain for democracy and democrats and this invasion of the people’s mandate the way he did on new year’s eve in 1983, General Buhari’s only mission was to entrench military rule in Nigeria. It was this man that inaugurated a committee on Local Government Reforms to provide guidelines or modalities on the best form of local government system most suitable to military regime. He had no modicum of conscience for return to democratic government. An anti-federalist, in the history of Nigeria’s political development, Buhari enthroned a governance system that defied the country’s federal society and existing norms of accommodating the interests of all segmental cleavages in the governance system. He insisted on a North-north head of state and Chief of General Staff in pairing Brigadier Tunde Idiagbon as his deputy. In his appointments, Buhari excluded the old Bendel State from ministerial slots in the Federal Cabinet. Responding to protests by leaders from Bendel State, Buhari simply told them that military government does not recognise federal character. Has that also changed? We must not forget so soon that the same Buhari administration sentenced to 100 years imprisonment the then governor of the Bendel State, Professor Ambrose Alli for what it described as misappropriation of the sum of N983,000! That committed democrat who in a space of four years built more than 600 secondary schools, abolished secondary school fees; built various colleges of Education in Ekiadolor, Warri, Ozoro and Agbor; and three polytechnics, four teachers training colleges, cannot be compared with a rudderless Buhari who disrupted the Second Republic. Ambrose Alli died in penury, a living philanthropist who refunded the said N983,000 to government, secured his release from prison. But it came rather late because Professor Alli, who could not afford to build a home of his own, died on the sick bed on his 60th birthday. Neither can Nigerians forget so easily the unwarranted and harsh detention condition of Chief Bisi Onabanjo, former governor of Ogun State, an accomplished newspaper columnist who gave direction to Nigerians through the famous Aiye K’oto column. Chief Onabanjo became blind while serving in detention. Is it not an irony that the same General Buhari who took delight in hounding innocent politicians into the gallows would lament of his detention after the 1985 military coup that ousted him and led by General Babangida who was the number three man in the Buhari government? Once more displaying an unforgiving spirit that is quite unbecoming of a man who aspires to lead a democratic nation, he remembers his own experience with bitterness like this: “There are things in life that you will never forget.” Coming from him after 30 years of that incident only tells of a mind given to vendetta; yet, he has forgotten easily that those whose lives were cut short by reason of his uninvited incursion into government cannot enjoy the privileges that democracy affords him today. He ought to be making restitution for his crimes against humanity presently instead of placing a demand on Nigerians to elect him as President. Although General Buhari makes a public show of his demand to become President of a democratic Nigeria, he makes no effort to hide his tribal sentiments. In his last three failed attempts at the Presidency, General Buhari has avoided Ndigbo as a man avoids a plague. He can only be the first of such leaders in Nigeria’s history who feels he has no need of the votes of a major ethnic group to win an election and would demand their ‘loyalty’ when he has ‘conquered the country’ without their votes. One wonders how the people of that section of the country feel about candidate Muhammadu Buhari. What would a Buhari presidency amount to without the economy since he has not shown any understanding of the country’s economic scenario? What, we must ask, does any democracy amount to without a stable and articulated economic policy? Indeed, what is the value of a leader who does not understand the function of micro and macro-economic dynamics? As the country makes a deliberate choice for continuity in our democratic culture come 2015 February, Nigerians must shun any character that evokes that bitter past that we as a people have collectively renounced. The biggest reminder of that inglorious past is represented by the gap-toothed, ram-rod, unbendable 72-year-old soldier who still sees the country as a territory that must be conquered. THIS DAY Ifeanyichukwu wrote from Enugu
Posted on: Fri, 02 Jan 2015 12:47:23 +0000
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