2015: Tinubu, Buhari and Matters Arising
Sani Tureta
There are so many issues surrounding the Buhari Presidential candidacy and the flaunted support he is said to be enjoying from his newly-found Leader and God father, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. There is the need to critically examine them, so that Nigerians would not end up in a one-chance bus. For example, there has been so much talks about the huge believe in Muhammadu Buhari, the Presidential candidate of the APC by Asiwaju Tinubu, the party’s National Leader. This was said to have influenced the backing Tinubu gave Buhari at the expense of Atiku Abubakar and Rabiu Kwankwaso at the party’s recent National delegate Conference in Lagos, where its Presidential candidate emerged. But facts emerging have shown that Asiwaju’s support for Buhari is with an ulterior motive. In fact, it appears Tinubu does not have the slightest believe [n Buhari’s capabilities. With facts now on ground, it seems the former Lagos governor just wants somebody that can be used to actualize his ambition of ruling Nigeria through his protégé.
In this regard, let’s take a critical look at recent leaks from Wikileaks, the renowned whistle blower. It indicated that Tinubu was just pretending about his believe in Buhari’s suitability for the top Nigerian job. He does not trust him one bit. According to the leaks, Tinubu once described Buhari as an agent of destabilization, ethnic bigot and religious fanatic who if given the chance would ensure the disintegration of the country. This is according to a Wikileaks transcript of a conversation between Tinubu and the US consul-general in 2003 in Lagos.
The former Lagos State governor told the Consul General that Buhari should not be trusted “due to his bigot tendencies.” He pointed to Buhari’s tribalistic nature as potentially dangerous to the unity of Nigeria. In Tinubu’s summation, he stated: “Buhari and his ilk are agents of destabilization who would be far worse than Obasanjo.” The conversation was recorded by the US Consul General and wired back to Washington DC for analysis, of which, Wikileaks got a hold of the recorded transcripts and published the conversation.
Section 6 (C) of the transcripts reads “Turning to the presidential contest, Tinubu disclosed that he does not like President Obasanjo because he contributed to the end of democracy in Nigeria during his tenure as a military president and is now benefiting from that history.” That said, Tinubu admitted that he and his party, the Alliance for Democracy, must support Obasanjo.
The transcript of the leak reads further: “Southwest Nigeria is Yoruba land and the President is Yoruba.” In 2003, Tinubu’s party did not field a presidential candidate. Moreover, Obasanjo was the only candidate who stood a chance of blocking his then rival, General Buhari, whose ethnocentrism, according to Asiwaju, would jeopardize Nigeria’s national unity. Tinubu said Buhari and his ilk are agents of destabilization who would be far worse than Obasanjo. Tinubu told the Consul general that himself and many other governors were therefore implementing a strategy to re-elect Obasanjo, partly in an effort to prevent Sharia from spreading. Tinubu predicted that Obasanjo would “follow his own course, if re-elected, since he will not need as many friends the second time around.”
Going by what Tinubu told the US Consul General, This recent marriage between him and Buhari looks suspicious. This is coming about eleven years after he dismissed the leadership credentials of the former military dictator. Clearly, there is an ulterior motive here.
Again, many must have been startled when a socio-political group, the Arewa Youth Integrity Forum, raised the alarm last week that a cabal within the All Progressives Congress had hatched a plan to short change the North for another eight years by planting Buhari “who is already running out of age and weak to coordinate the affairs of the nation.” This is another allegation we have to critically examine as we match towards 2015 Presidential election. The group alleged that Pastor Yemi Osinbajo who is much younger, active and belongs to the cabal, is being strategically positioned to take over power thereby making it possible for power to return to the South again for another eight years.
The national president of the group, Mallam Hamid Usman, in a media chat in Abuja noted that the new plot was a fallout of series of meeting between a former president and some powerful forces in the APC and have already started playing it out by demonstrating their disdain for the North and its people. Usman insisted that it had become very obvious “that those who abandoned the energetic and young aspirants like Kano State Governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso and
Sam Nda-Isaiah and former VicePresident Atiku Abubakar are out to repeat the selection of an ailing president, like in 2007, knowing that age and health are very important in the discharge of national duties.”
According to Usman, Buhari is surrounded by hawks and caged into a dungeon that nothing good will come back to the North in the next eight years owing to recent activities in the APC that manifested that the man cannot call the shots by himself if elected as president. Usman said further: “In the first place, they went for a candidate who claimed that he couldn’t afford his nomination form yet he is still their choice because he has no stamina of himself which is a better deal to finance him to power and easily push him out barely six months into the tenure which is worse than what happened to Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. Our enemies are at it again and we shall not fold our hands to watch these men dictate to Arewa what they think is good for us knowing full well that underneath is a poisonous wine for the bride’s family and cannot be rejected.”
Is the intention of Tinubu not getting clearer going by the above allegations by Usman? Something is wrong somewhere and I think Nigerians should not be fooled.
Back to Buhari himself, a coalition of four civil society groups said it had instructed a team of lawyers overseas to prosecute him at the International Crimi- nal Court at the Hagues, Netherlands, for his roles in the 2011 post-election violence in Northern Nigeria. The groups are Northern Coalition for Democracy and Justice, Northern Emancipation Network, Peoples United to Serve Humanity-Africa and Arewa Voters Assembly. Buhari was a bad loser in 2011. He can’t get out of this. He gave instruction for the mayhem in some northern states that followed the 2011 Presidential election he lost. Nigeria can as well do without a politician like this. If we are not careful, he would do the same thing ion 2015.
For now, he should respond to the issues raised by those planning to drag him to the ICC. The coalition said it had already submitted ample video, audio and documented evidence to “support prosecution against Buhari who incidentally is going into the 2015 presidential race once again with an attendant mounting apprehension.
The four groups that want Buhari prosecuted for crimes against humanity are based in the North, while some of their conveners are resident abroad. In a statement in Abuja entitled: “We have enough evidence to prosecute Buhari at ICC,” the spokespersons of the coalition, Ismail Ibrahim Bakori, Jonathan Ibrahim and Ibrahim Baba, said the action was premised on certain provocative statements ahead of the 2015 general elections.
The coalition said, “We are compelled to address the media to restate our resolve to press for the prosecution of Buhari for his inciting roles that contributed to the aftermath of the 2011 presidential election in some parts of Northern Nigeria.”
Bakori recalled that just as the results of the 2011 presidential ballots were being collated, violence erupted in most parts of Northern cities claiming several lives and destroying valuable properties.
He said, “The lives and properties so affected were mostly those of non-partisan innocent lower class citizens including dozens of National Youth Service Corps members (Bauchi 12) while thousands more within the same category were displaced.
“Worried by the mounting apprehension across the nation and among a section of the international community as a fresh round of general elections approaches with provocatively inciting utterances from do-or-die politicians, we instructed our legal team abroad to supplement the 2011 petition with additional facts, legal analysis, a renewed request for the ICC prosecutor to urgently launch criminal investigations due to mounting concerns that Nigeria may again witness the killing and bloodshed of innocent citizens.
“We hereby affirm our resolve to facilitate the prosecution processes against those whose utterances during the 2011 electioneering were largely responsible for inciting the violence.”
The case against Buhari in the ICC aside, there are reasons why Nigeria must not return to a quasi-military dictatorship which Buhari represents. His democratic credentials are suspect. The power of the president is awesome and if you give it to a man like Buhari with dictatorial antecedents, then we are in for a big trouble. Nigeria can’t afford this kind of wahala again. Buhari has never practiced democracy at any level. He is simply a product of military dictatorship that cannot operate in a democracy. You can see this from the way he talks. His election will herald a return to a quasi-military dictatorship clad in democratic toga. All the gains of the last 16 will be lost when proven autocrats like Buhari takes over Nigeria. We can’t afford a return to jackboot era of military in politics and the “kill and go” mentality of the past.