By Bola BOLAWOLE
Countdown to the 2015 presidential election, I belonged to a group that brainstormed on who to vote for: the sitting president, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, or his challenger, retired General Muhammadu Buhari?
Jonathan’s performance in office had been abysmally poor. The tag of a clueless and corrupt government, which the All Progressives Congress, a newly-formed opposition party, pinned on Jonathan and his administration, had stuck. On the other side, the dictatorial antecedents of Buhari, whom the APC had pushed forward as its presidential candidate, left no room for comfort.
Buhari swore that he was now a converted democrat, but I doubted his alibi and asked in one of my write-ups whether he was truly a converted democrat or a convoluted democrat. But because we felt that Jonathan was the worst leader any nation could have, we thought that a dead Buhari would by far be better than a living Jonathan. How mistaken!
Jonathan made our job easier by abandoning the battlefield earlier than was expected. Either he had no stomach for a fight or he chickened out because of the forces arrayed against him. Buhari and his people were desperate to bulldoze their way into power. It is either their rat eats the beans or it wastes them. They brought in Fulani terrorists to lay the country waste and make it ungovernable for Jonathan, in case he refuses to relinquish power. In this they had the support of influential external forces.
Jonathan scrutinized the security reports. He read the handwriting on the wall and chose to go quietly. The blood of a single Nigerian, he said, was not worth his presidential ambition. So, he accepted defeat and congratulated Buhari even before the election results were announced by INEC. In this, Jonathan inadvertently took the wind off the sail of Buhari and his army of desperadoes.
Buhari had always been an opportunist, reaping where he had not sown. In his entire career, he had been favoured with promotions and appointments beyond his capabilities. In the sensitive positions he occupied, he relied on others to do the job while he hugged the limelight and reaped the rewards. He received accolades on the back of others.
But by 2019, no one was left in doubt that Buhari was a misfit and an apology. He was an unmitigated disaster. If the Jonathan administration was clueless as a result of incompetence, Buhari was deliberately clueless as a result of his mindless ethnic chauvinism and religious bigotry.
The corruption of the Jonathan administration paled into insignificance when compared with the “direct looting” (to borrow the words of one-time EFCC boss, Nuhu Ribadu) of the national treasury by Buhari’s favoured inner circle of family, friends, kith and kin, and a coterie of ethnic, religious and political associates and hangers-on.
We met again to discuss the way forward. To offload Buhari became a task that must be done – but who replaces him became the headache. Atiku reportedly refused the suggestion that he steps in and serve Buhari’s second term only. He insisted on the two terms allowed by the Constitution.
Added to the four years already done by Buhari, that would make 12 years for the North. Unacceptable! Better, then, to suffer just four more years of Buhari than contend with eight years of Atiku.
That the Buhari people rigged the 2019 presidential election in their own favour is not debatable, but even before then, we had already resigned ourselves to the fate of suffering four more years of Buhari because Atiku refused to play ball. And come to think of it, would Atiku have been anything better than Buhari? But, possibly, Atiku would have landed in 2019 the same presidency he is still chasing seven years after!
In 2022 as the 2023 presidential election approached, we also met to brainstorm on who to back in the election. Someone responded that our choice was obvious. Who? “Asiwaju, of course!”, he said. He was a friend-turned sworn foe of the same Asiwaju. So, many of us were surprised at his response.
Have they settled their dispute? His answer tells the quicksand on which Nigeria’s politics is erected. He said politicians are quick to fight, quick to settle, and quick to fight again ad infinitum, ad nauseam! Someone then demanded a more cogent reason other than that this fellow had settled his personal quarrels with Asiwaju.
What followed was his theory of elimination by substitution. Will you vote for Atiku and risk another eight years of Fulani/North rule after Buhari’s eight ruinous years? No! Will you vote for Peter Obi and hand over political power to the shove-it-down-your-throat Igbo that already have economic power? Another No! Then you are left with Asiwaju, he concluded.
Pin-drop silence fell on the room. Then someone asked: How are we sure that Asiwaju will do the right thing? The answer: No one is sure! What we are buying is “black market”! Oja okunkun! It is a matter of luck. What you see inside when you open it is what you have!
It is like buying from hawkers in Lagos traffic or when a novice or layman goes to Ladipo or Alaba market in Lagos to buy something without going with someone who is conversant with the nuances of those markets. When you go on your own, you are on your own!
The argument was robust that day. Of the three front-runners, Asiwaju had the credentials and capacity to out-perform the others – if he so chooses – but no one was sure what he would choose.
As governor of Lagos state, Asiwaju survived the President Olusegun Obasanjo-orchestrated tsunami that consumed the other Alliance for Democracy governors of the south-west. He thereafter stared at the erstwhile military dictator eyeballs to eyeballs and fought him to a standstill over the creation of additional local governments in the state, as a result of which Obasanjo seized Lagos state’s local government allocations.
Asiwaju not only survived, he even luxuriated like the proverbial Yoruba “Awodi” bird that luxuriates in eating the forbidden meal! Asiwaju has the capacity, if he so decides, to grapple with and defeat Nigeria’s many demons.
As the acknowledged moving spirit behind the formation of APC but who was later marginalized and rubbished by the same people he had helped into office, Asiwaju demonstrated an astounding capacity to weather the storm and emerge from it victorious – not vanquished as his opponents had expected. At every point of adversity that would have caused many to stumble and fall, never to rise again, he stooped to conquer, thereafter waxing stronger.
Therefore, Asiwaju has what it takes to successfully navigate Nigeria’s bottomless pit of debilitating intrigues and shenanigans – again, if he so desires. The operating words are “if he so desires or decides” while the caveat is “No one is sure!”
Events since 2023 have proven these analyses to be right. I still believe Asiwaju remains our best bet in the circumstances in which we find ourselves. I believe he has the capacity to do what is right – if he so desires. Our duty, then, is to keep nudging him in the right direction.
Eternal vigilance, says Irish orator and politician, John Philpot Curran, is the price of liberty. Talking of the capacity to do both good and evil reminds me that Gen. JJ Oluleye, now late, told me former president Olusegun Obasanjo also possessed the capacity to do both good and evil. The trouble, he added, is, you won’t know when and why he would do either!
INEC has just deleted the names of David Mark and Rauf Aregbesola as chairman and secretary respectively of ADC. It has also said it would desist from recognizing any of the factions struggling for the party’s leadership – until the matter is resolved by the law court. The matter appears straightforward – except that politics is involved.
When Nyesome Wike made PDP uninhabitable for his adversaries and Obi’s Labour Party splintered, Atiku and the others went to the ‘black market” and bought ADC from its founder, one Ralph Nwosu. With the power of hindsight now, it would have served their interest better had they gone to the “official market” to cobble together a brand new opposition platform like the APC did in 2013.
Having offloaded his merchandise on Atiku et al, Nwosu don waka with his booty! Can you buy goods in Lagos traffic or at Alaba or Ladipo market and return to complain thereafter?
The trouble now is that one Nafiu Bala has come up to say he is the rightful successor to Nwosu and should be named the new ADC chairman, not David Mark. Mark contests this, saying the said contender had resigned his ADC position and that INEC was aware of all the transactions.
The matter is in court. Either Bala was not properly settled when ADC was changing hands or he has been instigated by the enemies of ADC to explore and exploit any loophole in the “black market” transaction between the sellers and buyers of ADC. This is where David Mark is trying to drag Tinubu and APC into the matter. The Court of Appeal ruling that the two ADC factions should maintain the status quo ante bellum is what INEC has interpreted to mean it should stay off both parties until the court resolves the matter.
The snag is, time and tide waits for no opposition political party! If the matter lingers in court, and INEC maintains its controversial neutrality stance, ADC may lose out significantly or totally in the 2027 elections. And since it is the only substantial opposition party left on the turf for now, the ruling APC may have a free ride in 2027.
Plausible, yet not absolute! There are other registered parties that the opposition can take advantage of; senator and former governor of Bayelsa state, Dickson Seriake, has one such party, Nigeria Democratic Congress, in his pockets.
If, truly, APC is using its federal might to muzzle other parties out of the 2027 race, it may unwittingly be shooting itself in the foot by inadvertently herding the opposition under the same roof where they will become too strong to break and too difficult to control. With every disappointment comes a blessing!