Culled from Vanguard
ON Friday, 23rd August, 1985, the
military government of Major-General Mohammadu
Buhari decided to place me under arrest. My crime
was that I wrote, among others, an article entitled:
“Counter-trading Nigeria’s Future” in the
National Concord, exposing the
government’s scam of diverting public funds into
private coffers through barter- trade with Brazil. A man
by the name of Benson Norman was sent from the
State
Security Services (SSS) to my office to get me. Not
finding me, he left a note that I must present myself
unfailingly at the SSS office at 15 Awolowo Road, Ikoyi
Lagos the next Monday morning.
However, on Sunday, 25th August, 1985, Lateef Aminu
came first thing in the morning to my house to inform
me that the government of Buhari/Idiagbon had been
overthrown. For this reason, I am
fond of telling people that God brought about a
change of government in Nigeria just because of me.
Coup-plotter
Under the Buhari/Idiagbon regime, once you ended
up at 15 Awolowo Road, you may never be heard of
again. Decree Number 2 of 1984 empowered Tunde
Idiagbon to arrest and detain anybody
indefinitely without trial and without legal reprieve.
After Buhari was overthrown, Mohammadu Gambo
opened the prison doors of 15 Awolowo Road on public
television, revealing people in various stages of
UnCloth and
malnutrition that had been kept in the dungeons
without trial by Buhari’s hound-dogs.
As self-imposed Head of State, Buhari had no regard
for human rights. Immediately he seized power, he
announced that he would “tamper with” the press.
Soon, the infamous Decree Number 4 was
promulgated which made even the publication of the
truth a punishable offence. Under this cover,
Buhari jailed innocent journalists,
including Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabo. He
abolished civil liberties, promulgated retroactive
decrees enabling him to kill Nigerians through jungle
justice, proscribed civil society organizations and
professional groups and exercised “absolute” power.
This same Buhari would now have us believe that he
has gone through some metamorphosis and has
become a democrat. I am sure you will forgive me if
people like me don’t believe him. Buhari is not, has
never been, and will never be, a
democrat. Only in Nigeria would a man with his track
record, who came to power through a military coup
that illegally overthrew a democratic government, now
be acclaimed as a democrat. It is on
record that Buhari’s military regime is the only one in
Nigeria’s history that failed to promulgate a
programme for return to civilian rule.
Facts and fiction
So what exactly qualifies Buhari as a democrat today?
Precious little! There is nothing democratic about
forming and joining political parties just in order to be
the presidential candidate. Little wonder then that
Buhari’s parties have a short shelf-life. Buhari would
like to be Nigeria’s head of state once again. He can
no longer achieve this through the barrel
of a gun. The only route now open to him is through
the democratic process. That is the reason he now
conveniently fashions himself as a democrat. It is
merely a means to an end; no more, no less.
Buhari’s reputation as an anti-corruption crusader is
also a myth. As head of state, he did not make any
dent in Nigerian corruption. All we got was a cosmeticb
“war against indiscipline.” The counter-
trade scam happened under his watch.
Rather than deal with it, he sent his hound-dogs after
nonentities like me who dared to expose it. That scam
was no different, in scope and scale, from the
petroleum subsidy and other corruption
scandals that have since plagued Nigeria.
The Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) that Buhari headed
under Abacha was also a citadel of corruption. While
Buhari himself might not have enriched himself, his
cronies and those who worked under him did so
handsomely.
On three different occasions, Buhari has run for the
presidency. On three different occasions he has failed.
That should really be enough. If, as seems likely, he
were to run for the presidency a fourth time in 2015,
there is no question that he would fail yet again. Try as
he might
again and again, Mohammadu Buhari can never be
President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Buhari’s sectarianism
There is a fundamental reason behind this. Buhari is a
bad politician. He is an unbending former military
dictator and not a democratic consensus-builder. Like
his new ally, Bola Tinubu, Buhari is a regional,
sectional politician. Such politicians are practically
impossible to package and market nationally in the
ethnically-delicate Nigeria of today.
Former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Malam
Nasir El’Rufai, one of those Northerners who deserve
to be serious contenders for the presidency of Nigeria,
observed that Buhari remains
“perpetually unelectable” as a result of his “insensitivity
to Nigeria’s diversity and his parochial focus.” This is
an elegant way of saying that politically, Buhari has an
uncanny tendency to put his foot in his mouth. He
talks before thinking of the political implications of his
words. He shoots from the hip. The strength of
Obasanjo, which enabled him to capture the
presidency on two different occasions, was that he was
perceived as a broadminded politician, not overly
partial to his people in the South-West. As a matter of
fact, in his first election, his people did not want him.
The
strength of Goodluck Jonathan, which propelled him to
win the presidency, was that he was able to string
together a coalition that stretched both north and
south of the Niger. The weakness of Buhari is that he
is totally unacceptable
to people outside his region.
Buhari is a Northern regional champion. As head of
state in the 1980s, hisb government was
unapologetically Northern. No attempt was made to
balance the ticket at the top. It was the only regime in
Nigeria’s history headed by two Northerners. When he
seized power, Buhari put Shagari, the Northern head
of state he overthrew, under house arrest. But
then he jailed Alex Ekwueme, the
Southern vice-president. You may well ask what makes
Shagari less culpable for the misdeeds of the Second
Republic than his number-two man. The simple fact
was that Buhari was Fulani as was Shagari; but
Ekwueme was Igbo. Impolitic words
At the height of the Sharia debate during the
Obasanjo administration, Buhari declared that Muslims
should vote only
for fellow Muslims. This was politically suicidal for a
man seeking national office.
He became an advocate for
implementation of Sharia all over
Nigeria. He protested to the Oyo State governor, in the
context of a dispute between Fulani herdsmen and
indigenous farmers in the state, that “your people are
killing my people.” This turned out to be
unfounded and perhaps the reverse.
His threats during the campaign for the 2011 elections
incited widespread violence in the North after he lost.
His supporters went on a rampage; looting and killing;
in spite of the fact that, by all accounts, the elections
were adjudged the most free and fair in the history of
Nigeria’s current
democratic experiment. By the time the mayhem had
subsided, over 1000 people had been slaughtered in
cold blood and some 65,000 displaced.
Forgetting that a statement made in Hausa would
readily be translated into English, Buhari later declared
unapologetically in a BBC interview: “ If what
happened in 2011 should again happen in 2015, by
the grace of God, the dog and the baboon would all
be
soaked in blood.” These are the tokens of an
irresponsible politician, whose ambitions for power
supersede the national interest. Who then are the
dogs and baboons that Buhari has in mind to soak in
blood if and when he loses yet again come 2015? Are
they his children or are they those of others?
With the Boko Haram insurgency in the north, Buhari
played to the Northern gallery yet again, calling the
Jonathan government “the biggest Boko Haram.” Wole
Olaniyi was a fly in the wall at a meeting in Kano
Government House
designed to persuade PDP rebel governor, Rabiu
Kwankwaso, to decamp to the APC. Assuming that only
Northerners were present, Buhari declared the Boko
Haram was a “strategic plan” by the
government of Goodluck Jonathan to “destroy the
North.” When Jonathan declared a state of emergency
in Yobe, Borno and Adamawa states, Buhari still
saw this with Northern goggles,
insinuating that the President is waging war on the
North.
President of the North
Without a doubt, Buhari has massive support in the
North. Indeed, he is the most popular Northern
politician in the North today. But that precisely remains
his undoing at the centre. The more he has been
identified as a Northern champion, the less attractive
he has become as a national choice. Even in the
North, his support base is limited to the Muslim
population. He does not appeal to Northern Christians.
Then there is the added factor of the opposition of his
implacable opponents among the Northern elite. Men
like Babangida and Atiku would rather die than allow
Buhari get to Aso Rock.
One thing is certain, the South-South and the South-
East will not vote for Buhari in 2015. Not only that;
there are no buyers for Buhari’s sectarian politics in
the South-West. No matter what Tinubu might be
telling him, the people of the South-West will not vote
for Buhari in 2015. We already had the template in
2011, when Buhari tried to sell himself, first by
balancing his ticket with a Yoruba man; and then by
making sure
the Yoruba man is a Christian; a pastor no less. But it
just did not wash. It will not work in 2015.
The worst thing that can happen to Northern
presidential aspirations in 2015 is for Buhari to be on
the APC ballot. That is a sure guarantee that the North
will not be providing the next president.
Buhari would be a shoo-in in an election for president
of Northern Nigeria. But in an election encompassing
the entire country, the best he can envisage is to be
a kingmaker. He cannot be king. The nearest Buhari
will get to Aso Rock in 2015 is by attending the Council
of State meetings.

Every plans of d wicked against Nigeria in 2015! HolyGhost! Fire!

personally, I wouldnt have put it any more better. this is yet another unsung Nigerian political analyst.

buhari has completely failed in his bid to win the presidency. dont know why APC rats cannot see what every sensible person is seeing. what is wrong with fashola and kwankwaso? these are people that the SE and SS can identify with.

especially about the apart about Akiku dying first before seeing Buhari ascend the throne. that is very correct. all these fireworks against Buhari may just be the first salvo from Atiku. I go serve no be I go die. the presidency is not his personal property, neither does it belong to his father. Buhari will not win APC primaries, if Atiku has anything to say about it.

enough said