One thing is for sure: Muhammadu
Buhari would like to be the next
president of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria. He has tried three times and
has failed every time. Finally realizing it
is a lost cause, he said he would not try again. But now he is persuaded to
try again. His supporters are
impressed that he won 12 million
votes against Goodluck Jonathan in
2011. However, they need to be
reminded that he lost to Jonathan by over 10 million votes.
Since the third time did not turn out to
be a charm for Buhari, what are we to
call his fourth attempt? Listening to the
declaration of his new-fangled
presidential bid in Eagles’ Square,
Abuja a few days ago, it is seems this fourth time is going to be one big
charade.
The sign was provided by none other
than Buhari himself. Since his one
credential is that he is a man of
integrity who, as president, is
expected to wrestle corruption down
to the ground, Buhari decided to burnish his anti-corruption image by
revealing that he obtained his 27.5
million naira APC nomination form
with a bank loan. However, what this
declaration did was to tell Nigerians
that Buhari is a pretentious anti- corruption crusader. His Mr. Clean
posture is nothing but a public
relations gimmick.
QUESTION MARKS
In fairness, some of us have known
this all along. Under Buhari’s watch as
Petroleum Minister in the late 1970s,
$2.8 billion (worth billions of naira
today) was missing from the NNPC
account. The matter was subject to Senate investigation under the
chairmanship of Olusola Saraki in
1983. But before the report could be
dealt with, Buhari conveniently
overthrew the Shagari government in
a military coup d’état.
Vera Ifudu, an NTA newscaster,
revealed that Saraki told her in an
interview that the missing money was
traced to Buhari’s account at Midland
Bank in London. For this disclosure,
Vera was summarily sacked by the NTA. However, she appealed against
her dismissal in court and won. She
even received a handsome financial
compensation for wrongful dismissal
from the NTA. Instead of clearing his
name as a man of integrity, Buhari refused to appear before the Oputa
Panel set up to look into the matter
(among under things) by the
Obasanjo administration.
Buhari claims to be an anti-corruption
crusader, nevertheless, he agreed to
serve under Sani Abacha, one of the
most corrupt Heads-of-State ever in
the history of Nigeria. While there has
been no proven allegation that Buhari corruptly enriched himself as
Chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund
under Abacha, it is abundantly clear
that this fabled anti-corruption
crusader failed to curb the rampant
corruption that prevailed in the organization. Group Captain Usman
Jibrin, a board member of PTF,
resigned from the organization in
protest over Buhari’s irregular
appointments of consultants. In 2000, the Obasanjo administration
set up an Interim Management
Committee to look into the affairs of
the PTF, under the chairmanship of
Haroun Adamu.
The Committee
discovered that billions of naira was stolen under Buhari’s chairmanship.
POLITICAL PLATFORM
Now the same Buhari who would not
or could not curb corruption in the PTF
wants us to believe he will fight
corruption as president of Nigeria.
However, he has chosen the APC as
the political platform on which to undertake this. But the APC is an
unscrupulous political party that is
choc-full of corrupt politicians. It is the
party of Murtala Nyako who was
impeached as governor of Adamawa
State for converting state money to personal use. It is the party where
Buhari himself and others went cap-
in-hand to Otta to beg Obasanjo to be
their “navigator.” Surely Buhari knows that he cannot
fight corruption by being the
presidential candidate of the APC.
Whatever anti-corruption crusading
Buhari had in him in the past must
have ended when he decided to join the APC. Should he become president,
does he intend to probe his corrupt
party-members? Has he made them
understand he would be coming after
them once elected? If he has, does he
really expect them to help him get elected so he can retrieve their stolen
loot and send them off to jail? A 72 year-old man with Buhari’s
experience, who was overthrown in a
preemptive coup by members of his
own government, knows that in
Nigeria, nobody gets elected as
president on the platform that he is going to be an anti-corruption
crusader when he gets into office. That
is a sure signal for all the politicians in
all the parties to gang up against him
and make sure he never makes it. If you really want to be anti-
corruption, you have to keep your
mouth shut about your plans until you
get elected and then catch your
corrupt colleagues by surprise. You
must also have resolved not to seek re-election for a second-term. It is not
only the populace, but the politicians
in particular, who insist on “stomach
infrastructure.” But if you are talking
anti-corruption while still seeking the
nomination of your party, it must be because it is well known to your
corrupt colleagues that your anti-
corruption stance is merely for public
consumption.
CLEANING UP APC
It is not surprising, therefore, that
despite all the noise about anti-
corruption coming from Buhari and
his cohorts; he has failed to fight
against corruption in the APC. We did
not hear him raise a voice against the incongruity of a so-called progressive
party demanding a cynical nomination
fee of 27.5 million naira for its
presidential primaries. One would
have expected a truly anti-corruption
crusader to make the point that the nomination fee is unacceptable.
Instead, Buhari readily acquiesced to
the requirement in order to safeguard
his all-important presidential
ambitions. Since Buhari cannot, or does not, fight
against this corrupting nomination fee
in the APC, and insist on its reduction
to something far more reasonable,
how can he expect us to believe that
as president in a political system with the separation of powers; against a
legislature likely to be controlled by
the PDP; he would be able to fight
corruption? Somebody is fooling
somebody here. Or else, somebody is
living in a cloud cuckoo land. Charity, they say, begins at home. If
Buhari is truly anti-corruption, he
should begin his crusade in the APC. Is
it progressive for a political party in
Nigeria to ask its candidates to come
up with 27.5 million just for the nomination papers for an election
where only one person will emerge as
the winner? Is it not corrupt politicians
that are likely to have this type of
easy-come easy-go money? Is this not
an open invitation for the winner, if he actually manages to secure election to
the presidency, to recoup this
extortionate fee from public funds?
ANTI CORRUPTION BANK LOAN
What did anti-corruption Buhari do
about this outrageous APC
requirement? This is where the whole
matter becomes ridiculously
implausible. According to Buhari,
rather than fight against the measure, he took out a ban loan to pay for it. Buhari told us about his “loan” out of
embarrassment; in a pathetic bid to
validate his anti-corruption
credentials. But this so-called loan
indicates that Buhari does not
understand what it means to be anti- corruption. For Buhari, anti-corruption
is a posture; it is a swagger; it is a
badge; but it has no bite and, in the
usual Nigerian fashion, it will be
prosecuted with hypocrisy. Buhari wants us to believe that he
cannot afford 27.5 million naira.
Nevertheless, he rides around in a
bullet-proof Jeep and maintains a
convoy of Land Cruisers. He cannot
afford 27.5 million naira. Nevertheless, he declared his candidacy lavishly in
Eagle Square, Abuja. Did he also take
out a bank loan for that? Four months
to a make-or-break election, Buhari
would have us believe he has no
money. How does he propose to finance his presidential campaign? Is
he going to take 1 billion naira loan
from the World Bank for this?
DUBIOUS LOAN

This is the greatest legend/myth in Nigerian politics

The man has simply perfected the art of doing his dirty deals by proxy

DUBIOUS LOAN
Why would a bank lend Buhari that
amount for a presidential pie-in-the-
sky that failed to materialize three
times in the past? Is that not likely to
be a bad loan? How long did it take for
the loan to be processed? What did he put down as anti-corruption
collateral? How does he propose to
pay the money back? Mr. Integrity
needs to spell all this out for the sake
of his fast-disintegrating anti-
corruption credentials. I did not know loans are so easy to
secure in Nigerian banks today.
Perhaps Buhari could introduce me to
his bank manager. I would also not
mind taking this kind of soft loan. I am
sure I can always come up with some unproductive excuse or the other for
it. Is such a loan even legal today
under Nigeria’s stricter banking laws? How many honest Nigerians can
afford to give a non-refundable 27.5
million naira to a political party, on the
off-chance that they will be able to
secure the party’s presidential ticket?
If they win the nomination and even get elected president, how would they
pay back the money?
NOT A PRESIDENTIAL MATERIAL
It is clear that Buhari is not only
lacking the money to pay for APC
nomination papers, he does not have
the funds to pay for advisers, to
counsel him about what to tell the
public and how to prosecute an effective presidential campaign. His
advisers might have educated him that
there is something called “fund-
raising.” Surely, the most popular
politician in the North-West can find
some of his ardent supporters to give him 27 million naira. Certainly, a
former governor of the Central Bank
can easily cough up the money. Buhari wants to fight an election that
will take place in four months time.
From what he tells us, he does not
have 27 million to prosecute that
election now. If this is true, he is not
the right man to be president of Nigeria. For a man who is running for
election for the fourth time, that is the
height of cluelessness. It shows Buhari
is lousy at marshaling resources.
Otherwise, he is fooling nobody but
himself.

d anti corruption stance is used to fool gullible 9ja

wht did he say when they were sharing money to get pple to elect him instead of atiku?

He shld have immediately distanced himself from such

and how does he expect to b in control when others r financing his campaign? Is sad to discover dat he has just become a STOOGE

APC ; Amalgamation of Political Criminals

No idea

I will vote for buhari weda he stole in the past or not. Most of our leaders are thiefs, Jonathan said he has no shoes before I was appointed as represident, mugu will never finish for niaja but I think the combination of fashola and buhari will make a huge impact positively.