PENDULUM BY DELE MOMODU, Email: dele.momodu@thisdaylive.com

Fellow Nigerians, barely one month and some days to the start of our 2015 general elections, things are already falling apart. There was never a doubt in my mind that politicians would naturally heat up the polity to a boiling point before God rescues us as always from some wondrously amazing people. The two leading parties of PDP and APC would do our country a great favour if they can eschew violence and stick to the basic tenets of Democracy. Their foot-soldiers in particular must be warned specifically about the inherent danger associated with deliberately causing mayhem aimlessly in one’s own country.  Most times, it is the poor who would be used as political canon-fodder while the children of the rich would be far away from the theatre of war.

The one man I expected to rise above the petty squabbles of electioneering campaigns is the President and Commander-in-Chief.  Indeed, at the inauguration of his Presidential Campaign Team on Tuesday President Jonathan urged his campaign team and Party faithful to be decorous in their language, focusing on issue and not personalities.  However, barely two days later he was doing the exact opposite of what he had preached.  It is unfortunate that the President chose to go back on his words as he joined the fray two days later as he practically exploded in public during the flagging off of his re-election bid as President. The tone and tempo of his speech was stylishly vituperative. It could easily have been described as spitting fire and shooting from the hips. He appeared to me like a man who was under intensive pressure and didn’t really know how to off-load the heavy burden on his chest.
I should have suspected that something unpleasant was about to happen after I read the news that the Presidency had responded in kind to the myriad of attacks and salvos fired at Dr Goodluck Jonathan by former President, General Olusegun Obasanjo, who has since become a loose cannon in the PDP. The former President has arguably become a one man riot squad against the second coming of President, was savagely and mercilessly described as a "motor park tout."
For me, this was the climax of a long-drawn battle between father and his godson. We've witnessed such bitter altercations and mutual insults in the past but this recent one took the cake. It is sad that this are the canapés we are being served before the main dishes of sloganeering begin. The global community must be wondering what manner of country ours is where elders throw decorum to the wind in the presence of infants and toddlers. What examples are we setting for the youths we all claim to love so much when we can't tolerate ourselves in the political arena?
All eyes are on Nigeria and in particular the President who is at present the father of the nation. This position is the highest in the land and it was apparently freely handed to him by the good people of Nigeria in 2011. Even before then, the same people had shown him immense love at a time he was being harassed by the proverbial cabal. At that time, no one complained that we hated the North just because we rallied round a man from the Niger Delta. Most of those claiming ownership of Mr President today were nowhere to be seen then. It is strange how success instantly catapults a man into a different level and planet. All manner of claimants would suddenly surface from nowhere and chase everyone away. It is the tragedy of power in our clime where the man on the throne has to go through this terrible, and self-immolating, process of deification. This is why most leaders often fail in office because they are usually far removed from reality.

This trait became very obvious as I watched the President deliver his speech in Lagos days ago at the start of his 2015 Presidential campaign. His party leaders were not in short supply. Everyone came to pay homage to the man with the power to turn water into wine over 2,000 years after such a miracle was performed in Galilee. One speaker after the other eulogised the President in superlatives. They raved about his transformation agenda which in their dream or reality must have transfigured Nigeria into a Paradise on earth. Listening to those incredible guys one would have thought they were describing some far-flung places and a true reincarnation of Lee Kuan Yew or a Chairman Mao leading the industrial revolution in Nigeria.
The President himself did not waste this moment, he was visibly pleased with the adulations which in reality were not meant by many of the speakers who had mastered the art and science of lying to anyone in government. I had waited patiently for the President's speech. I was certain he was going to take a very subtle and conciliatory approach but I was very wrong. The moment he took the microphone till he finished, the President was on the offensive. It was certainly not a charm offensive but one laced with pent up frustration and anger. He came on like a Heavyweight boxer chasing the World Heavyweight title. The President did not pretend about his intention which was to jab at his challenger using mostly unlawful blows and pummel him to a corner for a possible knockout.
President Jonathan sounded angry and agitated. He made generous use of the literary style of rhetorical questions. He threw many of such posers to his jubilant crowd who must have wondered at the physical transformation of their candidate. If the President was known to be gentle and somehow taciturn in the past, he was the exact opposite on Thursday, January 8, 2015. He was clearly in an upbeat mood and it reflected in his grandstanding.

Let's now go to the meat of his speech and try to examine the merits of the self-glorification, whether vain or otherwise. The summary can be put simply thus: Mr President blames his predecessors for all the woes that have bedeviled Nigeria. I wonder if he forgot that as at the last count, his political party has been in power for 16 years and he has been the only Nigerian permanently in power since our return to democratic rule in 1999 as Deputy Governor, Acting Governor, Governor, Vice President, Acting President and President. 16 years is a very long time in the life of a nation. Nigeria must have spent more money in those 16 years than all the different Republics and regimes put together but sadly without commensurate results. Moreover, he also appears to have selectively forgotten that most of the predecessors that he is lambasting like Obasanjo and General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, are card carrying members of his Party, the PDP, and thus their failings are the failings of his Party and by extension himself.
The President spoke repeatedly about the youths and referred to himself and others as being too old and half-dead. If so why is he contesting when there are many brilliant young people in his party? But it was a subliminal message to discredit General Muhammadu Buhari as being too old to rule this generation. "I do not want to address old people like me because we are spent already."
Unfortunately, it seems the President is not in tune with the current mood of the nation and his supporters are not likely to give him the true picture. Many of us don't care if the man coming is going to rule from a wheelchair. We all run to the elders of the house in the days of tribulations. I wish to assure Mr President that unlike in the past when the PDP propaganda was able to truncate Buhari's mission of rescuing Nigeria from the doldrums the story has changed miraculously today. The youths have chosen to follow his crusade even if his enemies decide to change his age to over 80. They believe the younger leaders have not done any better than the gerontocrats we all love to deride as causing our failure. Therefore playing the kite of old age won't fly this time around.
The President boasted that he has been able to conduct credible elections. I daresay that is not his doing but the action of the People of Nigeria who have resolved to protect their votes.  Besides, he forgot to add that after wasting billions of naira on data capture machines they were abandoned. The Nigeria Governor’s Forum held an election of 35 people which saw a winner emerge with 19 to 16 votes yet our President recognised a loser choosing 16 above 19. He said he believes in the rule of law yet the law is being desecrated and there are too many sacred cows in PDP. I dare our security agencies to storm any PDP Secretariat and carry away their computers and staff the way they have been doing to APC. It is pitiable that a supposedly impartial State security and intelligence outfit will give one reason for carrying out such a dastardly unconstitutional act but then recant and give another wholly diametrically opposed justification for such a raid.

The President is proud that Nigeria has the biggest economy in Africa but people are asking how that has affected the lives of the people. The Agricultural revolution being trumpeted is good no doubt, but it is not yet Uhuru. The question is where is the food? What are the Prices? Where is the income that should flow from such agricultural miracle. 
The President claims that he has done a lot for the security situation in the country.  However, it seems that the President is fantasising about another country. At no time in Nigeria’s history has insecurity reached the level that it is now.  There are regular killings, bombings, kidnappings, abductions, raping not to mention the unresolved saga of the Chibok Girls. A country whose military has received endless praise on many peace-keeping missions overseas cannot deploy the same military to effective use in finding almost 200 girls who remain missing.  That is an indictment on the President which no whitewash can hide. The simple truth is that our people feel unsafe, even those few who have turned our much maligned police force and soldiers into personal ‘maiguards’!
The President claims that one of his achievements in the petroleum sector is that Nigerians no longer queue for petrol.  Although that is incorrect because there are still regular intervals when there is petrol scarcity the truth is that Nigeria as an oil producing nation has never had it so bad.  The price of petrol and petroleum products are the highest they have ever been.  Even when the world crude oil prices have fallen by more than 100% and the Co-ordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iwealla admits that there is no longer any subsidy on petrol, the price has remained the same.  Her justification, which I referred to previously, is too puerile to repeat because it is an insult on the intelligence of Nigerians.

As Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola said in his own reaction to the President’s speech:
“I spent about an hour this afternoon listening to the President in my State and, for almost the same period, I saw a very angry President. I saw a President who was recriminating about people recriminating about people criticising his job performance and was blaming all those who ruled before him forgetting that he had been on this job for six years. 
And he kept saying that, ‘They say we don’t have a plan.’ But for 25 minutes, he did not reveal a plan on power; he did not reveal a plan on security; he did not reveal a plan on corruption.

Now after six years, without being able to articulate what he is doing and what he will do, and he keeps blaming everybody, forgetting that he is the Commander-in-Chief, if the kitchen is too hot, as it is becoming of late, you must get out of the kitchen.”
I’m almost certain the President will receive more knocks from other stakeholders for this newly acquired belligerent disposition. My advice as usual is very simple. A man should never change what has worked wonders for him all his life. The President’s gentle mien had always been his secret weapon. A man who did not lift a finger to become President need not wage a war to retain it. Elections are never won by abusing potential voters but usually through the use of persuasion. Those who are misleading the President are not helping him. All they’ve succeeded in doing is to alienate the electorate and paint him as someone who is very desperate for power.
I advise the President to maintain his calm dignity instead of fighting real and imaginary enemies on all fronts. There is nothing more he wants from God. He has been very lucky but there is no need to overstretch that luck. If perchance he is defeated on FEBUHARI 14 (as some people have described the election date), the President should accept his fate graciously and return home triumphantly. Anything else may wipe out all that he has effortlessly achieved.
Mr President, there is life outside government.

GEJ is a desperate, uncouth man!!!! He will surely get his due come Febuhari 14.

Dele Momodu should read this article by Femi Aribisala

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 program for return to civilian rule.

Facts and fiction

So what exactly qualifies Bihari 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 why 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 cosmetic “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 lousy 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 1980’s, his 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.

Why will Goodluck Jonathan listen to the voice of reason when Nigeria's oil belongs to his grandfather and Diezani?

Evryone else can go to hell, afterall he does not give damn!

Femi Aribasala, a paid hack at PDP published vanguard newspaper is completely on his own!

Truth

I love Dele's manner of writing.


GMB will get a boost


Dele's write-ups is a good asset to have on ur side

shame on the people supporting this man for a second term. I would love to know if they will vote PDP or GEJ this time around