Now Buhari’s brain is bracing up
on march 06, 2015 at 1:49 am in elections
2015 , politics
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In his fourth pursuit for the presidency,
Muhammadu Buhari is in his old age adopting
new patterns of political behaviour. How the
rebranding will help him is another matter.
By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor
DEMENTIA is an ailment of the old and it was
not surprising when First Lady Patience
Jonathan, at a campaign rally in Lokoja last
Tuesday, warned Nigerians about the
prospects for Nigeria if an old man like Maj-
Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd) of the All
Progressives Congress, APC, is elected
president.
“Wetin him dey find again? Him dey drag with
him pikin mate. Old man wey no get brain,
him brain don die pata pata ,” Mrs. Jonathan
was quoted as telling enthusiastic supporters
of her husband before doling out rice, meat
and brocades in thankful appreciation of the
women.
The assertion remarkably did not go down well
with the Muhammadu Buhari Campaign
Organisation which in response urged
President Goodluck Jonathan to warn his wife
for taking the campaign away from the issues
of concern to Nigerians.
Alleged degradation
•Buhari: Decked out
If President Jonathan cautioned his wife on
the matter, no one can for now say. Buhari
has himself not personally responded, neither
had his wife, Mrs. Aisha Buhari spoken out on
the alleged degradation of her husband’s
mental faculties.
Irrespective of Mrs. Jonathan’s delivery, the
issue of Buhari’s age and mental alertness is
a matter for any one wishing to lead a country
of more than 170 million people.
It is thus not surprising that Buhari’s handlers
and associates are prompt to assure the
citizenry of the mental alertness of the
candidate.
“If you watched or listened to the Chatham
House lecture, you will not condone anything
of that sort that the PDP people are saying of
him. Especially the question and answer
session where he interspersed his answers
with humour,” an associate of the general told
Vanguard .
“He is someone that listens a lot and would
wait until the end of a discussion before
giving a response. He is very diplomatic and
tactful, and when he speaks, he is very
deliberate in his choice of words as you saw
with him at Chatham House,” the associate, a
member of the APC’s Presidential Campaign
Council said.
General Buhari has also sought to reach out
to voters in other ways, moving out from his
closest as a taciturn, conservative that only
associates with fellow Fulanis.
Remarkably, the general has been almost
reticent on responding to insinuations of him
being a religious fanatic, only saying that he
had more Christian associates than Muslim in
the army.
Gen. Sam Momah (retd.), a Christian who
worked as Principal Staff Officer when Buhari
was General Officer Commanding, GOC, of one
of the army’s divisions said: “if anybody is
trying to input that Buhari is a religious bigot,
just know that the person is playing naked
politics, far from the truth.”
The Chatham House lecture was only one
opportunity for Buhari to show the world that
he is not the kind of person that his political
adversaries have sought to project.
In a number of other ways, the candidate has
also rebranded including in his dressing and
political strategies.
Several dimensions of the new look Buhari, it
was gathered were worked out by Governor
Chibuke Amaechi, the Director-General of his
campaign organisation. Indeed, the
appointment of Amaechi was the first
indication of Buhari’s determination to branch
out from the stereotype he had been used to.
Northern eggheads
In the past, his campaign had been managed
by a few northern eggheads within The Buhari
Organisation, TBO, who were seen at that time
as being narrow minded and only preoccupied
with projecting Buhari as a champion of the
north.
Unlike in past campaigns, when he only
donned the Hausa-Fulani attire in his
campaign outreaches to some other parts of
the country and when he did not even visit
many areas, this time, Buhari has worn
different attires to reflect the custom and
attire of everywhere he went.
That, coupled with the challenges of the
incumbent president, have helped to blossom
support for Buhari in distant places.
From the South-East through the South-South
and to the South-West, support for Buhari has
skyrocketed to the point that he has become a
potent threat to the PDP’s Jonathan in a
number of southern states.
In the Southeast, a number of dissidents
within the PDP are believed to be covertly or
openly working for Buhari including a son of a
foremost crusader of Nigeria’s independence.
Aisha Buhari
Buhari’s associates say he is also not that dry
and humourless person. A member of his
campaign team disclosed how one occasion
as the campaign bus travelled through the
night bushes in Delta State, some campaign
officials decided to loosen up and framed a
song: “we no go tire…we no go tire. Until we
win, we no go tire..”
As they sang, Buhari who all the while kept
mum, received a phone call and all of a
sudden everyone kept quiet. Once he was
finished with his call, he now bellowed unto
the singers, “Now you can continue with your
noise,” the official said and everyone burst out
into laughter.
“He has a sense of humour which you will not
get until you come close to him,” the
campaign official told Vanguard .
Mr. Uche Ofearoh, who served as Anambra
State Coordinator for the Buhari Campaign
Organisation, BCO, prior to the presidential
primaries spoke in the same manner.
According to him, the general had been widely
misconceived, but he expressed satisfaction
that a number of the misconceptions have
been widely seen to be ill-founded.
But even as he crusades for change of the
Jonathan administration, Buhari campaign
insiders say he remains stuck in his old
conservative ways of handling relations
especially exposing his family to campaign.
Though his daughters, Halima Sherrif and
Safina Buhari, represented him at a Valentine
Night outing themed for his political
campaign, the candidate remains stuck in the
culture of keeping one’s wife and family out of
the limelight.
It is one argument that Mrs. Jonathan sees as
a threat to her personal crusade to project
Nigerian women as she had in the past
warned that Buhari could cancel the office of
first lady.
After Mrs. Jonathan’s dig on Buhari’s brain,
there was pressure from his sympathisers for
Aisha to respond. Those who suggested this
were motivated by the fact that Aisha is
regarded as a better speaker than Mrs.
Jonathan and would as such rubbish her. But
few dared to personally bring up the matter
with the general.
“We know what it took for him to allow his
wife come out at campaign rallies, and I am
not prepared for that again,” a source within
the Buhari circle confided. So even while he
may have branched out in terms of political
pattern, Buhari remains dogged-in in his
cultural upbringing.