Where are the Buhari/Bakare haters!

Below is another amazing article by Femi Adesina, columnist, Sun Newspapers! The paper of the South East!


I didn't quite like the news when it first came on Monday. In fact, it was like a dampener to my spirit. Pastor Tunde Bakare of the Latter Rain Assembly, and convener of the Save Nigeria Group (SNG) had been chosen as running mate to former military head of state and presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), General Muhammadu Buhari.

Why should I have such strong reservations about the emergence of Bakare, who is a Christian of the Pentecostal stock, just like me? Shouldn't I rather exult and be over the moon? The reasons were many, but the chief ones were that Bakare is not a regular politician, and he does not hail from the South-east, the region I feel in all fairness should have best completed the Buhari ticket.

Just Friday last week, I had made a prescription in the piece entitled 'A running mate for Buhari.' This was my submission: 'I recommend a strong Igbo running mate for Buhari… If Buhari has a strong running mate from the East, and the proposed alliance with the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) works, the West can also be rallied behind the ticket by Bola Tinubu's influence.' So, you see that my calculation was that the strong influence Buhari wields in the North would be complemented by a strong, colourful personality from the East, and the influence of the ACN in the West. But the permutation has not worked. The talk with ACN has not borne any fruit, and Buhari has settled for the charismatic preacher, Tunde Bakare.

Apart from not being Igbo from the South-east, I also said this of Bakare, last week: 'He won't bring much to the table in terms of votes. And you need the voters more than anything else at a time like this. You need a consummate politician, a compelling personality, who will further stoke the intensity of 'Hurricane Buhari.' But who? That is the big question.' Buhari answered the question on Monday by announcing Bakare as his running mate. I may not have liked it perfectly, but I've decided to accept it, and look at the silver lining in the cloud. What are the possibilities from a Buhari/Bakare ticket? What are the consequences for our politics, particularly in 2015 and beyond?

Solid integrity, unassailable, unimpeachable. That is what we will get in a Buhari/Bakare presidency. One is ascetic, Spartan, a man of proven honesty who has had many opportunities to steal us blind if he wanted. He was a military governor, a petroleum minister, head of state, chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF). In these positions, he sat on funds running into billions, if not trillions, yet he needed loan from a bank to build himself a house when he left office. He has no house in Abuja today, simply because he cannot afford it. We can trust him with the national treasury, it will be in safe hands.

The other is not exactly a poor man. He was a lawyer, businessman, now a full time preacher, and quite comfortable. He preaches righteousness, and lives it (as far as we can vouch). When members of the SNG visited the Jonathan regime in Abuja a couple of months back, they were given $50,000 for transport and welfare. They turned it down. He will not serve in government for what he can get, because he's already blessed, and righteousness will be his rampart and his rearguard. No doubt, Buhari/Bakare is a team we can trust in terms of rock solid integrity. It can bring the much sought after change in our country.

Again, people who had erroneously accused Buhari of religious fanaticism can sleep easy. He now has a gospel preacher by his side, who can moderate his thoughts and actions if they tend to tilt to one side. I definitely have no such fears. Like I've argued before, there's a difference between zealotry and fanaticism. Buhari is an Islamic zealot in the positive sense of the word, just like I'm a Christian zealot, just like Tunde Bakare is. We stand for our faith anytime, anywhere, ready to defend it no matter the cost. In fact, you must fear a man who has no zeal for his faith. He will fall for anything at the drop of a hat. So, if Buhari is committed to his religion, it is no crime. Insularity, parochialism and narrow-mindedness are what we should be worried about. And with two zealots in power, they'll balance each other out. No cause for worry.

No shaking. It is better than having those who mouth all the religious platitude, but steal us blind, and give us a 'business as usual' kind of leadership.

John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus Christ, sent his disciples to ask Jesus a question, when he heard of all the signs, wonders and miracles happening: 'Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?' (Luke 7:20). And how did Jesus respond? Not verbally at first. In the presence of the emissaries from John, he just began to work miracles, and he then said: 'Go your way and tell John the things you've seen and heard.' So, is Bakare the one we really need to further stoke the intensity of the hurricane called Buhari?

He needs to show it. He needs to add value to the ticket. Without reducing it to a completely religious affair, he needs to kindle the confidence and trust of Christians and non-Christians alike to vote for this team. He needs to mobilise civil society groups, whom he has worked with closely in the past one year. Trust me, they'll get my single vote. I'll vote for a Muhammadu Buhari any day, because if he makes me a promise, I can go to bed and sleep with my two eyes closed. If he tells me he's running for one term only, I won't even need him to document it, unlike others who blatantly and brazenly renege on what they voluntarily signed.

Now, to the consequences of the present political configuration on our future, particularly the presidency in year 2015. Zoning is now dead and buried. If Jonathan wins, and leaves in 2015 (which I very much doubt), what happens to Sambo, the vice president? Won't he want to run? If Buhari wins, and spends just one term, won't Bakare then run for president? Where does that then leave our brothers from the South-east? I'm afraid, Ndigbo may have backed a wrong horse again politically, and they are already holding the shorter end of the stick. Won't the South-east cry again in 2015?

Who do we then blame, other than their leaders who drew a bad card? Hear how Che Oyinatumba, a commentator on national affairs puts it in an e-mail to me: 'In all these pairings, the South-east people have lost out again. It beats me that a people that prosper in all that they lay their hands on could be so naïve when it comes to politics and its permutations. Who deceived them that Sambo will not contest in 2015? Or that President Jonathan who suddenly remembered that his pet name is Azikiwe will hand over to onye igbo in 2015?…Is any group more in political disarray than the self-styled wisest men in the East?'

In his first incarnation, Buhari had Tunde Idiagbon as his number-two man (and some people say he was the powerhouse of the regime). Now, he has gone for another Tunde. Buhari tun ti de o. The man has come again, and we can safely follow him, knowing that we will not be led into a ditch.

Very well written!

Beaf couldnt have written anything better