http://www.thenationonlineng.net/2011/index.php/news-update/6255-acf-chieftain-carpets-cpc-buhari.html

The Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) will continue to have a hard time distancing itself from the recent violence that erupted across several northern states because many Nigerians, including northerners have serious suspicions about its leaders' involvement, a chieftain of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Alhaji Mohammed Abdulrahman has said.

Speaking with The Nation on telephone from Kaduna, Abdulrahman, who was the Secretary of ACF's strategic Political Committee criticized consistent description of the crises as a "post-election violence", adding that there were clear indications that rather than being a spontaneous reaction as Alhaji Buba Galadima, Buhari's close associate puts it, the crises was orchestrated.

"Let them not distort facts now; the crises was a premeditated action. It was frustration that resulted into unleashing mayhem on the society. There was no spontaneous reaction; it was not even a reaction against election results because the results were not yet out before they began," he said

Abdulrahman, who lost his committee position in ACF in July last year for allegedly granting pro-Jonathan newspaper interviews that were also critical of some northern leaders, emphasized that CPC's presidential candidate, Major-General Mohammadu Buhari (retd) and his associates committed a major political blunder by expecting that the large crowd at the party's campaign rallies in some northern states was enough to guarantee victory in the presidential polls.

He also stated that there was a reason to be suspicious of the violence perpetrated by followers of a party in states where it was leading on votes tally.

"The results of the presidential election had not been released before the crises erupted. Buhari won in Katsina, Kano and Kaduna, so I do not know the reason why they would riot in those places because they were the people who were winning in those states. Therefore, it (violence) was a planned act.

"Buhari cannot win elections in Kano, Kaduna and Katsina and expect to become president of Nigeria. So, it seems as if these people had already planned mayhem, because they thought that there was going to be a presidential run-off election.

"I do not see a pragmatic politician in a multicultural, multi-ethnic nation like Nigeria banking on winning just the northern states and then hope to call for a run-off election with whatever number of votes he gets there. Besides, nothing guaranteed that this man (Buhari) would win the nineteen northern states.

"The calculation went wrong because, for instance, Kano people chose to vote for individuals, not political parties. In Kano, they wanted Abacha's son to become governor; it would not have mattered if he was a destitute; they wanted him.

"Kano people came out en masse to welcome Buhari because they were expecting Abacha's son to become governor through CPC. However, Buhari cancelled the whole thing; he supported Jafaru Isa, a former governor. So the people just withdrew all the support from the CPC.

"Now, I cannot understand how Buhari's associate like Buba Galadima would be making a statement that the crises happened because people's action was spontaneous at the time election results were released. The fact is that there was no election result when the violence started in several places," Abdulrahman insisted.

According to the ACF chieftain, both the government and many Nigerians have been erroneously referring to the recent violence as post-election violence when much of it had occurred before and during the election before results were ready.

He said, "It is a misnomer to be referring to this problem as a post-election violence. Buhari had already made it clear that he was not going to court because he knew what would happen.

"It is likely that people like Buba already knew that there was no way Buhari could have made it. The only person that could have been very helpful to Buhari in the entire South East geo-political zone was someone like Chief Mike Ahamba, the lawyer who handled the big job of legally challenging elections that Buhari lost in the past.

"However, the Buhari people said they did not want him as their party leader and they even said that his exit was good riddance to bad rubbish. After insulting the only notable easterner in their camp, how do they expect to get votes from there," he asked.

Good analysis.