₦airaland Forum

As the north of the country suffers at the hands of Boko Haram one former military ruler, known for his ‘iron fist’, is enjoying huge levels of support for his presidential bid. Max Siollun assesses what might happen if he wins

With only two weeks to go until the most closely contested presidential election in Nigeria’s history, the biggest issue on the agenda is security. From Boko Haram to the instability of the oil-producing Niger Delta, the political fight between incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan and the lead opposition candidate, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, revolves around who will ensure peace and stability.

Buhari is relying on his credentials as a retired general and former military ruler to convince the electorate that he is the man to end the violent Boko Haram insurgency that has killed more than 10,000 Nigerians and displaced 1.5 million others.

But what would Nigeria be like under a Buhari presidency? He has vowed to take the fight to Boko Haram, crush the sect, and “lead from the front”. Expectations of the stern and resolute general are sky high – many think he is tailor made to end Nigeria’s insecurity, but is he the reformed democrat he claims to be?

Boko Haram
The rhetoric of his campaign suggests that the defence policy is likely to change greatly under a Buhari presidency
Senior security figures have repeatedly stated that there is no military solution to the insurgency, and that the government must address the socio-economic causes of Boko Haram. Nigeria’s former chief of defence staff General Martin Luther Agwai has said: “You can never solve any of these problems with military solutions … it is a political issue; it is a social issue; it is an economic issue, and until these issues are addressed, the military can never give you a solution.”

Buhari has dealt with insecurity in Nigeria before. In 1983 he led an army unit that drove out Chadian rebels who had made incursions over the north-eastern Nigerian border. In an ironic reversal of fortunes, the Chadian army is now helping Nigeria to fight Boko Haram insurgents in the same corner of Nigeria. In response, Buhari has called the current Nigerian government’s reliance on assistance from a much poorer country like Chad a “big disgrace”.


Chadian soldiers gather near the Nigerian town of Gamboru.
The current government’s security forces have made tentative steps in the direction of a “soft approach to countering terrorism”. The national security adviser Lt Colonel Sambo Dasuki appointed Dr Fatima Akilu, a psychologist, to work as the director of behavioural analysis and strategic communication in his office. Last year it was announced that Akilu had designed a programme for de-radicalising and rehabilitating militants, and a communication strategy to counter Boko Haram’s narrative. However initiatives such as this will take years or decades to have effect, and the Nigerian public is not patient enough for incremental progress.



The rhetoric of Buhari’s campaign suggests that the defence policy is likely to change greatly if he were to win the election. His tough-talking promises to confront Boko Haram resonate with the Nigerian public. He has said he “will not tolerate insurgency, sabotage of the economy” and, in reference to the instability in the Niger Delta, the “the blowing up of installations, by stealing crude and so on ... All these things will be things of the past.”

If Buhari comes to power Dasuki and his colleague Lt General Aliyu Mohammed, the minister of defence, are likely to find themselves unemployed. Both men were key figures in the military palace coup that overthrew Buhari in 1985 (when Dasuki was a young army officer and Mohammed was the head of military intelligence).

There are questions over a military approach, too. So far, when the military has hit Boko Haram hard the group has escalated its violence and taken indirect revenge against civilians. Even if Buhari does end the Boko Haram insurgency, the conspiracy theorists among his opponents will likely use that against him to buttress their narrative that the insurgency led by northern Islamic insurgents was a political ploy to destabilise the southern Christian President Goodluck Jonathan.

The Niger Delta
The Niger Delta insurgency carries more severe economic consequences than the Boko Haram insurgency in the north
Boko Haram is not the only security menace threatening Nigeria. In 2009, after years of disrupting Nigeria’s oil production, exports and installations, more than 25,000 militants who waged an armed insurgency in the oil-producing Niger Delta areas of southern Nigeria to protest against economic exploitation agreed to lay down their weapons. In exchange for peace, the government promised to grant them amnesty, cash stipends, and training.

The elephant in the Nigerian room is that the government’s amnesty deal with the Niger Delta militants expires later this year, and the militants have threatened to take up arms again if Jonathan is not re-elected. Many militants see Jonathan – who comes from Bayelsa State, the heartland of Nigeria’s oil producing region – as one of their own.

Eighty percent of the Nigerian government’s income comes from oil exports, so the Niger Delta insurgency carries much more severe economic consequences than the Boko Haram in the north. Worryingly, four states in the Delta (Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Delta, and Rivers States) alone produce 80% of Nigeria’s oil (out of a total of 36 states in Nigeria).


Four states in the Delta alone produce 80% of Nigeria’s oil.
Although Buhari has said very little about the Niger Delta during his election campaign, the militants have reason for discomfort if Buhari becomes president. Militant leaders have become very rich from government patronage and contracts. Many ex-militants have been awarded security contracts to guard the oil installations they once protested against and attacked. Buhari – a man with a reputation for austerity and a no-nonsense approach to hard graft – is not the type of person to pay people money to not be violent.

In addition Nigeria’s ethnic, geographic, and religious differences can prove explosive, and it’s unlikely that Buhari – a Muslim from northern Nigeria – will treat the southern Christian Niger Delta militants differently to the Islamic Boko Haram , who this week declared their allegiance to Isis. Buhari simply won’t be able to hit one group of insurgents with an iron fist while negotiating with the other. But, if he stops the Niger Delta militants’ payments, then the country could face the daunting prospect of simultaneous insurgencies in both the north and south.

Those who have worked with Buhari describe him as “strong willed” and “completely inflexible”; suggesting that his resolute and unyielding temperament means he will stick to his words and will try to force a result with insurgents on the battlefield, rather than in the negotiating room.

If he becomes president after the vote, postponed until the 28th of March, Buhari will face the unenviable task of inheriting a nightmarish security landscape. But Nigeria’s problems are so deep and complex that they are likely to outlast Jonathan, however long he hopes to cling to power, and Buhari too if he is sucessful.

Max Siollun is a Nigerian historian, writer, and author of the books Oil, Politics and Violence: Nigeria’s Military Coup Culture 1966-1976 and Soldiers of Fortune: a History of Nigeria (1983-1993). Follow him on Twitter @maxsiollun




Source:http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/11/nigerian-elections-what-if-general-buhari-wins

By Femi Aribisala

IN all my years of studying elections, I have never seen a campaign as bogus as that of Muhammadu Buhari. It is amazing that, for a man who is running for election as president for a marathon fourth time, Buhari is so bereft of ideas as to how he would do anything if he were to become president. Campaigning in 35 states, Buhari has spoken for a total of less than 60 minutes in all. Surely, he wants to be president; but he clearly has no presidential agenda.

Buhari’s blueprint for the presidency is similar to his Cambridge/WASC certificate; it is yet to be discovered. It is an article of faith of things hoped for by his admirers, the evidence of things neither seen nor articulated. No man becomes president of Nigeria on the basis of vain platitudes. No man becomes president as a result of social media blogs and soundbites. No man becomes president by giving two-minute speeches in craftily-packaged rallies, one minute of which is spent introducing his entourage.

Empty promises

What would Buhari do differently to fight Boko Haram? He would study the situation and restore morale to the military. What would he do to restore the economy? He would increase the international price of oil single-hahnded. What would he do to create jobs? He would build interstate highways in the middle of a drastic slump in Nigeria’s income in order to energise motor-mechanics and bukaterias.

Buhari says: “I will revive and reactivate our minimally performing refineries to optimum capacity.” How does he propose to do this? “I will provide one meal a day for children in public primary schools.” Where is the money to do this? “I will generate, transmit and distribute electricity on a 24/7 basis whilst simultaneously ensuring the development of sustainable/renewable energy by 2019.” Is he now going to nationalise the GENCOS and the DISCOS?

“I will make direct cash transfer of 5,000 naira to the 25 million poorest and most vulnerable citizens, if they immunize children and enrol them in school.” My o my! Did Buhari do the maths before coming out with this pie in the sky? This amounts to a 125 billion naira handout; nearly equal to the entire annual income of Edo State.

Style without substance

Goodluck Jonathan’s APC opponents like to denigrate him as “clueless.” But what shall we say of Muhammadu Buhari, a general who did not know the name of his running-mate; calling him Yemi Osunbade instead of Yemi Osinbajo. Buhari referred to Imo State as Ibo State. In an interview on CNN, he called INEC the Independent Nigerian Electoral Commission. He also called his party the All Progressives Confidence. No wonder President Jonathan observed that Buhari cannot remember his own phone-number.

Let’s face it: General Buhari has become an embarrassment to the APC. He should not be allowed to become a Nigerian embarrassment. An absent-minded old man is not the kind of person we need as president. Electing Buhari amounts to jumping from the frying-pan into the fire.

Buhari’s campaign elevates make-believe over reality. It asserts the primacy of propaganda over commonsense. It proclaims the superiority of fiction over facts. Buhari and the APC need to be told some home-truths. You don’t build roads by attacking Goodluck Jonathan. You don’t create jobs by attacking the PDP. You don’t destroy the Boko Haram by undermining the authority of the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. You don’t proclaim a mantra of anti-corruption slogans, while being surrounded and funded by corrupt politicians.
Shouting change changes nothing. Change is championed by the young, and not by a 72 year-old retired soldier receiving cheers from a coterie of dyed-in-the-wool political dinosaurs. How can Buhari represent change from the PDP, when a large chunk of his change-sloganising APC members are poached PDP turncoats? How does Buhari’s endorsement by Obasanjo, a former PDP president, commend him as an agent of change from the PDP?

Counterfeit change

Instead of change, Buhari’s agenda is the “same old same old” of the mundane and the sub-standard. I challenge APC supporters to point out one; just one, single original idea that has emanated from him. The truth is that it does not exist. Buhari is the master of the fluff and the bluster. He will fight corruption, but he cannot say how. He will revive the economy, but cannot say how. He will end the Boko Haram insurgency in no time at all, but he cannot say how.

In effect, Buhari is asking Nigerians to elect him on the basis of some voodoo that he will only concoct after the election. Nigerians should not fall for this ploy. Buhari is an old has-been: banking on the forgetfulness of Nigerians and on our disregard for history. The APC has spent far more time strategizing on how to manipulate public opinion than on policy-formulation. Its manifesto is shallow and phony; a very poor cousin to Goodluck Jonathan’s well-articulated and unfolding transformation agenda.

On the basis of his performance in office, President Jonathan has done much better than any of his predecessors. His legacy is there for all to see in agriculture, aviation, road construction, education, health (especially Guinea Worm, Polio and Ebola eradication), railways, electricity and political reform through the National Conference. Those who are insisting he should not be given a second-term need to come up with cogent reasons why we need to change the stewardship of an economy recording one of the highest growth-rates in the world.

No wonder therefore that Buhari is running away from a presidential debate. His reticence confirms the view that he has nothing concrete to offer. Every excuse he and his handlers come up with only further exposes their vacuity. One thing is for sure; Buhari cannot agree to a debate because his campaign is all smoke and mirrors.

Chartham house

Indeed, nothing exemplifies the bankruptcy of the APC presidential campaign more than the decision of Buhari to deliver a vapid speech in London, rather than engage Jonathan in a presidential debate in Nigeria. I am still looking for someone to explain to me the relevance of Buhari’s London junket to a Nigerian presidential election. Britons don’t vote in Nigerian elections. Even Nigerians living abroad don’t vote. So what was the point of that charade?

Instead of giving a speech at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs in Lagos, Buhari chose the Royal Institute of International Affairs, in far-away London. Nevertheless, nobody would mistake Buhari for a scholar. The APC presidential candidate has never written a book. He does not even have an article in a journal or newspaper to his name. We have yet to sort out the nagging issue of his missing school-leaving certificate. Indeed, his trip might have made more sense if it had involved a dash to Cambridge to secure a bona fide copy of his fictitious 1961 WASC results.
Buhari’s Chartham House speech was intellectually empty. It was full of bells and whistles signifying absolutely nothing. There was nothing newsworthy in it. It only made the news abroad because there was protest against him in the streets. From beginning to end, his speech was a flimsy rationalization of his dubious transition from dictator to democrat; and from coup-plotter against democracy, to presidential candidate in a democratic election.

Buhari is certainly not a Maitama Sule or a Barack Obama. By no stretch of the imagination can he be called an orator. His delivery was poor and laboured. His heavily-accented diction mutilated the English language, as usual. It did not help that he read his prepared text word-for-word; scarsely looking up at his audience. It is too late now to advise his handlers that that he should have been hidden behind tele-prompters.

Questions begging for answers

There were elephants in the room at Chartham House; nagging questions begging for answers. How would Buhari react as president if a military coup were to be undertaken against his government? Would he accept this in good faith, since he was also guilty of the same offence? The truth of the matter is that, as a former coup-plotter, Buhari does not have the moral right to seek election as president under a democratic dispensation.

How can he justify jailing Odumegwu Ojukwu in 1984, even though Ojukwu did not hold any political office? How can he justify jailing septuagenarian Pa Michael Ajasin, an honest and upright governor of Ondo State that did not steal any public funds? How can he justify seizing Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s passport, thereby preventing the old man from seeking medical attention abroad; while he sent his own wife and children for medical treatment in the United States?

How can he justify killing Nigerians for committing a crime that did not attract the death penalty when they committed it? How can he justify the jailing of journalists, even for writing truthful reports? Buhari is determined to avoid addressing such probing questions. But such questions are precisely what a political campaign is designed to answer. Frankly, Buhari’s past record is malicious and indefensible. He can keep running away from it, but he cannot hide from it.

Questionable health

One question was answered fulsomely at Chartham House: Buhari does not have the good health or stamina required for the job of president. After campaigning for barely one month, he needed a long rest in London. He literally disappeared for two weeks to recharge his batteries, bang in the middle of an election campaign. This is nothing short of bizarre. A man who cannot withstand the rigours of a one-month presidential campaign is not fit to be president of Nigeria.

Ekiti governor, Ayo Fayose, put it succinctly: “A man who campaigned for four weeks, speaking for less than one hour in all the rallies put together and needed to rest for 15 days should just stay at home and be playing with his grandchildren rather than struggling to take up a job that he does not have the required mental and physical strength to do.”

When Buhari finally returned back home, APC was foolish enough to organise a so-called One Million Man March (attended by barely one hundred thousand people) in Lagos; when it knew its presidential candidate was too old to march. Buhari was glaringly absent from the event. To use the local expression, “he was nowhere to be found.”

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/03/why-buhari-will-not-agree-to-a-debate-with-jonathan/

KANO – Vice President, Namadi Sambo had a raw deal in the hands of suspected PDP thugs in Kano Monday when he was held hostage by hoodlums for twenty minutes before a negotiated settlement.

The incident which occured at the BUK old campus shortly after the number two citizen rounded up official engagement in the University took the intervention of the Assistant Inspector General of police in charge of zone 1, Tambari Yabo before the Vice President regained his freedom.

The high risk drama began when dozens of heavily armed thugs posing as loyal party men beat the security cover around the Vice President and bare there fang before him.

Like a well rehearsed script, some of the thugs in unison chorused on top of there voices “Bamuayi Bamuayi Bamuayi” which meant “we are no longer with you”, while other shouted mungaji da aiki banza”, meaning ‘we are tired of the job’.
The visibly shocked Sambo pull himself together and before he could utter a word, an equally embarrassed AIG Tamara Yabo ordered his men to disarmed the protesting thugs.

The thugs sensing the full implications of resisting the disarmament order by the top Corp gave up there arms that paved way for negotiated settlement.

However, it was at this junctures top PDP stalwarts in the Vice president entourage moved in and demanded to know from ‘the boys’ why they choose to embarrass the August visitor.
The thugs struggling to explained there position told the Vice president how they had risked their life to keep PDP in the state, as they lamented that “no one has paid them a dime despite promises’.

The party officials were therefore directed by the Vice president to attend to their needs and save the party public embarrassment.
At the end of public show of shame, the police handed off seized weapons as the thugs rejoined the Vice president convoy and headed to others areas of engagement in the city.

When contacted wheather the police had effected arrest in line with the tough posture of ensuring violence free election, the Zonal Police Public Relations officer, ASP Rabilu Ringim requested for time to ascertain the matter.

As at press time; there was no words from him as futher calls to his GSM line was not connecting.


http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/03/thugs-held-sambo-hostage-in-kano/

It was a serious dancing competition, when Jim Iyke appeared on G987Fm radio station in Toronto for a brief interview yesterday. The interviewer challenged him to a Shoki Dance and when Jim started dude, had to clear the entire way for him. It was a serious dance, he danced as if he was going to get paid for it. See more steps after the cut. Jim is such a character!

http://www.ladunliadinews.com/2015/03/photos-jim-iyke-shows-his-shoki-dancing.html?m=1