Pondering Buhari’s October Declaration (2)

Aliyu Musa

Regardless of how much he is vilified, even sincere foes would admit, Buhari is not a typical Nigerian politician. And that is why all attempts to link him to any loot, directly and indirectly, have fully failed and efforts to rubbish his simple but enviable record of service, while in the military and afterwards, have only revealed the man’s genuineness. And, although this is liability in politics, he does not play the Fox and is often given to straight talks that are deliberately misconstrued, which the media often do not miss the opportunity to hype.

Politics in Nigeria is a monster with an unscrupulous money-guzzling appetite. Money is essential to survival, without which a politician’s expedition dies at inception. And in Buhari’s case the lack of it has always been his first fundamental scourge. In 2011 it was a significant drawback to the Buhari/Bakare campaign and, in effect, confined the CPC’s sojourn to only parts of the country and provided a filament to the backbone of the slogan utilised to make the ticket incredibly unpopular in the south-east and south-south especially.

The formulaic curtailing role money played in the process, then, passed unnoticed. But an unfortunate Buhari, let down by shortage of resources and a campaign strategy that inexcusably de-prioritised a significant portion of the electorate, is eternally labelled a dismissive irredentist. But in fairness to the people in the south-east and south-south, who only saw the taillight of the Buhari/Bakare campaign train from afar, why would anyone blame them for not throwing their weight behind the CPC candidate?

In elections of the significance of the one in 2011 campaign strategists invest sufficient time in studying and understanding the behaviour of electorate and formulate strategies to make their candidates tower over opponents in the heart of the electorate. And because every vote counts, to give a section of the electorate the impression that its support is inconsequential is as good as courting defeat. So, even without irregularities, the Buhari/Bakare team sowed too little outside of the north and southwest to expect a torrent of support.

2011, no doubt, brought a rare opportunity that was squandered but the opposition has itself to blame for letting it slip off. But 2015 presents yet another prospect for rebirth, although it is not automatic. It needs a better organised and more proactive opposition to actualise it. It, above all, requires putting country over and above individual and/or group interests to make it happen. This calls for genuine selflessness.

The APC, to the frustration of its admirers, does not give much hope. It does not understand the subtlety of its position as an alternative government and, therefore, does not put on the table a different menu to create a room for variety. It is more like the ruling PDP, which policies like the N27.5 million application fee nonsense typically suggest. It accuses the ruling party of not providing a level playing ground but does not introspect its own ‘level playing ground’. It says the ruling party, by endorsing President Goodluck Jonathan as its sole candidate, does not allow for internal democracy. But it does not see its attempt to technically screen out genuine contestants by means of the outrageous fee as directly inimical to democracy. It dwells more on hearsay and unimaginative criticism of the ruling party without innovatively telling the electorate how it would do things differently. It whimpers too often and over everything and wastes the precious time needed to plot PDP’s defeat.

Instead of worrying about an Asari Dokubo’s alleged misadventure in South Africa, which up until now is just a rumour, the APC should be seriously thinking of how to prevent an implosion after its primaries on December 2, 2014. If it hopes to fiercely contest the trophy against the PDP it must not go into the battle with a divided house, unless it has learned no lesson from the internal squabbles that dragged down the CPC in 2011.

To begin with, it should allow genuinely transparent primaries (at all levels) hold and make application fees as realistically affordable as possible. But it must put in place a clear mechanism to detect and prevent the use of money to influence outcomes. It should, as a sufficient precondition, get all its contestants to wholly have confidence in and support the process and commit to accepting the outcomes, regardless of who wins. Although many are rooting for a Buhari candidacy it must not be a one-way route; if in the end Buhari fails to clinch the ticket in a transparent contest he should genuinely back the winner and fully work towards preventing apathy among his supporters. If a non-Muslim or non-northern candidate wins, it should not mean the end of the pact, provided the win is indisputable. Putting country first is all about making sacrifices.

No serious political party goes into a serious contest without a blueprint of what it hopes to put on the table if it wins. For the APC to dislodge the PDP it must have one that reasonably gives a picture of what to expect if it acquires power. Simply emphasising Jonathan’s lack-lustre performance is insufficient. It needs to give the electorate a real reason to dump the ruling party.

Postscript:

While I congratulate Malala Yousafzai for winning the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize and salute her relentless courage, I still argue like I did in my piece of 18 July 2014 available at http://mystandandi.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/the-malala-odyssey-and-our-listening.html that the “significance of her story has been deliberately exaggerated, carefully packaged and cleverly retailed across the globe.” And it happened because of the dumb characters that heartlessly attacked a child for only wanting to acquire education. But the same global media that packaged and retailed Malala’s story have not found Nabila Rehman’s story as worthy. Nabila sustained serious injuries after her family was hit by a US drone in the same month Malala was attacked. Nabila lost her grandmother in the attack. Her story is lost among the countless that happen daily but never enjoy the luxury of being told. It is a case of some animals being more equal than others. Once again, Congrats Malala and I urge her to steer the attention of a very biased global media towards those ‘unworthy victims’ whose stories may never be told.