Opinion
Wanted – a President for Nigeria
By Nnanna Ochereome
It is strange that a section of the political class in Nigeria cannot find in their ranks a suitably qualified, intelligent and competent citizen to give their presidential ticket to confront President Goodluck Jonathan at the polls in the next nine days.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) party has a galaxy of stars in all fields of endeavor in their party from all parts of the country. The APC is no longer just a gang-up of Arewa North and Bola Tinubu’s followers from the South West.
The presence of state Governors including Rochas Okorocha of Imo; Adams Oshiomhole of Edo; Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers; Chris Ngige – the former governor of Anambra, and as well as the hordes of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) decampees helped to give the APC a national appeal.
Even though the Arewa and Yoruba Muslims are still the major stakeholders in the Party, the regional, ethnic and religious coloration that disconcerted many watchers at the outset has been largely doused. The APC had an ample opportunity to present a candidate with impeccable record and quality to give Jonathan a run for his money. Even if they wanted a northern presidential candidate, they had Rabiu Kwankwaso, the ebullient, performing Governor of Kano; Atiku Abubakar who comes with great exposure, experience and national appeal, or even the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Waziri Tambuwal – a proven leader.
The Party decided, at the prompting of Bola Tinubu, to settle for retired General Muhammadu Buhari, a man who governed this country 30 years ago and had nothing to show for it except sorrow, tears and blood.
As soon as they settled on Buhari, they commenced with a sophisticated process of cleaning up his image – to the point where some of us who lived through his 20-month regime could no longer recognize him. Suddenly, posters of Buhari in a suit started springing up all over Lagos and beyond. I had never seen Buhari in suit before. He was always dressed in two types of attire: either his military uniform or his native babanriga. It was all an effort to make Buhari look like what he never was and never will be. It is a total hoodwink of the young people and voters born after 1985.
Today, the challenges before Nigeria are three-fold:
– the first is national unity,
– the second is diversification of the economy, and
– the third is national security.
National unity is paramount because a divided house cannot achieve anything. The politicians, in their desperate struggle for power, have thrown Nigerians at each other’s throats. The country needs a president who can unite the nation. I do not think Muhammadu Buhari has what it takes to do so. He rose to political prominence through his open endorsement of militant sharia in 2000 and pledged to take it to all parts of the country. He has never denied it nor has he made any apologies for it.
Buhari is first and foremost a Fulani and a Muslim before he is Nigerian.
During his brief stay in power and as Chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund, he demonstrated these traits. As Federal Commissioner for Petroleum, he awarded 80 out of 90 oil blocks to northerners. He created the first Muslim/Muslim, Northern/Northern, Fulani/Fulani ticket. His vice president, Tunde Idiagbon was a Fulani Muslim from Ilorin. Out of the nineteen members of the Supreme Military Council that governed the country at the time, only two – Navy Captain Ebitu Ukiwe and Chike Ofodile, the attorney General, were Igbos.
Buhari is one of those civil war fighters who see any federal presence in Igboland as “rewarding Igbos for the rebellion”.
At the Petroleum Trust Fund, Buhari’s formula for sharing of contracts and amenities was: North – 65 percent and South – 35 percent. This was derived from the landmass proportion of North to South, forgetting that Nigeria was founded on a tripod of East, West and North, which has now been amended to 6 geopolitical zones.
We remember the frequent skirmishes between Fulani ethnic group and the people of Oyo state (as indeed, we see in all parts of Nigeria) – the result of Fulani herders leading their livestock into people’s farms. After one of such skirmishes in Oyo in 2001 in which the Fulani lost heavily to the locals, Buhari, a former head of state, led a delegation of Fulani Minyeti Allah (the umbrella body of cattle-rearers) to confront Governor Lam Adesina in Ibadan. He was quoted as asking the governor: “why are your people killing my people?” Anybody who has been the leader of Nigeria has no moral authority to discriminate between Nigerians, at least so openly.
The presidency in the hands of Buhari will restore Fulani/Muslim hegemony which former president Olesugun Obasanjo worked hard to dissipate through the reformation of the military.
As an Igbo, I am not looking forward to anybody who fought the civil war leading Nigeria again. He will always remember the bullet that hit him in his leg or his comrade that was killed in the war and deny my people their rightful due as they did from 1970 to 2007.
President Goodluck Jonathan has his many faults. Some have grumbled, correctly, that he has allowed his Ijaw kinsmen to ride rough-shod over other ethnic minorities or that he has not effectively handled the al-Qaeda-linked Boko Haram insurgency. However, Jonathan is a democrat who allows the rule of law and permits us to enjoy our constitutional liberties. He carries all parts of the country along and spreads the dividends of governance evenly.
Nnanna Ochereome is a colunist with Vanguard Media Ltd., and is based in Lagos, Nigeria.