This is more so with what seemed to the unwritten, but general, agreement among members of the mega party that its presidential candidate must come from the northern part of the country if APC was to have any chance of providing a strong challenge to the PDP in the 2015 elections. Many in the North still see President Jonathan as a usurper with his defiance of the zoning arrangement of the PDP to contest the presidency after the death of Umaru Yar’Adua barely three years in office in 2010. Some of the leading politicians from the region had argued then that Jonathan should have just completed the first term of Yar’Adua, which was cut short by death, and allow another northerner to conclude the region’s eight years occupation of the presidency, which began with the election of the late President in 2007.
With the 2015 general elections approaching, it is now clear that the door of PDP as a platform for the North’s return to power at the presidential level is now closed with the adoption of Jonathan as its candidate. Indeed, it is for this reason that political opponents had described the APC as not more than a mere vehicle to return power to the northern part of the country. Arguably the most popular politician, especially among the common people of the North today, Buhari, his supporters claim, is the candidate that can help turn President Jonathan’s dream of a second term into a nightmare. Buhari, popularly known as Mai Gaskiya (the one that tells the truth), enjoys a cult-like following among peasants in the northern part of the country. Apart from being a former head of state, Buhari has also served the country as Minister of Petroleum, member of the Supreme Military Council, Governor of North-Eastern State, and chairman of Petroleum Trust Fund, among others.
He is generally regarded as honest, disciplined and principled and not given to the vice of ostentation associated with many Nigerian politicians. And this is a fact the retired General’s friends and foes are well aware of. Unfortunately, while politicians like Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State and Ibrahim Shekarau, the former governor of Kano State, have ridden on Buhari’s popularity to win elections, the wide acceptance has failed to translate into victory for the former head of state in three attempts to become Nigeria’s president since 2003. In 2003, the retired General, as the presidential candidate of the defunct ANPP squared up against President Olusegun Obasanjo of the PDP. But he lost the election, scoring 32.17 per cent of the votes cast to Obasanjo’s 61.94 per cent. In 2007, Buhari again ran on the platform of ANPP, this time against the late President Yar’Adua of PDP. But he again lost, with only 18.72 per cent of the electorate voting for him, compared to 69.82 per cent for Yar’Adua. Against President Jonathan in 2011, the former head of state contested on the platform the defunct CPC, a party he founded with his associates when they left the ANPP, with an outcome that was not different from his previous efforts. While the PDP got about 59 per cent of the total votes cast, Buhari polled about 31 per cent.
With his serial failure in the contest against the PDP, members of the ruling party are right with their boast that they already have the formula for defeating the retired General and will not be afraid of him if APC put him forward. Buhari opponents, especially in the PDP, have on the basis of the massive support he enjoys in the North tagged him a sectional politician and religious bigot, even attributing to him some statements he never made to justify their claims. Though the retired General and those who have worked with him from different parts of the country have always denied this characterisation, his inability to make much headway in terms of garnering votes in the southern part of the country is an indication many Nigerians now see him in this light. 1n 2011, Buhari failed to make any headway in the South, as in previous occasions, over 90 per cent of his 12 million votes was from states across the northern part of the country despite his choice of a pastor from the South-West as his running mate.
With Nigeria dangerously polarised along religious and ethnic divides as a result of the Boko Haram phenomenon and the ruling party exploiting the situation to brand its main rival as sympathetic to the cause of the insurgents, many have also argued that the opposition party would be playing into the hands of PDP if it chose Buhari as its candidate. “Buhari will get his traditional votes, but will lose the Christian North and South. Jonathan will coast to victory very easily with Buhari as the presidential candidate,” Hamza Danjuma, an analyst, said while evaluating the prospect of Buhari in the context of the ethnic and religious divide in the country. He also pointed out other factors that may work against the retired General to include his age – Buhari is 70 – and the fact that he had promised not to contest for the presidency again if he lost the 2011 election. He added that while Buhari is popular with the masses, the northern elite are generally not fond of him.
But Buhari supporters have insisted that he remained the best presidential prospect for APC. Osita Okechukwu, a chieftain of PDP, said in a goodwill message at the launch of a group, Friends of Buhari, in Abuja some weeks ago, that many Nigerian elite are opposed to the emergence of Buhari as APC candidate because of his record in the fight against corruption and ability to correct many of the wrong things being exploited to cream the nation off: “They know he will build new refineries, having built two before as Petroleum Minister; hence, putting a stop to refined petroleum products’ importation where they make billions without query. They know he will not carry raw cash to South Africa to buy military equipment or underfund the Army. “Buhari, as a president,” Osita said, “will stridently, in line with the manifesto of the APC, wage war against corruption thereby putting an end to the raging debate that there is no ideological difference between the PDP and APC.” Loyalists of the former head of state have also dismissed the issue of age by pointing out that there is no constitutional limit to contesting election in Nigeria.
They also cited the examples of the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Nelson Mandela among others who contested election when they were above 70 years old. Apart from the fear that failure to choose Buhari as the presidential candidate may be the beginning of the end for the opposition party, they also believe that Nigerians are too disenchanted with President Jonathan’s administration that they will not fall for the religious and ethnic sentiments being played up by the ruling party.
The good news is that the retired General appears to be keeping an open mind over the issue as he told his supporters to be ready to support anyone that emerges as the candidate of the opposition party if he is not the one at the end of the day: “But in the event that it happens to be one of the other aspirants who wins, I will be expected as a good party man to extend to him my total support. We are a united party and united we shall remain, because our strength lies in our unity,” he said.
Leave a Reply