The All Progressives Congress presidential candidate in the re-scheduled March 28 election, General Muhammadu Buhari, must have grown tired of reading news about his failing health and imminent death mostly hyped by political interests that would stop at nothing to frustrate his ambition to rule Nigeria again. Indeed, it is a miracle that Buhari is not only alive but also remains a candidate in an election that has shredded all bounds of common sense and morality. Never in the history of this country has a general election been this divisive, bitter and brimming with biting hate. If Buhari had not tried his luck thrice in the past to mount the saddle of leadership through the ballot box, you would have thought that he is one character from Mars that has come to upset the apple cart. It is, to say the least, benumbing that some people have elevated political buffoonery to a craft in governance. Pity!
As I write this, there are over ten cases filed at various courts in the land against the Buhari candidacy. Some of these cases are being handled by renowned legal luminaries who continue to feed off a warped political arrangement in which alleged corrupt politicians conveniently retire to the National Assembly to doze on the couch of slush funds; others are under the care of the popular ‘charge and-bail’ lawyers scattered across the Federal Capital Territory. At first, it was the long-running rant about his eligibility to contest based on the spurious allegation that neither did he attend a secondary school nor possess the requisite secondary school certificate. You would have thought such allegations, hollow and irritatingly mundane as they were, would naturally pale into insignificance after Buhari eventually made public a Certified True Copy of his secondary school result. Instead, it fired up other issues that confound the senses. The wailings of Buhari’s detractors continue in decibels of needless noise. That simple document had gone through different forensic analyses in the laboratories of the ‘Jonathanians’ with divergent findings to the consternation of many Nigerians.
In fact, the ‘findings’ as espoused by the lackeys of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party are parts of what the courts would have to determine in the next few weeks. Ordinarily, one would have thought that those pushing for Buhari’s disqualification from the presidential race would allow the courts do its constitutionally assigned responsibilities on the conviction of the ‘evidence’ before the judges. Unfortunately, that is not the case. It appears some of them would prefer a natural or, better still, faster exit of the enigma called Muhammadu Buhari. Do not get it wrong please. By all shades of imagination, Buhari, a former military dictator and strict disciplinarian, should not be an issue in this election. At least, not after three failed shots at the exalted seat with a crushing humiliation by a victorious President Goodluck Jonathan in his last attempt. That was in 2011. At that time, Buhari had his own crowd but he was not anywhere near the besotted bride he has transformed into in the last six months. Needless to say that, in 2011 and other elections before then, no one cared about the genuineness of Buhari’s certificates if he had any neither did anyone give a second thought to his age or health. It was immaterial who his friends were. He was simply a man of his own crowd, testing the murky waters of politics thatalmost drowned him.
Four years after, the story has changed. The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone and that has thrown some people into palpable tension. A presidential candidate that the dull-witted ones at the PDP had described as a ‘no contest’ and an easy pie for Jonathan to take to the cleaners has suddenly become a dreaded dictator that must be stopped by all means possible. Sadly, this election campaign has been enveloped in unduly negative sentiments; this election has been riddled with the bullet of seething hatred. The gloves are off and bare-knuckle punches are unleashed on the nation. It got to its infamous best with a muckraking documentary on Buhari that was serially aired on a popular television network. It was a hatchet job carried too far. Buhari, his life, his family and his anguish as a father became subjects of odious political propaganda. In that documentary, he comes across as an anti-establishment figure and a revenge-seeking bigot out to inflict a damaging blow on the waning psyche of a nation in turmoil. His second coming, when it happens, is projected as the real Armageddon. Then, you ask, why this rush of hatred for a man who had always been dismissively labelled an underdog in his last three attempts?
The answer is simple. The sudden outpouring of support for Buhari by millions of Nigerians jolted the authority to the reality of an ‘underdog’ pulling the rug from under their incompetent platform. For, if the truth must be told, the Buhari phenomenon and acceptance even in geo-political zones where he wouldn’t have mustered significant votes in the past developed due to the failure of the ruling government to walk the talk of its electoral promises. At a point, nearly all the indices of development with which the electorate would have assessed the performance of the government fell through. Clearly, the shoddy handling of the general insecurity in the land, especially the deadly activities of the Boko Haram insurgents in the North East, contributed to the low rating; coupled with the misfortunes of a rebased economy with the highest number of the employed grappling with survival. The situation is not helped by the perception, in spite of the persistent denial by the government, that corruption continues to grow in leaps and bounds as rent-seekers and shady portfolio cabal control the levers of business in the oil sector. The cry for change, which was borne out of despair and alienation, marks the beginning of a campaign that has been anything but issue-based.
Now, the concern is no longer about Buhari’s certificate. That should be settled by a court of competent jurisdiction. His eligibility or otherwise should also be by a verdict from the court since key members of the PDP believe he should be disqualified. In a democracy, litigants are free to test the veracity of their arguments, no matter how tendentiously mundane or pedestrian such arguments are, in the law courts. What they do not have a right to is the resort to blackmail and falsehood without any empirical basis or justification. That is exactly what Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State has been doing through his devious fixation to a Buhari terminal sickness and likely death. It is one thing to play politics with an opponent’s credentials and past conduct. It is another thing to play god with that person’s health and life. Ever since Buhari left for the United Kingdom, Fayose continues with his mockery of that visit. Not satisfied with his doomsday prediction of a likely death on the throne should Buhari win the general election, Fayose now stalks Buhari. He has become a leech. He insists Buhari is sick and undergoing treatment in the UK. Earlier in the week, he vowed to release a picture of the retired General on his sick bed in the UK. In addition, he says that with such relish and sense of conviction that I doubt if Fayose would flinch should Buhari fall dead today. In fact, that should be his greatest joy.
Then, we ask why? It is surprising that no one among the ranks and file of the PDP has deemed it necessary to rein in Fayose in his bestial, demeaning and vicious propaganda against a man whose only sin is picking another party’s ticket to give Jonathan a run for his popularity in a presidential contest that still runs neck-to-neck. Vacuous as it may sound, Fayose has said that he is not particularly against a Buhari presidency. His greatest wish would be to see that such emergence must be based on the truth. He said he loathes the propaganda of deceit by the opposition party. That is fair enough. However, what elsecould be more dubious propaganda than when a man spends millions of naira to sponsor newspaper advertisements predicting the imminent death of a fellow citizen on the altar of political chicanery? What do you call Fayose’s commitment to scurrying the end of the world in search of the photograph of a sickly Buhari on his deathbed in a UK hospital? Moreover, how would the ruling PDP have reacted to it if the table has changed and the opposition is the one attempting to make political capital out of this no brainer? Would the hawks at the PDP have kept mum, believing that it is all fair and square in politics to throw decorum to the dogs?
By the way, this is not in anyway to say that the APC should not come clean on candidate Buhari’s health if indeed it is true that he suffers any debilitating illness. Anything contrary to this would be tantamount to a direct abuse of the term, political expediency. It would be a disservice not only to Buhari but also to the millions of people who have decided to vote for him.Besides, it is a disservice to a nation that had travelled the same road in its penultimate presidential election.However, the concern is that even if the party comes clean, the likes of Fayose would not just be content with allowing a sleeping dog lie. Buhari’s medical report, no matter the reputation of the institution that issues it, would still be another subject of litigation. That is the sickening part of this election; nothing seems to be genuine to the ruling party unless what its propaganda machinery reels out to the public. That is why theysay the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, is no longer competent to supervise the election. That is why they are no longer comfortable with the use of the Permanent Voter Cards and the Card Readers. That is why they want Buhari disqualified on the excuse that Muhammadu and Mohammed are two different names with diverse meanings. That is why they say the death of his children because of a terminal illness should be an election issue. That is why they want him out before Election Day, by whatever means possible. The fear factor is driving those who fear change to nuts. And that’s scary. Really scary because of the length they are willing to go, even at the risk of putting all else asunder!
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