: Buhari, The Truth Is Bitter With few weeks before the all important presidential elections hold across Nigeria, political parties are intensifying their campaigns across the country to win over electorates. The candidates of the two major political parties, Gen Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress, APC and President Goodluck Jonathan of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, have been moving all over the country in a bid to sell their manifestos to voters. Only on Thursday, while Gen Buhari was campaigning in Osun State, western Nigeria, President Jonathan was in Abakaliki in Ebonyi state wooing undecided voters to cast their votes for the ruling party. However, Abba Mahmood, a renowned political analyst, has called on APC presidential candidate Gen. Buhari not to expect the result of next month’s presidential polls to be different from that of 2011 which was won by President Jonathan. The renowned social commentator in an opinion he titled: “Buhari, The Truth Is Bitter”, explained how the former Head of State had failed in his bid to rule Nigeria when he contested against former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2003, the late President Umaru Yar’Adua in 2007 and Jonathan in 2011. According Mahmood, only a fool will continue to play the same card over and over again and expect a different result. Below is the full text of the opinion piece: In Hausa-Fulani culture, the greatest calamity that can befall an individual is not to have someone who can tell that individual the truth when the need arises. That is why if anyone did anything unbecoming they would say “wane don rashin mafadi ne yayi haka?” meaning “is it because of lack of anyone who can tell the person the truth that he or she did that?” There is also a popular saying that the truth is bitter. Today, I intend to tell the bitter truth even though I am pained to do so. A time comes in the life of any nation or individual when there remain only two choices: keep quiet and continue to go on the wrong path or talk and act to get a solution. This is the time we are now, and the truth is always bitter. On page 6 of Daily Trust newspaper of Monday, August 12, 2013, there is a story entitled “Buhari: Contesting in 2015 is an obligation” in which it is said: “Former Head of State General Muhammadu Buhari has said he will run for president again as the race for 2015 general elections begins to pick up momentum. ‘It is a must obligation on me’, he told a political group, the Kano State Political Movement, whose members paid him Sallah homage at the weekend in Kaduna”. Haba! Is it really true? Indeed, there is need to tell the bitter truth. General Buhari ought to be reminded that his main asset is his integrity. He had come out in tears during the 2011 presidential campaign to tell the whole world that 2011 was the last time he would ever contest any election again. What has really changed between then and now to warrant his change of mind? Where is Buhari’s integrity if he could go back on his words at this time of his life? Does it mean that the merger his party entered into recently is just for him to contest for the presidency and not for any patriotic reason? The truth is bitter. Four decades ago, Buhari became governor of the defunct North-Eastern State, now six states, under the Murtala/Obasanjo regime. Over three decades ago, Buhari became Nigeria’s head of state! Does it mean for all these years he has groomed and mentored no one and that out of the 170 million Nigerians today, no one is worthy of continuing from where Buhari has stopped, such that he alone can do what he has in mind? The truth is bitter.
Posted on: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 13:00:49 +0000
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