In the end, some strategic question: if a party cannot capture power, how can it implement restructuring and social welfare? But this happens to be the wrong question to ask or to try to answer. If the purpose is merely to become like the PDP which, since Obasanjo, has been no more than a party of loot-sharers, privatizing national property in the name of the masses for whom there are only laughable job creation strategies and no viable incomes policies or labour laws to match them, what are we talking about? What is worse is for people who pay attention to serious matters to be made to accost the spectacle of former ACN stalwarts in the APC who stand upright, but silent, on the same side with jingoists of the Arewa Forum like Professor Ango Abdulahi, who simply cannot define the North but must go demanding power back for the North while opposing restructuring, the creation of new states and boundary adjustments, among the sound outcomes of the national conference! Nothing could have been more predictable than for the APC to shop for a northern candidate as a matter of course. It simply had to be Muhammadu Buhari because he had a more determined national constituency. But which Buhari? The one who has been unable to offer a nationalistic and modern solution to the problems that herdsmen constitute in communities across so much of Nigeria? Or the one who opposed the National Identity Card scheme since it could be used to prove malfeasance in census counts that northern governments had always been allegedly involved in? The Buhari whom I personally recall was the one who sent security men to seize files at my old office in Awolowo’s house at Park Lane, Apapa thus putting me in trouble with an Egba princess who said she was told by an operative that I had opened a file on her. Or was it the Muhammadu Buhari who, as a military dictator, supervised the confiscation of the free education books that LK Jakande had bought for the schools in Lagos State and caused them to be sold off in the open market? Or the Buhari who literally wasted 80 million dollars of Lagos state money by refusing to guarantee 100 million dollar loan for a metroline and thus ensured that traffic lockjaws remained the staple across our city by the lagoon. Or was it the Buhari who had given draconian jail terms to several politicians of the Second Republic for giving ten percent to their political parties but has had no contribution to the discussion of proper party finance and how to organize parties of subvention instead of the corruption-laden approaches to political money that all parties of the Fourth Republic, including the APC, have to be ritually seduced by? I am simply unable to imagine which Buhari, born again or not, who would support restructuring and social welfare programmes except as a mere vote catcher. Even if it is true that Saul can become Paul, why should one not see that, like Obasanjo who became a formidable part of an Arewa strategy only in order to knock it sideways, Muhammadu Buhari is merely employing a hoodwinking strategy to return the baton to those who said they gave power to Obasanjo and wanted it back? It is a game between Generals. After all, and it is arguable, the Arewa Governors who joined the APC from the PDP never renounced the claim that they were representing an Arewa geo-political wicket whose agenda could be just as antithetic to restructuring and the politics of social welfare as the sharia-oriented politics that Buhari had been too much a part of. - In the end, some strategic question: if a party cannot capture power, how can it implement restructuring and social welfare? But this happens to be the wrong question to ask or to try to answer. If the purpose is merely to become like the PDP which, since Obasanjo, has been no more than a party of loot-sharers, privatizing national property in the name of the masses for whom there are only laughable job creation strategies and no viable incomes policies or labour laws to match them, what are we talking about? What is worse is for people who pay attention to serious matters to be made to accost the spectacle of former ACN stalwarts in the APC who stand upright, but silent, on the same side with jingoists of the Arewa Forum like Professor Ango Abdulahi, who simply cannot define the North but must go demanding power back for the North while opposing restructuring, the creation of new states and boundary adjustments, among the sound outcomes of the national conference! Nothing could have been more predictable than for the APC to shop for a northern candidate as a matter of course. It simply had to be Muhammadu Buhari because he had a more determined national constituency. But which Buhari? The one who has been unable to offer a nationalistic and modern solution to the problems that herdsmen constitute in communities across so much of Nigeria? Or the one who opposed the National Identity Card scheme since it could be used to prove malfeasance in census counts that northern governments had always been allegedly involved in? The Buhari whom I personally recall was the one who sent security men to seize files at my old office in Awolowo’s house at Park Lane, Apapa thus putting me in trouble with an Egba princess who said she was told by an operative that I had opened a file on her. Or was it the Muhammadu Buhari who, as a military dictator, supervised the confiscation of the free education books that LK Jakande had bought for the schools in Lagos State and caused them to be sold off in the open market? Or the Buhari who literally wasted 80 million dollars of Lagos state money by refusing to guarantee 100 million dollar loan for a metroline and thus ensured that traffic lockjaws remained the staple across our city by the lagoon. Or was it the Buhari who had given draconian jail terms to several politicians of the Second Republic for giving ten percent to their political parties but has had no contribution to the discussion of proper party finance and how to organize parties of subvention instead of the corruption-laden approaches to political money that all parties of the Fourth Republic, including the APC, have to be ritually seduced by? I am simply unable to imagine which Buhari, born again or not, who would support restructuring and social welfare programmes except as a mere vote catcher. Even if it is true that Saul can become Paul, why should one not see that, like Obasanjo who became a formidable part of an Arewa strategy only in order to knock it sideways, Muhammadu Buhari is merely employing a hoodwinking strategy to return the baton to those who said they gave power to Obasanjo and wanted it back? It is a game between Generals. After all, and it is arguable, the Arewa Governors who joined the APC from the PDP never renounced the claim that they were representing an Arewa geo-political wicket whose agenda could be just as antithetic to restructuring and the politics of social welfare as the sharia-oriented politics that Buhari had been too much a part of. - Odia Ofeimun #GBAM - See more at: firstafricanews.ng/index.php?dbs=openlist&s=12691#sthash.dmkMHLYy.3s4z7Dcd.dpufSee more at: firstafricanews.ng/index.php?dbs=openlist&s=12691#sthash.dmkMHLYy.3s4z7Dcd.dpuf
Posted on: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 21:39:41 +0000
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