Since INEC has decided to look the other way while the self-appointed transformation ambassadors is expending public resources on GEJs presidential campaign, the APC should lose no time in organizing counter rallies nation-wide. I commend the Lagos crowd for taking the bull by the horns. The TRAIN OF CHANGE is about to leave the station. It is time to get on board! Obviously, there are still a view who have either decided to wait for the next train, i.e., the status quo train, or have not yet been able to make up their mind which train to board. Those opposed to change would justify booking seats on the status-quo train by telling themselves how horrible the Buhari presidency would turn out to be. For instance, a Facebook commentator described Buhari as a coupist who belongs in prison rather than in the office of president. When asked under what law he planned to send Buhari to jail, this later-day convert to democracy had nothing to say. He knew that to-date, Nigeria has not enacted a law banning military coups and prescribing long prison sentences for plotting or executing one. If such a law exists, Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu would have had to be raised from the dead to serve his term on earth. Even national heroes like Yakubu Gowon, Murtala Muhammed, and Olusegun Obasanjo would never have avoided going to prison! So much for the first charge against Buhari--the charge of participating in coups. How about the draconian measures which he took as Head of State? Arent those measures enough to disqualify him from contesting the office of president in a civilian dispensation? My answer to this is simple: those very measures that he instituted to combat corruption and indiscipline are precisely what Nigeria needs today to be whole again. In other words, the draconian measures make him admirably suitable to lead Nigeria. The alternative is to keep hailing and extending dubious pardons to corrupt elements--which no-one in his/her right senses really wants. The alternative is to watch public institutions decay and citizen confidence in the state evaporate. Still casting about for charges to prefer against Buhari, a few detractors (mostly from the south-west) have seen his candidacy as another opportunity to rekindle the presumed North-SouthWest rivalry. Awolowo, these detractors argue, never saw anything good in the North. Why should they, his political heirs? I think that these people need to be up to date on their history. Awolowo was NOT anti-North. He was merely against a particular system, a system that conferred undue privilege on birth to the neglect of merit. If Awolowo was anti-North, he would never have expressed the desire to work with the likes of Mahmud Tukur. In fact, if Awolowo were to be alive today, he would be a Buharist. I have so far focused on the undecided--those who are raking up old grudges and wondering whether they should not hold on to them long enough to knock Buhari out of the presidential race. Standing in sharp contrast to the undecided is another category of Nigerians--notably, Buhari die-hard opponents that see his presidential ambition as an opportunity to settle old scores. Those falling under this heading would go to any length to stop any Northern candidate from displacing GEJ. Facebook is awash with comments pointedly asking the North to take a long sabbatical from the presidency. These comments are mostly from the south-east and the south-south (or from ghosts claiming to come from the two geo-political zones, pardon the use of that unfortunate term). For these commentators, GEJs monumental failure is a small price to pay to keep the North at bay. However, is the matter on the table about the North and the South or about the very survival of our country? I think those opposed to Buhari on ethno-religious or regional grounds are making the mistake of a life-time. I can only appeal to them to reconsider their position. They should team up with other Nigerians to bring about the change our country needs to survive and prosper. If today they support mediocrity for sentimental reasons, they should remember that GEJ got to the office by accident, not by his own design. Sooner or later, that accident will exhaust its momentum, and normality would return. When that happens, what moral right will GEJs current supporters have to evaluate whoever takes over from him? It is still not too late to board the TRAIN OF CHANGE.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Sep 2014 19:39:11 +0000
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