If President Umaru Musa Yar Adua were alive today, he would have just been rounding up his second and final term in office. His death from a protracted illness in 2009, almost created a crises in the country, as his kinsmen who felt his death had cheated them of the Presidency tried to come up with unconstitutional schemes to produce his successor and ensure that power did not leave their area. Unfortunately for them, their schemes did not work. Nigerians insisted on the constitution being up held and his Vice, Goodluck Jonathan from the South South zone took over. Since then the country has not known peace as people from Yar Adua’s part of the country have employed all means, fair and foul to destabilize or truncate the Goodluck Jonathan administration and ensure that someone from the North takes over. To ensure that this happens, the powers that be in the north have propped up General Mohammed Buhari as a presidential candidate. They see him as the only politician from the North with enough popularity and credibility to beat Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP in the North. To further buttress their chances of wresting power, they formed an alliance with Bola Tinubu, whose party, the ACN controlled most of the South West. The product of this alliance is the APC which has Governors and legislators of the now defunct CPC and APC as members, in addition to defecting Governors and legislators from the PDP. The alliance, no doubt, is a formidable one and for the first time the ruling PDP, often described as the biggest party in Africa, is facing serious competition for votes. In fact if some analysts are to be believed, on paper, the APC is sure of producing the next President of Nigeria. According to their analysis, Buhari will sweep the whole of the North and South West, including Lagos and Kano with their teeming voters. He will share Middle Belt with Jonathan and make serious in roads into traditional GEJ territory in the South South and South East with the support of such people as Governors Rotimi Amaechi, Adams Oshiomole, Rochas Okorocha and all the other legislators and party members from the various parties which make up the alliance. In politics, as in life, anything is possible and things are not always what they seem. Their analysis may be correct and it may not. However what is clear is that General Buhari has a better chance than he has had in his three earlier races, of becoming president of this country. That is where the problem lies. I saw Buhari in Anambra state in November last year, and the first thing that stuck me was that he did not look well. He looked pale, tired and drawn. He was much thinner than I had ever seen him. He has never been a fat man though, so for him to be that thin was saying something. I attributed his appearance to the wear and tear of running a nationwide Presidential campaign at the age of 72 and forgot about it. It was not until I read about Frederick Fasheun of the Unity Party of Nigeria calling on General Buhari to tell Nigerians the truth about his health status, that it occurred to me that Buhari’s health was suspect and that may have accounted for the way he looked that day I saw him. Then I read that he collapsed at Calabar, Cross River state while launching his campaign there a few days ago. I said to myself, “Here we go again”. This is beginning to look like a repeat of the Musa Yar Adua episode. It even began to look more so when the APC insisted that he did not collapse, that he merely stumbled while he was climbing up to the podium. It will be recalled that Yar Adua’s campaign was dogged with allegations of his poor health. At a point it was even rumoured that he had passed on in Germany where he was rushed after he collapsed during a rally. His handlers, supporters and those who brought him out to contest for reasons best known to them, refused to admit that he had a health condition. He went on to win the election and become president. The rest is history. He could not do much as he was incapacitated by illness. He was away from the country for long periods receiving treatment for his condition, while the country was being ruled or rather misruled, by a cabal which was headed by his wife. This was the situation until he died and the controversy of a successor, which almost led to the overthrow of the Government, arose. There is no doubt that members of the APC, Buhari’s kinsmen, supporters and others hoping to benefit from a Buhari or APC presidency know that Buhari is their best bet for snatching power. But they will not be doing the man, our country and themselves any good if they push a sick man into office and he dies trying to get there or shortly after he gets there. Nigeria may not survive the aftermath of such a development as his people would feel hard done by and refuse to accept such a development as natural There is need to ensure that the man who is aspiring to rule us and who may rule us is in good health. If Buhari is not healthy, how is he going to keep his promise to fight corruption which seems to be the only thing he has to offer? With him out of the way, the crooks who make up the APC will run riot and loot the country blind. Certainly that is not what Nigerians want or need at this point. One can’t really help wondering how Buhari and his APC can bring about the change they are promising if their front runner cannot tell the truth about such simple things as the state of his health, his certificates and his assets which appear to have remained stagnant since 2007, neither growing or shrinking. He has refused to say the truth about his role in the Boko Haram insurgency, his role in the riots which followed the 2011 elections in which hundreds of innocent people, including 11 Youth Corpers from the south of Nigeria, lost their lives, or how he was able to pay for his 27million Naira nomination form. He has also refused to talk about his time in the PTF where a fellow member accused him of corruption and a Presidential panel confirmed that the organization he presided over was indeed corrupt. He has refused to talk about the injustice he dispensed freely and selectively in the name of fighting indiscipline during his short and brutal regime. He even snubbed the Oputa panel the Federal Government set up in an effort to redress such injustice and bring closure or respite to the injured, as well as other controversies which have dogged his very controversial military and political. As I conclude, I recall a quote which says, a murderer will kill you, a thief will steal from you, but one never knows where he stands or what to expect from a liar. Nigerians don’t really know what to expect from the APC and their Presidential candidate, General Mohammadu Buhari, who in 2011 wept on television while appealing to Nigerians to vote for him because he was contesting for the Presidency for the last time. In the circumstances it will be wiser for Nigerians to stick with that which they know being Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP, as they do not have the resources, time and money, to waste trying to find out whether the APC and their candidate can even deliver anything. Already the APC and their Presidential candidate are saying that it will take time for the change they say they are bringing to occur. It will no longer be automatic or immediate as Nigerians had been told. At this rate, if they get into office, before long, as things get worse, they will deny that they ever promised to change anything.
Posted on: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 17:50:55 +0000
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