Buharimania and the quest for change

Not a few public commentators believed his participation in the 2011 election was his last hurray as far as the quest for the nation’s leadership was concerned. And the General encouraged that viewpoint in truth. His attitude and public pronouncements suggested he had, indeed, thrown in the towel. Age was not also on his side. […]

Not a few public commentators believed his participation in the 2011 election was his last hurray as far as the quest for the nation’s leadership was concerned. And the General encouraged that viewpoint in truth. His attitude and public pronouncements suggested he had, indeed, thrown in the towel.
Age was not also on his side. He is seventy-one years old this year. Third, the ‘victorious’ party, the PDP, that is, did a good job of blaming most of the post-election violence on the General, and also exploited the religious divide by dismissing him as a religious extremist.
Fourth, the timing of the PDPs deliberate strategy of character assassination of the General coincided with the exact moment the Boko Haram sect unleashed its deadly campaign of bombing churches especially in many parts of the north. The ever gullible Nigerian public was urged to believe that the bombings were in fulfilment of the promise by the opposition – presumably led by Buhari -to make the nation ungovernable for the PDP if they lost the presidential elections.    
Riding on the crest of such sentiments, it seemed immaterial to neutrals and ardent supporters of the PDP that the 2011 elections were indeed fraught with irregularities, or that it took a split decision of the nation’s Supreme Court to affirm President Jonathan’s victory. Buhari, like the other leading members of the opposition, was cast in the mould of villain even without a shred of evidence linking him to the post election violence that followed the elections.
Today, however, those scenarios appear to have turned full cycle! Today, as we prepare for the 2015 elections, it is the PDP which appears to be battling a credibility crisis. The general opinion among an increasing number of Nigerians across religious, ethnic and party affiliations, is that the same Buhari who seemed unsellable across a broad political spectrum, is fast emerging as the candidate to beat in 2015.
What has been responsible for his massive turn-around in prospects? What has the General done, or is doing differently, this time around? Beyond the choice of Yemi Osinbajo the respected intellectual, pastor and legal luminary as his running mate, how much of the change can be attributed to the General’s own strategies, and how much can be blamed on the obvious public disenchantment with the incompetence of the PDP administration under President Goodluck Jonathan?
Let me start by addressing the issue of the obvious tweak in the strategies adopted by the opposition under leadership of Buhari, Bola Tinubu and Rotimi Amaechi. When Buhari contested and lost the last presidential elections, several things worked against him. First, he had the misfortune of being surrounded by some individuals who encouraged the notion that the General’s uncommon popularity among the northern masses was enough to win him any election. They believed that all Buhari had to do was to have his name on the ballot and the election was his to lose.
 Sadly, like I have repeatedly pointed out through this medium, elections in Nigeria are never won on the basis of proletarian sentiments. A great majority of the same masses that trooped to attend Buhari’s rallies in 2011 to chant “Sai Buhari” never bothered to obtain the requisite voters cards required to effect the change they desired.
Not only that, Buhari made the mistake of running on the platform of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) – which was not more than a regional party at the time. Even more tellingly, the CPC failed to consummate the agreement it had in principle with the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) which could have given the General a nationwide platform required to engage the PDP behemoth competitively.
That problem was effectively solved with the emergence of the APC which is a merger of the former CPC, ACN, the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), as well as a faction of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA). The merger also provided Buhari with the nationwide platform and structure he lacked in 2011.
Similarly, in all the states of the federation including the PDP, the coalition has done much to convince potential voters to acquire their Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs). It will also help Buhari that three states with the highest chunk of registered voters in the federation (Lagos, Kano, and Rivers state), are governed by the APC.  
Buhari has also adopted a strategy of connecting with potential voters many of whom were not even born when he was military Head of state. Beyond second-hand comments, this group of Nigerians know next to nothing about his value system prior to now. Only four days after the General launched his Twitter handle last weeks, some online media platforms have reported that he already has over 45,000 followers compared to that of President Jonathan which is four years old!
Buhari has also bonded with the youths by engaging them at several functions to underscore the need for change. This was done simultaneously with release of carefully selected official pictures of both the General and his running mate for cross-generational appeal. By urging potential voters to contribute directly to his campaign fund, Buhari also struck a code with neutrals on the critical issue of integrity.
But beyond all these, Buhari has also been helped by the gradual unravelling of most of the lies peddled to malign his personality. Buhari is certainly not a religious fundamentalist, because several national commentators of the Christian faith have already put that issue to rest. He also did not indulge in nepotism like anyone who cared to read the series of tweets credited to ThisDay columnist Waziri Adio on the General’s tenure at the PTF have shown.
On the hand, I completely agree with my good friend Osita Okechukwu, who is also the spokesman of the South-East chapter of the APC, that the greatest campaign tool at the disposal of General Buhari is the record of the incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP government he leads!
It is obvious that six years of the Jonathan’s presidency has desecrated probably beyond redemption. A vital factor in the relationship between leaders and the led the world is trust. In the past several years President Jonathan has done everything he could to ensure that millions of Nigerians beyond the immediate cycle that benefitted from him to withhold their trust.
Beyond the several financial scandals involving key figures in his administration which he failed to deal with, one of his top aides was caught trying to frame the Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, who was then the Governor of the CBN on a dubious allegation of funding Boko Haram! The president has neither disciplined nor removed the same aide from office. Even for Nigerians old enough to recall the untold debauchery of their past military dictators, that scandal was a new low.
The President further diminished his office over his complicity in the crisis that ravaged the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF). By choosing to recognize the Jonah Jang faction comprised of the minority group of sixteen state chief executives, he set the stage for what later occurred in Ekiti State, when only six legislators, out of the twenty-seven in the state House of Assembly, sat in a kangaroo session to ‘impeach’ their Speaker! It did not also come as a surprise that they were backed by law enforcement officers!
Sixteen years of the PDP has worsened the socio-economic conditions of Nigerians. Okonjo-Iweala’s voodoo has been rich in sophistry and bogus statistics but very poor on impact. And the problem affects all sectors of the economy. Recently, official records released by the CBN contradicted most of the false statistics regularly churned out by the Ministry of Agriculture.
But for my money, the biggest failure of this government has been on the critical issue of security without which all other initiatives are impossible. With Buhari, Nigerians can at least be sure that there will be no pussy-footing on the issue. I am willing to bet my last Naira in the belief that Buhari will not hesitate to invade Chad, if the government Ndjamena fails to do its bit to curtail Boko Haram incursions into Nigeria from across our common border. That is the type of action Nigerians expected from a serious president.
Make no mistake about it; there are still millions of Nigerians driven by hunger to sell their votes and as direct consequence their conscience for a bag of rice or the odd gallon of edible oil. But there could also be twice as many who have become frustrated with the existence system and cannot wait for change.