When Muhammadu Buhari overthrew a
democratically-elected government in a coup d”etat
in 1983, Sani Abacha declared in his infamous radio
broadcast: “(Our) health services are in shambles
as our hospitals are reduced to mere consulting
clinics without drugs, water and equipment.”
However, Buhari did not address the shambolic
Nigerian health system in his two years in power. In
a Vanguard article of 7th February, 2015,
Ambassador Ignatius Olisemeka said of Buhari: “He
entrusted to me the care and welfare of his family-
he sent his wife and two children to me in
Washington D.C. for medical treatment. His family
were with me in Washington D.C. when the General
was overthrown in a coup d’état.”
Thus, while Buhari was grandstanding as Mr. Fix-It,
he sought medical care surreptitiously for his family
in the United States, instead of fixing the Nigerian
health system. This typifies the hypocrisy and
insincerity of Buhari as an agent of change. It is all
smoke and mirrors. It is the same duplicity
whereby he claimed to be the apostle of anti-
corruption even while being complicit in the
smuggling in of 53 suitcases at Murtala Mohammed
Airport, Lagos in the middle of a currency change.
Buharinomics
Buhari’s grandstanding must not be allowed to go
unchallenged today, now that he is seeking election
under the same kind of democratic system he
truncated and trashed in the past. We must not
allow Buhari to sweep his ignominious past under
the carpet of a bogus mantra of “change.” Indeed,
there is something anomalous about presenting a
72 year-old former military dictator as a change
candidate. What kind of change can be represented
by an old has-been?
In his first coming, the “changes” Buhari brought
were to Nigeria’s detriment. Under him, the Nigerian
economy went from bad to worse. Our national debt
rose from $14 billion to $18 billion in less than two
years; with the result that Nigeria was no longer
able to meet its financial obligations to global
bankers. We had to queue for essential
commodities, such as bread and milk, which were
hard to find. Raw materials and spare parts needed
to keep factories running were scarce. Rather than
create jobs, tens of thousands of workers lost their
jobs. Inflation rose to the astronomical level of 40%;
while it is now 7.9% under Jonathan.
When Buhari seized power in 1983, Nigeria’s GDP
was $444.45. When he was overthrown in 1985,
Nigeria’s GDP had dropped dramatically to $344.14.
That is not the kind of change we want. When
Goodluck Jonathan became president in 2010,
Nigeria’s GDP was $369. By 2014, it had grown
dramatically to $510.
Buhari is going around complaining about the recent
devaluation of the naira. However, when he took
over in 1983, one dollar exchanged for 0.724 naira.
But by the time he was overthrown in 1985, one
dollar exchanged for 0.894 naira. That is 23%
devaluation in barely two years. However, when
Jonathan took over in 2010, one dollar exchanged
for $167 naira. Five years later, it is now $202.55.
That is a devaluation of 21% in five years.
It is not surprising, therefore that, when Buhari was
overthrown in 1985, there was wild jubilation
throughout the length and breadth of the country.
Unleashing the dogs and the baboons
One of the first things Buhari did when he seized
power in 1984 was to gag the press. Decree 4 was
promulgated making even the publishing of the truth
a criminal offence. Under it, Nduka Irabor and
Tunde Thompson were jailed maliciously in a
manner designed primarily to intimidate the press.
Under Buhari, the SSS came looking for me
because I published an article in National Concord
entitled: “Counter-trading Nigeria’s Future;”
criticizing the government’s return to the stone age
economic policy of trade by barter which resulted in
even greater fraud than import licensing. Buhari is
now angling to return to power under a democratic
setting. But has this leopard changed its skin? In
spite of his carefully crafted makeover by his
American handlers, has Buhari changed from his
anti-democratic ways?
All the evidence suggests he has not. Buhari is not
even president and he is already fighting the press.
Recently, he threatened to back out of the Abuja
Peace Accord concluded with Goodluck Jonathan
and the PDP because he was upset about the
insults and attacks he was receiving. He warned
that no one should regard his “patriotic commitment
to maintaining national peace” for weakness.
Buhari’s handlers declared: “We cannot continue to
guarantee the tolerance limit of our teeming
supporters nationwide who are daily being
inundated with death wish commentaries on the
person of General Muhammadu Buhari.” What
exactly does this mean? Is Buhari now going to
unleash his infamous dogs and baboons on
Nigerians? This is why it would be foolhardy to
mortgage the freedoms we have come to enjoy
under the democratic dispensation by handing
power back to a man who is intolerant of criticism.
Let us juxtapose Buhari’s short fuse to the
disposition of Goodluck Jonathan. Jonathan must be
the most wrongly vilified president in the history of
Nigeria. He has been called all kinds of names by
his traducers. He has been abused, reviled and
condemned by APC stalwarts. His motorcade has
been stoned. His campaign posters have been torn
down. His campaign ground has been bombed. His
wife has been maligned. How has he responded to
all this?
Jonathan responded by signing the Freedom of
Information bill. In effect, instead of gagging the
press, in the tradition of malevolent dictators like
Buhari, he has freed the press even more; allowing
it to criticize his government without hindrance. In
every way possible for the past five years,
Jonathan has assured and reassured Nigerians that
freedom of expression is our inalienable right.
The myth of Buhari’s northern popularity
One of the lies of the Buhari campaign is the
pretense that he has cornered the Northern vote.
Nothing could be further from the truth. As a matter
of fact, in this election, Buhari is not the choice of
the North. The Northern political elite don’t want
Buhari to be president. The North did not vote for
him in the APC presidential primaries. The Northern
vote went instead to Rabiu Kwankwaso and Atiku
Abubakar. Buhari was elected primarily with
Southern ACN votes.
Let me ask some pertinent questions. How many
Northern elites have we seen recently campaigning
for Buhari? We have seen Tinubu following Buhari
around. We have heard Obasanjo and Soyinka
pitching their tents with him. But the Northern elite
have largely kept mum. Governors Fashola,
Oshiomole and Amaechi of the South have been
busy singing choruses of praise about Buhari, but
Northern governors are mute. Atiku and
Kwankwaso have largely kept their distance from
him.
Why are they not shouting on the rooftops for
Buhari? The truth is that the Northern elite have
never liked Buhari. Therefore, it is not in their
interest for him to become president. Buhari’s
grandstanding on anti-corruption resonates with the
poor, but not with the Northern elite. Should Buhari
become president, most of the current Northern
presidential hopefuls can no longer be president in
their lifetime. Eight years of Buhari presidency
would swing the presidency back to the South for
another eight years. But these Northern bigwigs
don’t have 16 years to wait in the wilderness. Some
of them would even have kicked the bucket by then.
It is better for them to wait for Jonathan to finish his
second-term in 2019, at which time they would be
able to contest for the presidency without having to
deal with an incumbent president. What they need
now is the assurance that it would then be the turn
of the North. In that eventuality, South-South
support for a Northern presidential candidate would
be imperative. 2015 is not the time to jeopardize
this.
The strategic partnership of the North and the
South-South has been the enduring decimal of
Nigerian elections. The South-South has supported
the North in every election, except when its own
son, Goodluck Jonathan, was on the ballot. The
North must be careful not to betray that partnership,
if for no other reason than that it will need it again in
the near future. It must be careful not to betray that
partnership because Jonathan has done far more
for the North in his five years in power than he has
for any other part of the country, including the
South-South. In short, there is no excuse for
Northern denial of support for Jonathan in 2015.
The federal government’s mid-term assessment of
its development investment shows that the
investment in the North-West and the North-
Central zones alone amounted to 792 billion naira;
nearly double those of the South-West, South-South
and South-East put together, which amounted to
403 billion naira. If the North fails to support
Jonathan in the coming presidential election, in
spite of Jonathan’s obvious discrimination in favour
of the North, it can bid farewell to South-South
support in the future.
With all the noise about Buhari’s popularity with the
talakawa in the North, we have not heard anything
that he has ever done, or would do, for them. When
he was head of state between 1984 and 1985, he
did absolutely nothing for them. In the unlikely event
that Jonathan becomes president, it would not take
long before there would be rioting among the
Northern poor out of dashed and betrayed hope.
The man who has transformed the life of the poor in
the North has been Goodluck Jonathan. Jonathan
built 125 Almajiri Schools in 13 states in the North;
something Northern rulers like Buhari failed to do. At
the commissioning of the first Almajiri Model School
in Gagi, Sokoto State, the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji
Abubakar Sa’ad III, observed that Jonathan’s action
was unprecedented in the history of Northern
Nigeria.
Jonathan also established ten new federal
universities; seven of them in the North. Jonathan
has made far more appointments of Northerners
than he has of Southerners. His transformation of
agriculture from subsistence to commercial farming
has been of primary benefit to the agrarian North.
Therefore, it will come as no surprise if Jonathan
wins more votes in the North in 2015 than he did in
2011. http://www.theopinion.ng/why-nigerians-must-reject-the-second-coming-of-buhari/