Why Jonathan should
vote for Buhari
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‘Femi Meyungbe-
Olufunmilade 03/04/2011
00:00:00
When you see an Edo man
raising his voice, asking
rhetorically in pidgin, "Na
today?" while another
person is talking, know
that he is expressing
disgust about somebody
making a false promise.
He is, in other words,
remonstrating with the
peddler of false promise
thus: Today is not your
first time of promising
what you either lack the
capacity to do or do not
intend to do.
Thus, whenever I behold,
among the infinite range
of goodies promised
Nigerians in innumerable
campaign advertorials of
President Goodluck
Jonathan, the word "anti-
corruption," I imagine Edo
people, who can no longer
touch anything PDP with
a 100 meter-long pole,
blurting, "Na today?" The
issue, as many have
pointed out, is not just
about President Jonathan.
But that is not tantamount
to exonerating him. The
issue is about the caliber
of people that dominate
the party on whose ticket
he is vying for a renewed
mandate as president.
When you see President
Jonathan on the field of
campaign, who are the
people you see around
him? You see people
whose names have been
mentioned in high profile
cases of corruption,
ranging from a former
president involved in the
Halliburton scam to
former and serving
governors with
substantiated cases of
looting of state funds
with either the Economic
and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC) or the
Independent Corrupt
Practices Commission
(ICPC). When I told a
Jonathan/Sambo
campaignerthat I
personally find President
Jonathan likeable but my
reservations is about his
party and the corrupt
power-brokers therein, he
said whoever wants to
catch a monkey needs to
act like one and that I
should expect a brand
new Jonathan that would
fight corruption with a
zeal and dexterity that
would dwarf my own
candidate’s record: that is,
Gen. Muhammadu Buhari
after he might have won
the presidential election.
He argued further that it
would be politically
unwise for Jonathan to
turn against his corrupt
mentors until
electioneering is over.
I begged to disagree with
Jonathan’s apologist as I
recalled the 2007
campaign of late President
Umaru Yar’Adua. This
Yar’Adua was generally
adjudged a good and
upright man. Yet, an
influential power-behind-
the-throne in his
government was Chief
James Onanefe Ibori,
former governor of Delta
state, whose cup of scam
was not only full but
running over with the
EFCC. Chief Ibori, it was
reported in many dailies
without any official
rebuttal following, was
the lead financier of the
Yar’Adua presidential
election campaign in
2007. He reportedly spent
billions of naira. Since he
was not known to be a
millionaire before he
became governor in 2007,
even the dumbest among
the naïve can guess where
the money he spent on
Yar’Adua/Jonathan
campaign came from.
Certainly, corruption has
its own logic that runs its
course regardless of who
you call yourself, saint or
sinner. For his support for
the Yar’Adua/Jonathan’s
ticket, of all positions, it
became Chief Ibori’s
privilege to nominate
Nigeria’s Attorney General
and Minister of Justice in
Yar’Adua’s cabinet! This
preference was borne of
self-preservation. Ibori
nominated his personal
lawyer, Michael
Aondoakaa, presently
derobed of senior lawyer’s
status by his peers for
unprofessional conduct, to
serve as Attorney General
and Minister of Justice. It
then became Aondoakaa’s
duty to block every move
to prosecute Ibori locally
and abroad. Yet,
somebody would swear
to Yar’Adua’s cleanness,
ignoring a Yoruba adage
that says, "A dog that
congregates with dogs
must eat faeces."
Of course, this story is no
news to most Nigerians,
but it goes to show that it
is well nigh impossible for
Jonathan to suddenly turn
against his corrupt
benefactors and
supporters as his apologist
hopes. And it is equally no
news that he recently sent
a presidential
representative to the
celebrations that followed
an end of Chief Bode
George’s prison term for
theft of public funds while
he was chairman of the
Nigerian Ports authority
(NPA).
What the foregoing boils
down to is a straight-
forward warning:
President Jonathan cannot
deliver on his promise of
anti-corruption crusade,
which, in turn, means he
cannot achieve most of his
other laudable promises
on health, roads,
education, energy,
security etc. Na today? So
far, it is extremely difficult
to point at any of his
achievements after almost
a year in the saddle. That
is aside having been Vice
President and Chairman of
the National Economic
Council for three years. To
those who hate to assess
his tenure as Vice
President on the grounds
that he was not the
president, you are
implying he was a vice to
failure for three years.
Nothing can work in
Nigeria until you have a
president with a proven
track record of effectual
anti-corruption stance in
both his public and private
life.
My candid advice to
President Jonathan,
therefore, if indeed he is
in earnest about his anti-
corruption promise, is to
withdraw from the
presidential election and
cast his vote for Gen.
Muhammadu Buhari, the
presidential candidate of
the Congress for
Progressive Change (CPC),
on Saturday, 9 April, 2011.
What he cannot achieve,
Buhari will achieve
because nobody can
accuse Buhari of
corruption. If Jonathan is
in doubt, he should ask his
mentor, former President
Olusegun Obasanjo, who,
in spite of titanic efforts to
find one, could not find
even the slightest shred of
evidence of corrupt
practices against Buhari,
despite his having held
plum positions like
Governor, Minister, Head
of multi-billion naira
parastatals (NNPC and
defunct PTF), and Head of
State.
Under Buhari’s presidency,
Nigeria will work because
whatever money is
budgeted for health,
education, road, security
etc will be judiciously
utilized. Buhari’s
administration, as I had
hinted in a previous article
"How Buhari Will Fix
Nigeria" (The Nation, 16
January, 2011), will
introduce a Budget
Implementation
Monitoring System (BIMS)
that will make it
mandatory for all
ministries, departments,
and agencies of
government to, on a
quarterly basis, post
details of their budgetary
allocations, IGR, and
expenditures on a website
for all to see and do on-
the-spot verification of
projects reported as
executed. Vote Buhari-
Bakare for change!
Dr. Meyungbe-
Olufunmilade is a member
of the Buhari Presidential
Campaign Council. Email:
femiology@yahoo.com;
Mobile:
+234-80-57345436.