By Abba Mahmood
This month, all things being equal and
very few things are actually equal, there will be election. Meanwhile,
Nigeria is slowly grinding to a halt. Law enforcement agents have turned
into party thugs. The powers that be get “endorsed” by “religious
leaders” established by them and “elders’ councils” created by them. So
what? They campaign, not by policy or the debate of issues, but by
unconditional, deliberate hostility. There is no light even in the
nation’s capital. There is no spark of light even in the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs at night. Movement is difficult due to lawless driving
and rowdy queues for fuel. They insult and assault other sections of the
country and still expect them to vote for them.
Native intelligence demands that if
today, while you are looking for my vote you demonise and dehumanized
me, what will you do when eventually you do not need my vote? It is too
late in the day, and I don’t know how much is remaining in the treasury
to bribe the millions who are expected to vote.
Please share with me this article titled
“D for Desperation” by Wole Olaoye published on page 56 of Daily Trust
of Monday 2nd March, 2015:
With the rate at which President
Jonathan has been going on Sunday pilgrimages to different churches,
with national TV in tow, I am beginning to fear that the prediction of
my humorist friend, Tamuno (Mr T) that the president might soon embark
on a political pilgrimage to the Daura Central Mosque or the Grand
Mosque in Saudi Arabia, could actually come to pass.
Right now, the president is prepared to
do anything to win the forthcoming elections. For those Christian
denominations yet to be ‘pilgrimagised’ by the president, I’m sorry
there are only three more Sundays between now and May 28. The picnic
will soon be over.
I had warned in the run-up to the March
28 election that the attempt by the president and his supporters to use
religion as a campaign tool would fall flat. In the last four weeks,
several versions of a tendentious flyer have been making the rounds,
exclusively targeted at Christians. I was particularly miffed by one of
the verbal bombs brought to my attention.
“This is a desperate and urgent call
from the throne of grace that the brethren in Christ are about to make
the greatest error of their lives by selling off their kingly heritage
for a mess of pottage called ‘change’. Change into what? …The foundation
of the planned Islamisation of Nigeria was taken in 1989 in Abuja by
OIC… They have painfully now infiltrated one of the biggest
denominations in Nigeria and offered one of their best pastors – a
professor, a vice presidential slot… We may be the last Christians in
Nigeria if this grave error the brethren is about to commit is not
averted…”
The second section of the flyer is
devoted to a demonisation of the Fulani ethnic group with an incendiary
piece titled “It Is Either the Koran Or The Sword”, attributed to one
Aliyu Gwarzo.
I am repeating my call on the security
agencies to arrest those fanning the embers of hate now before it is too
late. Hitler started his campaign against Jews by characterising them
as less than human. Once that is established, it is easy to mentally
contemplate the extirpation of the targeted groups without feeling any
pangs of conscience.
Although the president has repeatedly
said his ambition was not worth the blood of anybody, what his
supporters are doing with impunity is very dangerous. For the supporters
of an incumbent president to embark of campaigns of hate as if they
have given up on addressing the issues that matter and conceded defeat
in their heart but are determined to ensure that they bring the house
down, is unprecedented. Supporters of an incumbent ought to be the ones
working for peace, but the reverse is the case here.
Bending over backwards, one can almost
understand the frustration of the president’s party, the PDP. Having
failed to fashion out a professional and comprehensive rebranding of
their candidate, they have abandoned concrete social, economic, and
infrastructural development issues and placed all their hopes in heaping
insults on the opposition candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari, with the
hope that Nigerians would vote against Buhari even if they don’t want
to vote for Jonathan. The PDP has all but conceded the fact that their
candidate is not a good product worth selling. Their illogic: taint the
alternative and the people would buy the same old product.
It is not working out that way at all.
All those who have expressed outrage to me about those hate-flyers are
Christians. All! And they are not hoodwinked by the satanic use of
Christianity to drive a wedge between Christians and Muslims. And may I
ask the president’s strategists if they hope to attract the votes of
Muslims and Fulani after this hate-vending? Sharing money with tribal
armies has only enriched leaders of OPC, Afenifere, Ohaneze, MASSON,
Arewa Youths etc. but has further alienated the masses of the Yoruba,
Igbo and northern ethnic groups. I hear Kahlil Gibran loud and clear:
“Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a
nation”.
The only crime Buhari has committed, it
seems, is emerging presidential candidate of the All Progressives
Congress (APC). The rebranding of Candidate Buhari started about
fourteen months ago when he was still an aspirant. But the attempted
rebranding of Candidate Jonathan started only two weeks ago when it
suddenly dawned on PDP that the party was heading for a drubbing. Now
Jonathan is jetting from one public event to the other as if wishing he
had 99 hours a day. The other day he turned up in Mubi wearing military
fatigues. The commander-in-chief has been roused! (Lol!)
How many elections and threats of defeat
do we have to conjure to make the president do his job? Will six weeks
of photo ops compensate for six years of lethargy and incompetence?
And to spoil things for the ruling party
further, Buhari kept his speaking appointment at Chatham House, London
to great aplomb. The speech struck the right chord and the candidate’s
carriage was statesmanly. After enunciating his party’s programmes, he
confronted the various attempts to cast him in the mould of a despot in a
dignified manner: “I have heard and read references to me as a former
dictator… Let me say without sounding defensive that dictatorship goes
with military rule, though some might be less dictatorial than others. I
take responsibility for whatever happened under my watch.
“I cannot change the past. But I can
change the present and the future. So before you is a former military
ruler and a converted democrat who is ready to operate under democratic
norms and is subjecting himself to the rigours of democratic elections
for the fourth time.”
Hecklers rented by the PDP to protest
against Buhari gave the game away when they disclosed that they were
hired; some of them did not even know the purpose!
How to stop Buhari since he still
refuses to drop dead and is even attempting to widen the gap nationally
and internationally? Ask PDP’s fable factory which has been trying
unsuccessfully to sow seeds of discord among APC leaders. Another
military security ‘joker’? Remove Jega and take over INEC? Ditch the
Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC) and the card reader to facilitate ballot
rigging? Immobilise Buhari and APC leaders?
Kindergarten teachers will have to revise their notes: ‘A’ for Apple; ‘B’ for `Ball; ‘C’ for Cat; and ‘D’ for Desperation.
As long as Nigerians constitute the electorate here, perhaps the president will have to dissolve the people and elect another?
- This Piece was written by Aba Mahmood/Leadership
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