Between Buhari and Atiku

IN the last few months, especially as soon as the presidential candidates of the two main political parties, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were known, the social media has been agog with speculations about who bags the presidential laurel between APC’s President Muhammadu Buhari and his main rival, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of PDP. The print and electronic media have been promoting public debate on these two men who happen to have come from the same Hausa/Fulani ethnic group in the northern part of Nigeria. However, as time draws nearer to the February 16 presidential election, the cloud has begun to clear as to the direction where the pendulum will eventually swing and rest. Speculations and conjectures are now giving way to the reality of what to expect on February 16.

Three times, Buhari offered himself to lead Nigeria. Three times he was rejected. However, through his love for his country and by his grim determination to bring a change to the then prevailing order of things, he won a convincing victory in 2015. His “change” mantra caught up with the Nigerian electorate who were totally fed up with the decadence and rot that the nation had been forced to live with over the decades, more recently during the 16-year rule of PDP. When he came to power in 2015, the degree of decay Buhari met on ground astounded him; but he had no choice but to carry the nation’s cross.  Ably assisted by his deputy, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, the president set to his task by carefully and diligently scrutinizing the machinery of governance under Goodluck Jonathan by looking into huge piles of files to enable him determine the degree of decline to which the nation’s economy had plunged. What he discovered was both daunting and intimidating.

Now, having identified corruption as the bane of Nigeria’s growth and development, Buhari launched a ferocious attack on graft, forcing corrupt politicians and public officials to disgorge their ill-gotten wealth. These anti-corruption efforts of the Buhari/Osinbajo government have continued to enjoy the support and even the adulation of all-well-meaning Nigerians. Those who wrongly believe that corruption is the right way of life are the ones sometimes sitting on the fence grumbling and at other times openly canvassing their point of view suggesting that treasury looters should be left alone to enjoy the stolen national wealth which is a pity to say the last.

• How mob lynched man in Ekiti for allegedly consuming human faeces

One thing that has however endeared Buhari to most Nigerians is his personal integrity as a Nigerian leader whose fingers have not been soiled by filthy lucre. He is a leader who, unlike a good number of his predecessors, has come to serve and salvage the people from the dungeon of poverty and deprivation to which they had been plunged by those mindless past leaders. Buhari’s repugnance for corruption is clearly manifested by the iron hand with which he has been dealing with his own kinsman, Sambo Dasuki, over alleged misappropriation and misapplication of the US$2.1 billion allocation for military equipment. Even though certain promises made during his 2015 campaigns have not been fully fulfilled, Nigerians shall believe that Buhari has good intentions and plans for this country and that the enormity of the problems he met on ground when he took over was great enough to daunt the courage and determination of the most intrepid leader. But he has remained resolute and focused on the vision he had and still has for a Nigeria of his dream. This commitment has made him a credible candidate in the forthcoming election.

Furthermore, some of the achievements which have continued to enhance the image of President Buhari as a diligent leader are the even spread of infrastructure developments to all parts of the country which by themselves are avenues for job creation; his fatherly concern for the unemployed youths and his constant assistance to them through a programme like N Power directed at youths between the age of 18 and 35 as well as massive recruitment being processed by the police and other paramilitary agencies in recent times. Others are palliative loans to traders and artisans and several programmes designed by his wife to assist widows and vulnerable children throughout the country. We must not forget the positive image he has been able to create for country on the international arena where world leaders have continued to warm up to Nigeria. Given the impeccable pedigree of Nigeria’s incumbent president and the very high esteem in which he’s held all over the country, it will be very difficult to find a character or personality among the country’s political leadership who can successfully challenge Buhari to an electoral contest and win. Certainly not his ‘main rival’ Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the PDP.

As for Atiku, who else would know him better than Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the man under whom he served as Vice President? The way and manner in which Obasanjo had deconstructed his second in command left mouths agape up till today and people have continued to ask the pertinent question: what manner of person is this man, Atiku? The former president has written it down in black and white in his three-volume book that he called My Watch that Atiku was disloyal to him and was scheming to replace him in office right from the moment they entered government together.  Obasanjo placed his scathing remarks about Atiku on pages 31 and 32 of volume 2 of the book.  That the same Obasanjo who had made so much revelation on Atiku is the same person now trying to sell the PDP presidential candidate may be nothing more than a note of forgiveness that cannot wipe out the original accusations levelled against him. In fact, Obasanjo has not made any move that members of the public are aware of to expunge from his book all he had said about his former Deputy.

So, what is there to compare between Buhari and Atiku with all that Nigerians know about the two main presidential candidates? The stack reality at the moment is that the Nigerian electorate can no longer be taken for fools, they know what they want and who can deliver it to them, come February 16,2019.

• Odofin is a public affairs analyst