Campaigns: Roadblocks for Buhari in Niger State

Uncertainty still surrounds the campaign of the Congress for Progressive Change presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), in Niger State today (Thursday), as the party disagrees with the state government over the venue of the campaign, MIKE ODIEGWU writes

Political observers are worried over the crisis that is brewing between the Congress for Progressive Change and the Peoples Democratic Party-led government in Niger State ahead of the April elections. They are disturbed that the presidential candidate of the CPC, Gen. Muhammed Buhari (retd.), is at the centre of the looming controversy.

Perhaps, the disagreement which started subtlely on Sunday developed into a hot political issue because it bears on the principle of equal political opportunity, which is one of the sustaining pillars of true democracy. Coming from a state where the Governor, Dr. Babangida Aliyu, had on several occasions spoken as a believer in and democracy, observers believe that the issue should not be swept under the carpet.

On Sunday, the CPC stirred the hornet’s nest when it raised the alarm that Niger had perfected a plot to deny Buhari the use of the only suitable public facility in the state for his zonal presidential campaign inauguration. The disputed facility is the Trade Fair Complex in Minna, the state capital, where President Goodluck Jonathan and Aliyu, inaugurated their campaigns.

The state Chairman of the party, Mr. Shuaibu Umar, had lamented that the development had created uncertainty in the party over the possibility of holding the event scheduled for March 3. Umar said it was unfair for the government to continuously deny opposition parties equal political space in a democratic system.

He said the selected venue was the only suitable place to hold such a political gathering in view of the huge crowd of party supporters expected to attend the event. Specifically, he said the occasion would attract all members of the party from the North Central Zone adding that all governorship candidates of the party were expected to receive their flags from Buhari at the rally.

He quickly recalled that the same treatment was meted to the party by the government when it denied it the use of a public facility in the state to hold its congress. He noted that the party in the state had cooperated with the government to host the presidential rally of Jonathan at the same venue noting that it was only responsible for the government to accord the party similar cooperation.

He called on the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Michael Zuokomor, to intervene in the matter recalling that the commissioner had appealed to opposition parties to work together with the police to make Jonathan’s campaign peaceful.

Umar said, “We made an application to use the place, but unfortunately we were told that we could not use the place because there is an organisation that applied to use the place from February 28 to March 3. But we have checked the place to discover that there is no activity going on there.

“That is why we believe that the government is deliberately denying us the use of that place. We feel bad because just last week, President Goodluck Jonathan used the place for his rally. But now they are denying us the same place. We feel that there should be a level playing ground. We are law abiding and we remain law abiding.

“The same state government refused us venue for our party congress. Why are all these happening in Niger state? They should remember it is a public facility and we insist upon using it.”

He urged Zuokomor to prevail on the government to allow the CPC secure the venue for the sake of the personality of its presidential candidate insisting that Buhari as a presidential candidate should be treated equally with Jonathan. He said he suspected that the government was determined to frustrate the rally because it was afraid of the crowd that its presidential candidate would attract to the state.

“We consider the action of the state government as dictatorial and in a democracy it is not acceptable. We are going to insist on using the facility even if it means coming out to the streets to state our displeasure.

“We were earlier told by the state commissioner of police to cooperate during President Jonathan’s visit, which we did; if anything happens we should not be blamed because we are law abiding people and we shall remain so,” he added.

Following the development, the leadership of the party, the State Security Service and the police held a closed-door meeting in Minna, the Niger State capital on Monday to resolve the controversy. The meeting, which was held in the office of the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Michael Zuokomor, had in attendance the state Director of SSS, Dr. Larry Obiagwu. Umar was full of hopes when he emerged from the meeting and declared that the security agents promised to advise the government to allow the party access to the facility.

But that hope was dashed immediately after the meeting as the government on the same day disassociated itself from the travails of the party. The Secretary to the Niger State Government, Mohammed Kuta, said the government had no control over the management of the complex. He disclosed that the complex was under the supervision of the state Chamber of Commerce, arguing that the chamber had an established procedure of allowing members of the public to use the facility. He argued that the party might have found it difficult to use the facility because it failed to follow the required due process.

He said the governor of the state should not be dragged into the matter as if the government had a calculated attempt to dishonour Buhari. He posited that the state leadership of the CPC should be blamed for not doing its homework well to receive its presidential candidate. He further alleged that the Buhari’s visit had not been formally communicated to the government.

“The government has not been officially communicated about the visit of the CPC presidential candidate and the security apparatus in the state has not communicated to the government. The governor after several years of sojourn in the civil service has a lot of respect for the personality of Buhari, which is not in doubt.

“It is not true and it cannot happen because of the existing understanding that he is a man of honour as a former head of state,” he said.

Similarly, the management of the complex declared that it would not allow the CPC access because it failed to apply for the facility on time. The President of the Chambers of Commerce and Manager of the complex, Mr. Abdullahi Suleiman, said the party was supposed to have sent its request a month before the event.

He said the management only received a request from the party on February 25th for a campaign inauguration that was supposed to take place on March 3. He explained that the CPC should not blame its travails on government adding that the management of the facility was not in control of the government.

He disclosed that the PDP gave the complex about three months notice before it could use the facility to host the state campaign of President Goodluck Jonathan. He, however, asked the party to seek alternative venue for its rally as the facility had been planned to host other ceremonies.

For instance, he said Zone A supporters of the PDP would converge on the complex on March 3, the same day the CPC had proposed to use the venue, before departing to Suleja for their campaign.

“CPC cannot use the complex to host Buhari because it has been booked for other events”, he noted, insisting that the facility was occupied.

With this development, few months after opposition parties including the Action Congress of Nigeria complained that the PDP-led government denied them the use of public facilities to hold their party congresses, political pundits advise that the issue should be resolved to avoid heating up the polity.