Gen. Muhammadu Buhari has contested and lost the presidential election three times. Olamilekan Lartey writes that the retired General is a Nigerian politician of a different kind
The calm disposition of the retired General that morning was nothing like the image of the dreaded head of the military junta that Nigerians have embedded in their consciousness. In the modest living room of his country home in Daura, Katsina State, there was nothing to show the obscene wealth of the nouveau riche that Nigerian politicians are. An old air conditioner chugged quietly in the corner as it tried to subdue the midday heat. In another part of the room, the table had been laid for an obviously forgotten breakfast. It was an election day, and former head of state, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd), certainly had forgotten his meal. Out there, thousands of eligible voters, mainly youths and women, had turned out to watch Buhari get accredited to vote in the election that would usher in a new government, and perhaps a new beginning for the nation. It was the third time Buhari would be contesting the number one seat. As the crowd surged, and chants of Allah Akbar filled the air, it was clear Buhari was a favourite candidate among the people.
The international media had descended on arid Daura, with outside broadcast vans and other satellite equipment to capture the moment of history, for a man who had contested election two times and lost, but remained undaunted. As the elections got underway, Buhari said this time he would not challenge the outcome of the elections, although he would not stop his party, the CPC from doing so. “For 15 months after the 2007 elections, I was in court. The Supreme Court was split into two. I can’t question the Supreme Court,” he added. “I’m not going to court, but I won’t stop my party from going to court.”
With that measured dignity, the statesman’s posture, which the ancient Romans called gravitas, Buhari said he felt for the youth of the nation, whose journey to the future was now at the crossroads in the hands of the ruling PDP. He said it was the responsibility of young people, as major stakeholders, in the Nigerian project, to ensure that the elections were free and fair. “If they allow the ruling party to mess them up, it is they who will suffer for the next 40 years. I have told Nigerian youth not to be worried about Buhari who is 60 years and four months,” he said.
As the results of the April 16 presidential election began trickling in, Buhari left Daura. The former military head of state was the presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change, a young political party that was making inroads into the strongholds of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party. The 2011 elections had been hard fought. Buhari’s CPC had cleared the polls in Katsina State, clinching the three senatorial zones from the PDP, and winning 12 out of the House of Representatives seats. As the results for the presidential elections came in, Buhari had performed exceptionally well in Katsina State, with 1, 163, 919 votes to beat President Goodluck Jonathan of the PDP, who scored 428,392 votes in the state. Despite Buhari’s impressive performance in his home state, the results from other parts of the country were not encouraging. Jonathan had swept the polls beyond the imagination of the nation, coasting home to victory with over 22million votes to Buhari’s 10million. Despite the 12-year misadventure of the PDP in the corridors of power, Nigerians again voted massively for the party and its candidate. This perhaps justified Buhari’s outburst of emotion as he held back tears for a nation that may never get it right.
Buhari may finally be cast in the mould of the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who has been described as the best president Nigeria never had. Everywhere, Awolowo’s original thinking, legacies and utmost commitment to the Nigerian project remain, a quarter of a century after his death. The aristocratic swagger of the Yoruba; the literacy of the states of the South-West that represent them, despite the interregnum of the PDP , and the unflinching dedication of the remaining Awoists to the ideals of the sage all testify to truth of a road not taken by the rest of the country.
Buhari’s admirers recall his strict adherence to discipline and the reinstatement of sanity to the Nigerian society after the rape of the country by the politicians and his achievements as the head of the Petroleum Trust Fund in the gory days of the Gen. Sani Abacha regime. But his critics point to his role in the human rights abuses that characterised the era. They point at Buhari’s perceived rigidity and intransigence, especially with people with opposing views. His abridgement of the Constitution as a military dictator, they say, disqualifies him as beneficiary of the very democratic ideals he had trampled upon with his military jackboots.
But as violence erupted in the Northern parts of the country, following the results of the presidential election, even in Daura, Buhari’s home town, it was clear that there was a fundamental problem nestling in the belly of the polity. Although no official explanation has been given for the spontaneous violence that gripped several states in the North, including Katsina State, where Buhari had performed very well; the victory of the PDP was a number one culprit in the crisis. The frustrations of thousands of dispossessed youth that the opportunity for change had again been frittered led to the arson and attacks on usually revered community leaders and traditional institutions. The arrowheads of the violence across the states, Kano, Kaduna, Bauchi, Gobe and Katsina, were the frustrated army of the unemployed young who had felt years of government misrule in the last decade or more. Those frustrations were perhaps exemplified in the way people burnt or tore their voter cards to shreds.
But it was vintage Buhari, the statesman, who condemned the violence and appealed for calm with soothing words to the bruised psyche of thousands who saw hope drying up in the desert. Although Buhari had alleged on election day that there was massive rigging by the ruling PDP, he appealed to CPC supporters to show restraint, after all his party won in the very state in which the General had alleged nocturnal movements of Federal Government’s planes with cargo of thumb-printed ballot papers.
Buhari, through his spokesman, Yinka Odumakin, thanked all Nigerians for their courage and perseverance in their preparation for the elections. “May I use this opportunity to inform you that we have commenced consultations at the highest levels to recover your stolen mandate. I would, therefore, urge you to continue to be patient. It is wrong for you to allow miscreants to infiltrate your ranks and perpetrate such dastardly acts as the mindless destruction of worship places. Needless to say, this act is worse than the rigging of the elections.”
Buhari said it was wrong for supporters to destroy their voter cards out of anger and frustration. “This is a very grievous mistake, which is not going to solve any of your problems. I urge you to preserve and safeguard your cards and disgrace your oppressors who have stolen your votes. If you don’t do this, it is to be feared that all your efforts would have been in vain,” he said.
As the CPC assembles a legal team to present the case of its candidate before the presidential election tribunal, the reasons for the party’s performance will filter into the open. Firstly, Buhari did not have access to the men and resources available to the PDP in its pan-Nigerian campaign. Apart from the few states in the North, where the CPC had visible imprints, the party had no grassroots mobilisation structure in the South-South and South-West states. Secondly, Buhari’s idealist posture could not rein in the dissenting voices in the CPC. The party lost the governorship election to the PDP in Buhari’s home state because internal wrangling within the party could not be resolved. Buhari had told the feuding factions that the courts would resolve the crisis. Such fidelity to the courts for resolution of the internal crises of the party in several states contributed adversely to the final outcome of the elections. But above all, the touted alliance between the CPC and the Action Congress of Nigeria did not see the light of day.
As the PDP prepares for another four years at the helm of affairs, many Nigerians will discover if they made the right choice on April 16 by voting Jonathan and not Buhari.