By Uchenna Osigwe 
 
The presidential election held in Nigeria on the 16th of April 2011 has come and gone but the dust raised by that election is yet to settle. Even as we wait for it to settle, or, more likely, for more dust to be raised, we can now look back at what happened before, during and immediately after the election in a more detached way in order to see the role that regionalism, ethnicity, religion and politics played in that election and its aftermath. 
My question is this: Is it possible for the supporters of Jonathan and Buhari to look beyond regionalism, ethnicity, religion and politics and look more dispassionately at what those two figures represent for Nigeria?
Jonathan represents the PDP. The party may call itself a democratic party, but there is nothing democratic about it. All the elections overturned in the country have been those ‘won’ by the party. Each time after rigging elections, they tell us that even if they didn’t rig, they would still have ‘won.’ That hackneyed argument involves too many fallacies the analyses of which will take us too far afield. So let me use an analogy to puncture it: It is like the student who cheats in exams and when caught, says that without the cheating s/he would still have passed. So, if you’re so sure of passing, why cheat in the first place? Except for a few exceptions, the PDP is made up of a bunch of leeches. Everyday we hear how they are stealing billions from the public purse, and this has been going on since their earlier incarnation as NPN. A close look at Jonathan’s budget shows that he has given more money to petroleum subsidies and import waivers than to critical areas like education, power and healthcare. They have simply cornered the country’s wealth and are sharing it among themselves. What the PDP is running looks like a kleptocracy, walks like a kleptocracy and quacks like a kleptocracy. Nigeria is among the highest consumers of private jets in the world, and this in a country with poor or no health care, poor or no education system, where amenities that poorer countries in the world take for granted are simply non-existent. The vision the party has for the country is a retrogressive vision. It has no clear cut principles but makes the rules as it goes. Like unscrupulous business people, all the members of the party look for are opportunities to fill their pockets at the expense of the hapless masses. Nobody represents this opportunism more than Jonathan.
To start with, as a PDP member, their constitution stated that the presidency, as well as other offices should rotate around the different zones in the country. He signed on to that. So why didn’t Jonathan respect the constitution of his party? Would there have been post electoral violence if that zoning was respected? Can we ever take Jonathan on his word? During the campaign he stated repeatedly that he would not serve beyond 2015. But even before his inauguration, he let it be known that a four year-term is too short for a ‘performing president,’ (forgetting that by 2015 he would have been president for five years), even as he stated that his country needs an over bloated cabinet! He promised free and fair election, but we have credible allegations that his party wrote results that have nothing to do with the actual voting. I agree that the election was peaceful. But something can be peaceful and fraudulent. Think of 419! If the elections were free and fair, there was no way it would not have gone to a second round at the very least. PDP entered into a secret deal with some notable politicians in the south west in order to stop Buhari. Notice that the ACN says nothing anymore about the presidential election. The silence of their flag bearer is even more puzzling!
Jonathan promised to fight corruption but there were credible stories that delegates to his party’s primary election were bribed in hard currency, and this was just after he shared the excess crude oil money among the governors allegedly to buy their support. We also know of a case where a bribe (in hard currency) was offered (as transport money) to the SNG group by Jonathan’s aides in Abuja! Pat Utomi accused Jonathan of spending hundreds of billions of public money in his campaign. Right now has not given up in its scheme to get a rubber stamp NASS. OBJ made the mistake of doing that in mid-stream. In the meantime the agents of the PDP planted in the CPC are doing their best to discredit their own party for daring to challenge Jonathan’s election!
One of the first things Jonathan did as president was to round up some of the most retrogressive individuals in the country and give them national honours. One of them is Patricia Etteh, the disgraced former speaker of the lower house. His SGF has serious allegations of corruption surrounding him. His ministers may not be any different.
Now with all these credibility problems surrounding Jonathan, many people still support him based solely on the fact that he is a Christian and a southerner, nothing more, nothing less. Indeed we have heard it said many times that it was God who ordained that he should be president at this time!
Now compare a man whose brief public service has been trailed by allegations of corruption, some well documented, from the time he was governor to now that he is the president, with the man who has been in public service for much longer and has no credible allegation of corruption against him. Add to that the fact that the first has no known political philosophy, no vision to speak of.
Compare that to the fact that the latter has shown what he is capable of doing with political power, and that it was largely for the good of his country, his vision having been put into action with very good results. Consider also the fact that allegations of election rigging have trailed the former, both personally and as a member of a well known election rigging party, while the latter has made no attempt whatsoever to rig elections. Add to that, finally, the fact that the former has been president almost as long as the latter has been president. The difference is clear, isn’t it? But if after all these you still want to claim that Buhari is not good enough to lead the country because he a Moslem or because he is from the north, then how do you escape the charge that you are a religious fanatic and an ethnic bigot?
I’ve never hidden my admiration for Buhari, especially at this point in the history of our nation. But that makes the task I stated above a lot easier for me. I am neither a Moslem nor a northerner. So my support for Buhari is based solely on what he stands for. But let me quickly add that Buhari’s personality and the qualities that endear him to me and millions of other Nigerians have nothing to do with the accidental fact that he happens to be a Moslem and a northerner. He was neither the first northerner nor the first Moslem to lead Nigeria. But the difference between him and the rest is clear.
Even Buhari’s worst enemies know what he stands for. They know that he is a man of integrity. They know he is incorruptible. And most importantly, they know that there will be zero tolerance for corruption (past and present) if he becomes president. He said he would like to know what happened to the 16 billion dollars spent in the last twelve years to give Nigerians more darkness. Jonathan can never say anything like that. Long before Sanusi Lamido Sanusi told a shocked nation that the country spends 25% of its budget on the members of the National Assembly as emoluments, Buhari had already called for a downward review of that jumbo pay. If Buhari were the president, the nation would not have spent billions for the inauguration of the president in a nation where children have no modern classrooms, where the basic amenities that poorer countries in Africa take for granted are lacking. So, when those powerful enemies of Buhari began to advance their straw man argument to paint him as a religious fanatic and an ethnic bigot, they knew exactly what they were doing: warding off a real danger to the protection of their past, present and future loot. And because they were very powerful, they were able to spread their propaganda, what with journalists who were all too willing to help in that unpatriotic mission. Even many reasonable people from the south fell for the subterfuge, especially after the violent bloodshed that followed the presidential election. But was Buhari responsible for that violence? 
During the presidential campaign, Buhari was being blamed for the violence that was being instigated by the PDP wherever he went. Bombs were going off left, right and centre, and many people, including youth corpers, were killed in the bomb blasts. In Gombe state in particular, where the entourage of President Jonathan was stoned during a campaign, and their campaign headquarters his party was vandalized, the governor, Alhaji Danjuma Goje, was quick to blame Buhari’s supporters. Buhari even apologized, saying: ‘‘The governor has made this allegation against my supporters and I must say that we are not violent people but if the allegation has anything to do with any of those who received us, I tender apology for such and I want you to give my apology to the president.’’ Later, another PDP man, namely Alhaji Abubakar Muazu, accused the governor of lying about the incident in order to smear Buhari’s name. Muazu revealed that it was the governor who called Buhari and requested for a courtesy visit. It was a set up! Muazu continued: “The governor lied to the president on the issue of stoning and vandalism. The governor sent his thugs to the office to destroy and finish all the things left in the office.” Muazu also revealed the motive of the governor in planning the attacks: “The governor was only trying to give the impression that there was no security so that the president would give directive to the governor to arrest the CPC people in the state. The governor is doing it because he wants his sons-in-law contesting for the House of Representatives in Gombe Funakye and Kwami federal constituency and Dukku and Nafada federal constituency to have an easy election. He wanted to use the excuse of the attack to arrest the CPC candidates in those constituencies.” Muazu concluded that if the president had acted on that lie, Gombe would have been on fire.
This is quite revealing when one considers what happened after the presidential elections in some parts of the north that literally went on fire. Is it possible that, as El Rufai, a PDP insider, stated in a recent interview, the attack on southerners was instigated by the PDP chieftains who bore the brunt of the attack in the first two days? What I know is that Buhari did not ask anyone to go to the streets, knowing that it could get out of hand. Indeed, he did the exact opposite: He asked his supporters to be law abiding as the party had decided to challenge the elections in the courts. In that statement, Buhari stated that those who were burning churches and mosques were not his supporters. Knowing that no one has been able to point out a lie this man ever told in his long years in public service, I am willing to presume him innocent until proven guilty.
What many people miss about Buhari is that he is not all about fighting corruption. Here is a man with a bold vision for his country, whose word as good as his bond. The example is there for those who want to see. In his 18 months as president, he gave Nigerians a sense of belonging. Education received an attention that no other administration has given to it ever since. Nigerians began to see what it means to behave in a disciplined manner, what it means to live in a clean environment, what it means to have an economy that is worth the name, what it means to make things work. In short, what it means to lead by example. Buhari’s fight against corruption was only one aspect of his vision for the country he loves so much.
Buhari, of course, is not a saint. He is often rigid in his principles. But even this weakness, if weakness it is, is what Nigerians need in a president at this point: a president who says what he does and does what he says.
For Nigeria to claim its rightful place in the comity of nations, she needs a Buhari. It may not necessarily be this General Muhammad Yassim Yinusa Buhari. But it has to be somebody, man or woman, who has inculcated the values that make Buhari what he is.
Give me that and I won’t care where such a president comes from, his or her religion, ethnic affiliation, or age.