Jonathan, Buhari and 2015

Group Politics Editor, TAIWO ADISA, examines the brouhaha thrown up by the latest comments by former Head of State, General Muhammadu Buhari, on the possible outcome of 2015 elections.
Former Head of State, General Muhammadu Buhari, again stirred the hornet’s nest on Tuesday when he declared that the nation could witness a  bloody outcome, if politicians go ahead to rig the 2015 election. Buhari, who spoke in Hausa, while receiving loyalists of his Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) from Niger who paid him a courtesy visit in Kaduna, warned that 2015 would be bloody, if transparent elections were not conducted. He also said he was yet to throw his hat into the ring for the 2015 presidential poll. Buhari, whose comments ahead of the 2011 elections were suspects and seen in some quarters as fueling the spate of violence witnessed after the elections, had declared that if what happened in 2011 repeats itself in 2015, the country could just be soaked in blood.

Ahead of the 2011 election, Buhari had stirred a similar controversy which was interpreted as a call to arms on his supporters to unleash violence.
Though his party denied the claim, many believe that the General had spoken too vehemently and that his decision to shed tears in one of the campaigns was enough to raise temperature among some youths.  While the comments which tended to violence then was said to have been misconstrued, his main challenger, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, had responded by saying that his vote was not worth the blood of any Nigerian.

But just as Nigerians were trying to put all that behind, Buhari struck again on Tuesday, this time, raising the bar. Although the statement has again been met by controversy, there is the indication that, indeed, the former Head of State spoke about the possibility of blood flowing on the streets, if certain things happen.

The General, who in a parable painted the picture of a bloody battle for survival between dogs and baboons, warned that leaders who failed to conduct credible elections could be forced to bow out with ignominy.

He was quoted as saying: “God willing, by 2015, something will happen. They either conduct a free and fair election or they go a very disgraceful way.
“If what happened in 2011 (alleged rigging) should again happen in 2015, by the grace of God, the dog and the baboon would all be soaked in blood.”
Buhari, however, did not use his own words while talking about the state of insecurity in the land.

“I will like to quote Professor Ango Abdullahi who said there are three Boko Harams including the original one led by Muhammed Yusufu who was killed and his supporters tried to take revenge by attacking the law enforcement agencies and politicians. There is another developed Boko Haram of criminals who steal and kill… while the biggest Boko Haram is the Federal Government.”

“Since the leaders now don’t listen to anybody but do whatever they wish, there is nothing the North can do.”

The General further commented on the oil subsidy probe and the failure of the oil sector thus: “The current leadership of the country has destroyed the petroleum industry. These kind of things can only happen under the type of leadership Nigeria has. Nowhere in the world can such things happen and no where in the world can government increase the cost of petroleum products by over 120 per cent. It is most insensitive. Besides the air people breath, the next important thing to them are petroleum products.

“Unfortunately for me, I know more about petroleum industry than others in government because I was there for over three years as a leader. We started with the Port-Harcourt Refinery producing 60,000 barrels per day. It was upgraded to 100,000 barrels per day. Another one was built there (Port-Harcourt) producing over 150,000 barrels making a total of 250,000 barrels per day purely on Nigerian crude.”

His declarations immediately sparked a row of protest from the Presidency and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The Presidency, which was rather reacting to a familiar foe, described Buhari’s statements as unfortunate and unbecoming of a former Nigerian Head of State.

The statement by the Special Adviser, Media and Publicity to President Goodluck Jonathan, Dr. Reuben Abati, read: “The attention of the Presidency has been drawn to unfortunate statements in the media made by former Head of State and presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Major General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) in which he allegedly predicted bloodshed in 2015 and labelled the Federal Government led by President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, as ‘the biggest Boko Haram.’

“Perhaps, the most unfortunate part of the statement was the portion in which Buhari said that, ‘since the leaders now don’t listen to anybody but do whatever they wish, there is nothing the North can do.’

“We find it very sad that an elder statesman who once presided over the entirety of Nigeria can reduce himself to a regional leader who speaks for only a part of Nigeria.

“We now understand what his protégé and former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Malam Nasir el’Rufai, meant when he wrote in a public letter in October of 2010, telling Nigerians that Buhari remains ‘perpetually unelectable’ and that Buhari’s ‘insensitivity to Nigeria’s diversity and his parochial focus are already well-known.’

“Who can know Buhari better than his own political associate? Come to think of it, as the CPC presidential candidate in the 2011 election, how many states in the federation did he visit to campaign for votes? Buhari never bothered to campaign in the Southern part of the country and consistently played up the North-South divide to the chagrin of patriotic and well-meaning Nigerians.

“As the results revealed, Nigerians will never vote for anyone who wants to divide the country. Is Buhari going to continue to be a sectional leader?
“The Federal Government, led by President Jonathan is not Boko Haram. Boko Haram means Western education is sin. That being the case, one wonders how a government that devoted the largest allocation in the 2012 budget to education could be said to be Boko Haram.

“Between 1983, when Buhari forcefully seized power from the democratically elected administration of President Shehu Usman Shagari, and 2012, no other administration has committed the same quantum of resources as the Jonathan-led administration to education in the part of Nigeria that has witnessed the most Boko Haram-related insecurity.

“Only on April 10, 2012, President Jonathan commissioned the first of 400 Federal Government Model Almajiri Schools, equipped with modern facilities such as a language laboratory, Qur’an recitation hall, classrooms and dormitories as well as a clinic, vocational workshop, dining hall and quarters for the mallams.

“As Nigerians read this, more of such schools have been completed.

“We now challenge Major General Buhari (rtd) to tell Nigerians what he has done, whether in his capacity as the head of a military junta or in his private capacity, to bring education to vulnerable children. If he cannot live up to this challenge, perhaps, he has to reassess who really is Boko Haram.

“Buhari claims that the Federal Government does not listen. Such an accusation ought not to emanate from a man overthrown by his own hand-picked colleagues in the military for refusing to listen to advice and behaving as if he had a monopoly of knowledge.

“It is on record that the Federal Government, led by President Jonathan, is a listening administration, hence, its decision to pursue all means of resolving the Boko Haram insurgency, including through dialogue.

“When Buhari says that ‘if what happens in 2011 should again happen in 2015, by the grace of God, the dog and the baboon would all be soaked in blood,’ we hereby state that it is Buhari himself who does not listen. He has obviously refused to listen to the Nigerian people, the European Union, the Commonwealth Monitoring Group, the African Union and a multitude of independent electoral monitors who testified that the 2011 elections were free and fair and ‘the best elections since Nigeria returned to civil rule.’

“Indeed, such a reaction from Buhari is not totally unexpected since he has become a serial election loser who has never taken his past election defeats graciously even when such elections were generally acknowledged to be free and fair.
“Still on the issue of Boko Haram, we wonder what locus a man whose party’s Secretary General, Buba Galadima, told the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in December, 2010, that the Federal Government is underestimating the support base of Boko Haram, has to accuse a government that has been threatened on camera by the leaders of Boko Haram of itself being Boko Haram?

“Major General Buhari (rtd) also boasts of his knowledge of the Petroleum Industry because of his time as Federal Commissioner for Petroleum. We wonder why he did not boast of the infamous scandal that occurred in that ministry where, under his watch, billions of naira (in the 1970s), were reported stolen, a matter which led to the setting up of the Justice Ayo Irikefe-led panel.

“Finally, we wish to make it known to Buhari that given his reference to ‘dogs and baboons,’ perhaps, his best course of action would be to travel to the zoo of his imagination because President Goodluck Jonathan was elected by human beings to preside over human beings and it is human beings who will determine what happens in Nigeria at any material time, not ‘dogs and baboons.’”

While also speaking on Buhari’s declaration, spokesman of the PDP, Chief Olisah Metuh, accused the General of setting the stage for bloodletting in future elections. He asked Northern leaders to call Buhari to order.

He said: “It is very clear that the CPC presidential candidate in the 2011 elections is already setting the stage for another round of bloodletting akin to what happened after the 2011 general elections. I must state that the PDP finds it very disturbing that in spite of the serious security challenges facing the country, Buhari, a former military Head of State, is once again inciting people to take the law into their hands.

“We need to remind ourselves that on April 21, Buhari was reported in the media as predicting a bloody revolution in 2015. The reports in the national dailies quoting the same retired General as repeating that blood will flow in 2015 is another build-up to Buhari’s relish of funeral train.

“It is on record that Nigeria is yet to recover from the huge losses it suffered due to such reckless and provocative remarks by Buhari before the 2011 general elections which led to a spate of bloody post-election violence across six states of the federation.”

But Buhari’s political party, the CPC and the opposition Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) appear on the same page in the unfolding drama. While the CPC saw nothing wrong in Buhari’s declaration, the ACN said it was not alarmed because Buhari was only calling attention to the need for credible elections.
CPC, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Rotimi Fashakin, said Buhari’s comments were taken out of context adding that the General was speaking out of altruistic tendencies.

“The Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) has noted the response of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, as president of Nigeria, to the altruistic statement credited to our national leader, General Muhammadu Buhari wherein he had stated inter-alia of dire consequences for the perpetual riggers of our electoral process in 2015. In the statement signed by Dr. Reuben Abati, Special Adviser to the President on Media, Buhari was grotesquely characterised as a sectional leader,” Fashakin stated.
He stated that though Buhari has been out of power for 28 years, his influence has continued to grow among a broad spectrum of Nigerians, including, according to him, the General’s adversaries.

The CPC further said: “Buhari was quoted as saying that the Jonathan-led Federal Government is the greatest Boko-Haram. Understandably, this elicited awful response from the president. In a jejune, puerile, and very pedestrian communication, the presidential spokesman defined Boko-Haram as ‘Western education is sin’ and went on to posit the administration’s investment in education. How awkwardly inane could that be?

“It is common knowledge that Boko-Haram has become the euphemism for subtlety in devious schemes that cause mass killings of the innocents. As Buhari aptly stated, Boko Haram has three variants, with varying degrees of severity and murderous content: the original Boko-haram that seeks to avenge the extra-judicial killing of its leader by the Nigeria Police; the Boko Haram that pursues criminality for monetary gains and of course, the political Boko Haram that is bent on setting the stage for ethno-religious pogrom in the Nigerian nation. It is the political Boko Haram, with its extremely lethal content, that the Jonathan-led Federal Government represents.

“In January 2012, Dr. Jonathan told a bewildered nation, still smarting from murderous bombings, that his government has been infiltrated by Boko Haram.”

In its statement on Wednesday, the ACN said the statement by Buhari was ‘nothing but a warning against those who may be planning to rig the 2015 general elections, hence, it should not have rankled anyone who believes in free, fair and transparent polls.’

The party further said: “we hold no brief for anyone, but it is true that if elections are rigged, as they have been so shamelessly and brazenly done by the PDP since 1999, naturally people will react, and in doing so, it is impossible for anyone to predict how far things can go. This is what, in our opinion, General Buhari warned against. If the Presidency and the PDP have no intention to rig in 2015, why are they so worried about the consequences of such action?’’

While the various political tendencies in the land are already picking their take on the statements credited to the former Head of State, it has become imperative to raise certain questions. The questions have become compelling in view of the claims coming from Buhari’s camp that the call for violence was a twist from the media. It is on record that twice in recent times, Buhari’s comments have created some commotions, perhaps, needless from a former Nigerian leader. Answers to some of the questions could further provide insights into the Buhari persona. A commentator might want to ask why Buhari’s statements are prone to misinterpretation. Is there anything in the General’s voice that creates some form of steely resistance and possible call to arms? What is his source of anger or bitterness? What type of election will be acceptable to him and what are the indices of free and fair election? If he was referring to 2011 election as rigged, does it mean that he rejects the submission of the Supreme Court on the matter? For a man who had risen to the highest position in the land to shed tears at a campaign function presupposes some deep feelings that, perhaps, need full deconstruction. Are there certain things Buhari strongly wants to put across but he has not found the right accommodation to do so? Why does he tend to speak with vehemence and anger against the system? 

Though experts in Hausa language have tried to x-ray the intents of the words used by the General in that encounter with his party men, most of the interpreters came to the conclusion that there were references to a fierce battle for survival, which could lead to bloodshed.

Lessons being drawn from the latest spat on the comments by General Buhari tend to confirm that anyone who rises to the position of leadership need to be circumspect in making public pronouncements. Besides the fact that some fairly educated fellows, who see him as their idol could misinterpret the intends of any strong words as a call to arms, some might deliberately take the words out of context to cause mayhem.