THE presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Major- General Mohammadu Buhari is no ordinary Nigerian. In fact, going by recent political developments that began with the dogged and uncertain emergence of the mega opposition party, the APC, it could be said without equivocation that Buhari, is a man of destiny. He is not contesting for nothing. There is the hand of providence in the ongoing contest he is involved in, as those who should wish him well, have wished him death.
It is not for nothing that a man like Buhari is taking the fourth shot at the Presidency. The question is what is that thing that keeps on propelling him, never discouraging him? In his three previous attempts to govern the country, the ruling party in alliance with enemies of the Nigerian people who thrive on the enslavement and pauperization of our people have successfully stopped him. This time around, following the emergence of APC as a party, a national platform, to stop Buhari is no longer easy. The effort to stop him has become hysterical because the idea of a Buhari Presidency is an idea whose time has come!
This particular 2015 electioneering campaign in Nigeria will go down in our history as one never seen before. It is one election where a political party that has been in power since 1999 and has used power to intimidate and pauperize the majority of Nigerians is so worried to lose power which belongs to the people. These characters in the PDP are campaigning without respect for God and Man, and as if they have not only seen tomorrow but already know tomorrow.
For them, everything about Buhari is an issue. His health at 72. This writer has lived in Nigeria since 1983 when Buhari was military Head of State, till date and not for one day can I remember that Buhari was flown abroad for medical treatment as most of them who wish him dead and who say he would not live long because he is 72 years old are wont to do and have often done, including the incumbent President whose supporters are committing these abominable acts. One has been taught that life and death is determined by God but the PDP of today by their actions tell us that they can wish it or decree it. What would make a leading and ruling political party on the African continent go to the extent of procuring a false medical report about a political opponent insinuating that the man has a terminal illness, all in the effort to deceive the Nigerian voter and present their hope for change from PDP’s arrogant misrule in the person of Muhammadu Buhari, as a sickling, unfit and unelectable person? This writer is heartened that in its fright about certain defeat, the PDP election machine and intellectual power has lost focus and rather have succumbed to the disease of unbridled lust for power which ultimately consumes the power seeker!
It is nauseating that the PDP under President Jonathan which is running helter- skelter to stay in office in 2015 and beyond should accuse the APC and its candidate of being desperate for power. One is able to understand this accusation as the problem of poor diction in view of the subsisting intellectual paralysis that gripped the party at all levels. Pray, who qualifies as desperate power seeker, the candidate of a newly-formed coalition or that of a party that has been in power for nearly 16 years? There is nothing the PDP has not tried. As a bully, it moved fast to impose a non-violent pact on Buhari and his party while in Rivers State and elsewhere it regularly visits the APC and its supporters with physical and verbal violence!
Knowing the brutal politics of the PDP in recent times, what the party and its pretentious leaders and supporters want from the APC and its Presidential candidate, is for the latter not to complain or cry out no matter what it sees and what the PDP does. In fact, the PDP wants to be free to rig the forthcoming polls while the APC should not shout. It’s like a typical neighborhood roughian who goes about hitting young people in his area and as he hits any one, he quickly puts his hand over his victim’s mouth to prevent an outcry that would attract the neighbors.
Nigerians have been very fair to the People’s Democratic Party for allowing it remain in power for the past nearly 16 years. If the party believed that it held power in trust for the people and sees inevitable change in the horizon, the best responsible attitude is to prepare hand-over notes! However the attitude of the party in power is to frustrate the change, no matter the consequences for the nation because it had never held power nor even pretended it held it for the public good. A nation, including an individual might be courting catastrophe for opposing inevitable change. Any entity that fails to recognize change when its time has come is caught unawares and swept into oblivion by the tide.
Buhari is not a threat to the PDP or its candidate. The threat to the PDP and President Jonathan is CHANGE whose time has come for Nigeria, if this nation must survive and still be counted in the next 50 years as an African country in the world. Therefore, the PDP should query the Nigerian people who in their hearts and minds want change which they see as the only remedy to the hopeless and slavish condition of insecurity, growing national poverty of the majority and stealing of the financial and natural wealth of the nation.
The PDP has done very well for its self and its candidate, President Jonathan. The party caused many of its patriotic and committed members to leave in anger for the sake of Jonathan. Second, it passed a decree via an executive endorsement which made President Jonathan its sole Presidential candidate. In shock and disbelief and as a last resort, the Nigerian people identified the fledgling APC. What else does PDP want? Should the nation cease to exist so that its beloved candidate, Goodluck Jonathan can continue to rule it?
Louis Okoroma is a Political Analyst based in Abuja.
