President Goodluck Jonathan’s bid to seek the support of Bauchi people ahead of the February 14th Presidential election turned bloody yesterday. Six operatives of the Department of State Security, DSS, were hospitalized after sustaining varying degrees of injuries from the fracas that ensued after the rally. The President met a hostile crowd, with brooms and stones both on the road and at the rally venue. The President landed at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Airport around 11am and went straight to the palace of the Emir of Bauchi, Alhaji Rilwan Suleiman Adamu to pay homage . When the President’s convoy drove out of the palace, some youths displaced brooms and posters of APC candidates while some showed that of President Jonathan and his deputy. While some of the youths hailed the President, some merely displayed brooms to show lack of support for the President and some went violent. The situation however got worse as the President’s convoy entered the Ibrahim Babangida Square for the rally, the hostile youths started throwing stones at the convoy. It took the intervention of security men on ground to chase the youths away and reduce the impact of their actions even though some vehicles in the convoy had little scars. The atmosphere at the venue was tense as the rally had to be rushed. The violent youths who had been chased out by security men, made their way back inside as the President’s convoy was leaving the rally venue. They attacked the last bus on the convoy which contained the DSS operatives with a big stone which smashed the windscreen and caused injuries for the occupants. Six of the occupants were rushed to a nearby hospital. While four of them who only needed minor treatment were discharged immediately, another two, a lady and a man who had deep cuts on their heads which required bandages and other serious measures were still taking treatment at the time of filing this report. Officials told our reporter on ground that the two seriously wounded officers will be flied back to Abuja for further treatment as soon as possible.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Organisation has made it clear that the party will oppose to the plot by the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to postpone next month’s general elections as is currently being canvassed by the National Security Adviser, Colonel Sambo Dasuki (retired). In a statement signed in Abuja by its Director of Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu today, the APC Campaign said such a proposal as being contemplated is ill-advised. “We smelt the plot that this unpopular PDP Federal Government would do anything to stay put in power, elongation of term had always been on the President’s agenda; no wonder he and his party want the election delayed or cancelled outright to effect and extension of their lackluster administration,” Shehu said. “Gone were the days when a few persons can hold the destiny of our dear nation to ransom. In fact, Nigerians would have called for an early election than February, if our political system is parliamentary. For Jonathan’s government is worse than a rotten egg. It’s smelly, full of sleaze, neck deep in corruption and uncaring. Two vital organs of government have downed tools for nearly two months – the health and judicial sectors and he does not give a damn! “The nation’s currency (naira) is daily plummeting in value, the oil sector in virtual comatose, the economy runs on deficit, unemployment skyrocketing, insecurity on the loose, decaying infrastructure and a loss of sound national image. Nigerians have never had it so bad. Hence, any delay or postponement of the elections amounts to testing the patience of the people. We are all tired of a corrupt government, one full of ineptitude, incompetence and lack of ideas. Nobody can scuttle our hard-earned democracy in Nigeria.”
On Monday, Nigerians were treated to a political ad sponsored by the Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose, where he tried to shoot down the All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), by warning us of the man’s impending “death”. The ad, without any attempt at subtlety avers: Buhari is old, will soon die and must not be voted into office so we can avoid the conundrum that usually accompanies the death of a President/Head of State. We might have been used to Fayose and his excessiveness, political “rascality”, narcissism, and barbarity but with the ad, he overdid himself and wiped any doubt that he will be tempered by the ennobling culture of the office he occupies. Fayose’s efforts, let’s quickly remind ourselves, is not about the survival of the nation but his own survival in the political game. He pushed beyond the boundaries of ethics and morals for even a game of war like politics and also desecrated cultural values and social mores. For a superstitious society, the way we read the ad also winks at deep-seated beliefs about transcendental power of “ase” that exists in the atmosphere; how “ase” can compel things to happen when we wield words. There is no equivocation about it, what Fayose did is uncultured. But then, we should know it is not out of tune with his nature. However, the “good” thing about the whole affair is that Fayose not only effectively conveyed the depth of his own desperation but that of his coterie as well. We know Fayose’s political future is largely dependent on the way the 2015 elections cookie crumbles. For a man who claimed he spent time in Nigeria’s political wilderness after he was impeached as governor, his political future is largely dependent on the Peoples Democratic Party presidential victory. It is therefore understandable why he has turned to the PDP’s lickspittle, the one who will run errands that even a night soil man will consider beneath his dignity. If the PDP loses the Presidency, he knows the ground beneath his feet will give way. Unless, of course, as is the wont of most Nigerian politicians, he quickly defects and becomes, of course a progressive! He would not be the last to make a quick rehash of being a broom-loving politician from a former umbrella holding one. Femi Fani-Kayode, the newly installed media and publicity honcho of the PDP has crossed and re-crossed several times that who he works for is a matter of what the clock says and whose house the party is taking place. The “death-ad” may carry therefore Fayose’s name but one cannot rule out that he has the endorsement of the PDP even if the party has dissociated itself from it. His desperation is equally a reflection of how frantic the party is about which way the election will turn out. Far from the PDP’s executing its vaunted pre-2015 “issue-based campaign” and shorn of an agenda for the next four years, its manifesto can be summed up in one word: Buhari. Since the campaign season started, Buhari has been its perfidious recurring decimal. He is their daytime nightmare and night-time wraith. They have practically abandoned the marketing of their own agenda to the reactionary task of discrediting Buhari. Try ask them what their manifesto is because you want to assess their plans for Nigeria post-2015 elections, or inquire about the content of the “continuity” agenda, you can be sure they will go to sleep only for them to awaken to another Buhari chant. Even if Nigerians have been living under Olumo Rock all this while, the PDP can take it for granted we know all the antecedents of Buhari; we do not need charlatans to beat us on the head with it. Many “alawada” and other hustlers in the fold of the umbrella have been parroting the mantra of what their candidate has revived but can barely stay on that subject before mouthing Buhari. It is, always, Buhari did this and that; Buhari will do this and that; Buhari! Buhari! Buhari, as if bashing Buhari is what will increase the value of the naira or make our refineries work to full capacity. I shudder to think what will become of us if a “moonslide” is once more foisted on Nigerians. To think they started campaigning six months ago and now that they need to prove themselves with far more urgency, they can barely articulate how they plan to consolidate on the gains they have made in the past five years in office. What Fayose did on Monday is to extend the edges of the PDP’s Buhari obsession. Suppose they have been campaigning based on issues that affect Nigerians, one would have exonerated them from the tactlessness exhibited by their boy Friday. Fayose is not alone in parroting the nostrum of ageism in a manner that makes you wonder if they are taking the election seriously at all. The height of clowning is Fani-Kayode, who, rather than engage Buhari in a logical interlocution, asked the man to jog round a stadium! I was left to wonder if the talent deployed in his comedic anticlimax would not be best appreciated in a B-comedy; at least, that will be a more dignified way to earn one’s bread. To their shame, the PDP has besotted this campaign season with cringe-worthy pettiness such as the issue of Buhari’s “semi-illiteracy”, computer literacy, the expensive lifestyle of Zahra Buhari, a jog to nowhere and forgotten phone numbers. Do not get me wrong, their strategy, obviously, is to damage the Buhari brand – something perfectly legitimate in a political contest – but they have expended much time and energy on Buhari that he overshadows the substance of their own candidate. If the incumbent can descend to pettiness as has been done in the past few weeks, it should be an indication of the vagueness of what they have to offer. What should worry the PDP about Buhari’s surging popularity is how they themselves wilfully contributed to it. They have failed Nigeria so badly that a man like Buhari – who has been rejected thrice – now gathers momentum such that he looks new and shiny. The PDP should have known that their four years would be up someday and they would have to face Nigerians. When they had the chance, they took Nigerians for granted. Now that elections draw close, they want to scare the nation with the possibility of Buhari’s death. Sorry, Fayose and the PDP, what is at stake now is no longer just about life and death but change. And for some people, even if the “change” is only change for change’s sake.
As Nigeria approaches its most divisive and closely fought election since the end of military rule in 1999, its leaders are having to reassure voters that Africa’s most populous nation will remain in one piece. The February 14 vote, pitting President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian popular in his southern oil-producing Niger Delta region and in the east, against former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, a Muslim favoured in the north and religiously mixed southwest, is already proving violent, with the electorate in Africa’s biggest economy more polarised than for decades. “Despite the much-vaunted fear that our nation may not survive the elections … I remain optimistic that we have … the maturity to rise above the challenges,” Senate President David Mark told parliament last week. “Our nation will not disintegrate after the elections.” Ever since 1914, when Britain carved Nigeria out of a swathe of West Africa that was home to diverse peoples speaking more than 500 languages, it has been dogged by the question of how viable it is as a unified nation state. However, most analysts say that even if serious bloodshed follows the election, as many expect, the worst-case scenario of a break-up of a country of 180 million people remains unlikely. “Nigeria has an enormous capacity to absorb risk,” the International Crisis Group’s Africa director Comfort Ero said. “While there are significant concerns about the elections, we are not predicting break-up.” “WAITING TO EXPLODE” However, she added that the republic was “in deep trouble, probably more than at any time since the end of military rule … or even the civil war.” The last time a bit of Nigeria tried to secede, it triggered the 1960s Biafra civil war in which more than a million people died. After that it seemed Nigerians were better off together. But as the election cycle has hotted up, some have floated the idea of division, and Boko Haram insurgents controlling territory the size of Belgium in the northeast are waging an increasingly bloody campaign for a breakaway Islamic state. Separately, dozens of people die every month in ethnic violence in the Middle Belt, where the largely Christian south and mostly Muslim north meet across a patchwork of minority groups that are likely to be split between the two candidates. “Nigeria is bursting at the seams with ethno-religious … problems waiting to explode,” columnist Bayo Oluwasanmi wrote in the African Herald Express, a local daily, last month. “Competition in the coming 2015 presidential election could break the already tattered ties that keep Nigeria whole.” That is probably hyperbole but there are signs the elections could trigger violence that may not be as easy to quell as in 2011, when Buhari’s loss to Jonathan triggered three days of riots in the north that killed 800 and displaced 65,000. Besides regional and ethnic differences, Buhari is also a protest vote for many who say Jonathan has failed to tackle insecurity and corruption, Nigerians’ two biggest complaints, and who was seen as tough on both when he ruled in the 1980s. The pair hugged as they signed a peace pact last week, but clashes between thugs from the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Buhari’s opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) have marred campaign rallies, and the rhetoric remains poisonous and sometimes tinged with religion. Last year the PDP accused the APC of a “devilish plot” to impose an “Islamic agenda” on Nigeria, a dangerous appeal to religious sentiment, while Jonathan has played up his Christian identity, forging ties with hardline evangelical pastors. PDP state governor Ibrahim Shema had to retract a speech in November in which he described APC supporters as “cockroaches” and urged the crowd to “crush them”, a chilling echo of Hutu militia radio broadcasts during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. On the other side, APC governor Rotimi Amaechi said this month that if the poll was not fair, the opposition would set up a “parallel government”, as happened after a disputed election in Ivory Coast in 2010. “If they deny Buhari victory, it could mean civil war because both sides are so dug in,” prominent northern opposition politician Mohammed Junaidu told Reuters. The 2010 Ivory Coast election did spark a civil war but the country was already militarily divided, which Nigeria is not. In Kenya in 2007, a disputed election triggered three weeks of ethnic bloodshed that killed 1,200, a toll that would be far higher in Nigeria where there are many more people and weapons. Ultimately what makes these polls so dicey is that they are a genuine contest, said John Campbell, a former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria and fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. By running in 2011 Jonathan broke an agreement with northern elites, in their minds at least, that it was the north’s ‘turn’ to field a president. Now such regional deals are in tatters. “In the past there has been a kind of consensus among the people who run Nigeria … Elections at the presidential level were largely predetermined,” Campbell said. “What we are talking about now are real elections, with a polarised electorate.”
Former Vice President and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Atiku Abubakar has said that the general elections in the country should hold as scheduled next month, and that government must not tinker with the option of postponing the timelines for the elections. “Yes, we have a problem with the distribution of PVCs but the position of my party, the APC is that since we have a voters’ register then that should be used in conducting the elections. I also believe there is enough time between now and the elections to issue everyone with their PVCs,” Atiku said shortly on arrival to the country. The former Vice President, who landed at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport today after a medical vacation trip, said the call made by the National Security Adviser, Col Sambo Dasuki, for a postponement of the elections as scheduled next month, was uncalled for and portends a dangerous signal about the intentions of the Federal Government to conduct a free, fair and credible poll in February. Atiku was quoted to have said in the statement signed by his media office that he is “strong, healthy and happy” to be back to lend his support to the train of change sweeping across the country. “The duty of participating in the process of change which our great party, the APC is committed to supersedes every other consideration. For me, participating in this campaign is a call to national duty. “It is a duty which we cannot afford to compromise upon and we must press into the consciousness of those at the helms of affairs that it is morally dubious and socially unacceptable to extend the dates of the elections by a single day from the scheduled timelines,” the former Vice President said.
File Photo: President Jonathan, Vice president Namadi Sambo and Emir of Bauchi
President Goodluck Jonathan has complained at the palace of the Emir of Bauchi, Alhaji Rilwan Suleiman Adamu that his administration has achieved a lot but that regretting that the ongoing Boko Haram violent campaign is taking attention away from such achievements. In continuation of his nationwide campaign for re-election, President told the Emir and other members of the Bauchi Traditional Council that his administration will soon put an end to the insurgency. Jonathan said that his government had worked hard to reposition agriculture, promising that if re- elected, he will work with Bauchi leaders to develop the abundant mineral resources in the state as part of measures to diversify the country’s economy away from crude oil. “When we moved round in 2011, we got massive support from you and since then, we have been working hard to justify your support. Insha Allahu, we will also succeed this time. “The unfortunate Boko Haram excesses are taking attention away from our numerous achievements. Everybody wants security, everybody wants to be safe and to be able to move freely. I am therefore assuring you that we will bring the situation to a reasonable degree and will eventually end it very soon. “We have worked very hard to improve agriculture and ended decades of fertilizer scam. We want Nigerian farmers to crop three times a year. “We are thinking of different options to fully diversify our economy due to the fall in the global price of oil and Bauchi is one of the states we will tap into its solid mineral potentials.” The Emir thanked Jonathan for the respect and love he has for the traditional institution. He also commended his efforts on the ongoing efforts to end insurgency in the northeast, expressing hope that the missing Chibok school girls will be found soon. He commended the President’s commitment to free and fair elections as well as the Abuja peace pact, adding that the pact will make Nigerians enbrace peace and avoid acrimony. He told the President to bear in mind that only God gives power and He alone gives it anytime he wishes. “We appreciate your love and respect to the traditional institution. Only God gives power, anytime He wishes. I urge you and other candidates for different offices to bear this in mind in your campaigns. Politicians should work towards making Nigeria a stronger regional and sub regional force. “I encourage and commend you on the efforts you are making on the issue of insecurity and we are hoping and praying that our Chibok girls will be out soon. “We also appreciate your expressed commitment to free and fair elections and the signing of the Abuja Peace accord as it will encourage our people to embrace peace instead of acrimony.” The President was accompanied to the palace by Vice President Namadi Sambo, National chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Ahmadu Ali, Minister of FCT, Bala Mohammed and many other party leaders.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Organisation has petitioned the Inspector General of Police, Suleiman Abba over what it called “the PDP morbid advertisement” sponsored by Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State and published on the cover pages of two national dailies of 19th January, 2015. In the petition signed by the Governor of Rivers State and Director General of the Campaign, Rotimi Amaechi, the APC Presidential Campaign condemned PDP and Fayose for portraying its candidate, General Buhari as a dead man walking to scare Nigerians from voting for him in the February 14 election. According to the petition, the portrayal of Buhari as a likely to die in office just like past northern leaders such as Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, General Sani Abacha and General Murtala Mohammed was “morbid and reckless” and that such irresponsible political advert is not only “in bad taste, but also capable of undermining law and order in the country.” The strongly-worded petition said that insinuating death for a man who is still alive based on unscientific logic or prediction is capable of causing a breach of the peace across the country. The APC Campaign petition also drew the attention of the IGP to the fact that Fayose’s advert violated the spirit and letter of the Ambassador Kofi Annan initiative which, which had Nigerian political parties and their presidential candidates sign a peace accord. It therefore urged the IGP to investigate the origin of Fayose’s “sinister and inhuman” advert and call him to order with a view to preventing a repeat of such provocative publication in the interest of peace. The APC Campaign said that copies of the petition have been sent to the Department of State Security (DSS), Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) and The Sun and The Punch newspapers. Meanwhile, APC has said that it prefers not to respond to the provocations of Fani-Kayode, but rather engage him on issues that have the potential to bring the greatest good for the greatest number of Nigerians. Meanwhile the Director of Media and Publicity of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, Mallam Garba Shehu has described as laughable, the PDP’s hold-on to the educational qualifications of the APC presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari, even when the matter has been exhaustively laid to rest. Reacting to his counterpart in PDP, Femi Fani-Kayode’s statement asking General Buhari to report himself to Police for perjury, Garba Shehu said: “It is not our desire in the APC presidential campaign organisation to join an individual who has a record of talking to please the moment on any petty issue. At some point in the recent past, it was convenient for Fani-Kayode to say this of the APC and its leaders: ‘What Nigerians need now is to join hands with the APC leaders, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari and Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu to move the nation forward.’ Today, a Fani-Kayode sees no desecration in recanting that same position, just to satisfy his convenience. “The APC and its candidate are in this presidential campaign to discuss issues that will improve the standard of living of Nigerians and ensure that the people of this country are properly secured. Whenever the PDP and its presidential campaign spokesman feel ready to join us on this noble path, we will not be willing to join them on petty issues.” He noted that these distractions are being promoted in order to provide a blanket cover over the shortcomings of the Jonathan administration in the areas of security, employment, war against corruption and infrastructure. “Nigerians need no telling that all these distractions and provocations by Jonathan, the PDP and their cohorts are aimed at ensuring that they escape scrutiny over their score card marked by insecurity, unemployment and rampant corruption.”
The Igbo Internet thugs who campaign for Goodluck Jonathan are an utter disgrace to humankind. They are, indeed, a strange species of homo sapiens. Maybe, they are a hybrid of homo erectus and home sapiens! Their actions are hardly compatible with those of people who have what the French call l’amour propre, self esteem or self worth.
A little over a year ago, Femi Fani-Kayode wrote a series of horrible articles well circulated in the media against the Igbo. Falling short of calling for Igbo extermination, Femi confessed his great admiration for Adolf Hitler’s Mien kempf, probably the most racist book in world history. All manner of people who called themselves Igbo Internet warriors were calling for his head. You would naturally expect them to kick against Jonathan’s recent appointment of Femi Fani-Kayode as the director of media and publicity of his reelection campaign, thus becoming the face and voice of the president, an Ijaw who has strangely been portrayed as an Igbo. But far from taking exception to this sacrilege, the self-styled Internet warriors, whom Oby Ezekwesili memorably calls Internet thugs, are rather now in cahoots with Femi! They quote him approvingly every minute. Why? Femi has a huge propaganda budget! Most of these Internet warriors are on his payroll, and their principal duty is to besmirch the integrity of Muhammadu Buhari, apart from raising cudgels, knives, daggers and guns against thoughtful Igbo people who raise questions about the propriety of their action. The Great Zik of Africa was fond of describing such irresponsible characters as knaves.
The knaves enthusiastically circulated a forged hospital document alleging that Buhari has prostate cancer. Just before this forgery, they reported online that Buhari had fainted at a campaign rally and was rushed to a hospital even when the same characters were commenting on Buhari’s ongoing campaign stumps in different parts of the country!
As Jonathan was about to visit Onitsha last week, they circulated a picture of a bridge under construction somewhere but mischievously claimed that it is the so-called Second Niger Bridge which becomes relevant to the president only during electioneering campaigns. The essence of circulating the false picture was to deceive their own Igbo people into believing that work on the mythical bridge had taken off in earnest. How some Igbo Internet fraudsters could have the courage to “419” or swindle their own people in broad daylight in order to please an Ijaw president and turn round to claim that they are the champions of Igbo interests remains one of the greatest mysteries of our time. It is revealing of the kind of ethics of the government in Abuja and their supporters all over Nigeria. It is also revealing of why some people in Nigeria and elsewhere think that the Igbo have too many Judas Iscariots, too many people eager to kill even their own family members for a mess of porridge.
On a personal note, I am deeply worried about the enthusiasm of a couple of professionals and Pentecostal pastors in this forum to indulge in this fraud in the name of politics. They need be reminded in public that certain actions of theirs do cause tremendous and eternal violence to their personal and professional reputations, to say nothing about their supposed religious callings. They are advised to read up the idea of the scandal of perception in Catholic theology. Put succinctly, their utterances and actions as ordained ministers of God or equivalent could cause some believers to lose faith in God.
President Goodluck Jonathan has vowed not to allow any retrogressive force to dislodge the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from government and that he will continue to do his best for the people of Bauchi state and Nigeria in general. The President who spoke at the Ibrahim Babangida Square in Bauchi today as part of his campaign for re-election, said that with the continued support of Bauchi people and Nigerians in general, no ‘retrogressive force’ will be able to dislodge the ruling party. The President told party faithful who gathered for the rally that no amount of opposition will also be allowed to halt the good work his administration is doing for Bauchi people. He urged the people to vote PDP candidates at all levels, saying that his administration will continue to empower youths with education, skill acquisition programmes and job creation so that politicians will stop using them to perpetrate violence. The President acknowledged that the state is very rich in agricultural potentials, adding that his administration had therefore built a lot of dams for the state. He also told the gathering to ask those who are instigating the youths to violence, to ask them what they have done for the people. President Jonathan said that the great Nigerians produced by the state among whom was foremost nationalist, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, never instigated Nigerians against each other. “The great man never instigated us against each other. He preached peace, unity and oneness. No retrogressive force can push PDP behind. We must continue to empower our youths through job creation, training and formal education so that the politicians will not continue to use us for negative activities. This state has strong agricultural potentials. We have been building dams across the states to boost the sector. “The people who are instigating us cannot tell us what they they have done for us. Keep supporting the PDP, we will work with you for more democratic dividends.” Speaking earlier, Akwa Ibom governor, Godswill Akpabio reminded the people that insurgency wasn’t created by Jonathan, adding that even the late Boko Haram founder, Mohammed Yusuf was not killed under Jonathan. He urged the people to support PDP at all levels.
Director of Media and Publicity of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Organisation, Femi Fani-Kayode has asked the Presidential candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC), General Muhammadu Buhari to submit himself to the police to answer the cjarge of perjury. “We reiterate our call on Gen Buhari to submit himself to the police to answer charges of perjury, having lied on oath about his academic qualifications. This is what a man who claims to represent integrity and due process ought to do in this situation.” Fani-Kayode, at a press conference today in Abuja, also called on the authors and masterminds of result of General Buhari, which he said, were forged to come forward and be identified. “If they fail to come forward voluntarily, we hereby call on the Police and other security Agencies to seek them out, find them, arrest them, interrogate them and prosecute them in accordance with the laws of the land.” The PDP Presidential campaign spokesman said that it is unfortunate that the more General Buhari tries to extricate himself from the certificate crisis, the more he stumbles into a new phase in the unfolding narrative of his obvious complicity in a matter that borders on perjury and which has called his avowed integrity to question. He said that a few hours after General Buhari’s Press conference in Kano, some documents appeared on various Media platforms purporting to be the APC candidate’s results released by his old school. “Having carefully studied the statement of Result signed by the “school principal” and an “examination officer” of the Government College, Katsina, as well as the attached document titled UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE WEST AFRICA SCHOOL CERTIFICATE 1961, we wish to make the following observations and comments: “The results sheet which was attributed to the Cambridge examination body is clearly a super imposition of one document on another as you will shortly see in the enlarged image of the result sheet as published. The column lines on the part where names are printed do not align with the blank columns while there is an introduction of extraneous lines on some other columns. ( PLEASE SEE IMAGE ON SCREEN) “The document contains an obvious alteration on the Mathematics column of the candidate, Mohamed Buhari, who was assumed to have scored an “F” in the subject. This raises a very fundamental issue of validity in view of the fact that the accompanying result sheet states that “any alteration or erasure renders this statement of Results invalid.” This is the standard practice in all interpretation of documents especially academic records. The question we put to Gen Buhari and his party is whether this alteration was done by the University of Cambridge. “One of the footnotes on the document purportedly issued by the University of Cambridge says “the results of this candidate in all subjects except English Language have been carried forward from the 1960 examination.” The question arising from this is: When exactly did Buhari sit for all the other subjects claimed to have been passed in the Secondary School Examination? “Our conclusion from all these is that the documents purportedly released by Government College (Pilot) Katsina, upon which the APC Presidential candidates hopes to bury the doubt about his eligibility for next month’s election are forged, manipulated and fraudulently procured. They are therefore untenable in fact and in law.”
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President Goodluck Jonathan’s bid to seek the support of Bauchi people ahead of the February 14th Presidential election turned bloody yesterday.
Buhari: What Has Death Got To Do With It? BY Abimbola Adelakun
On Monday, Nigerians were treated to a political ad sponsored by the Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose, where he tried to shoot down the All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), by warning us of the man’s impending “death”. The ad, without any attempt at subtlety avers: Buhari is old, will soon die and must not be voted into office so we can avoid the conundrum that usually accompanies the death of a President/Head of State.
We might have been used to Fayose and his excessiveness, political “rascality”, narcissism, and barbarity but with the ad, he overdid himself and wiped any doubt that he will be tempered by the ennobling culture of the office he occupies. Fayose’s efforts, let’s quickly remind ourselves, is not about the survival of the nation but his own survival in the political game. He pushed beyond the boundaries of ethics and morals for even a game of war like politics and also desecrated cultural values and social mores. For a superstitious society, the way we read the ad also winks at deep-seated beliefs about transcendental power of “ase” that exists in the atmosphere; how “ase” can compel things to happen when we wield words. There is no equivocation about it, what Fayose did is uncultured. But then, we should know it is not out of tune with his nature.
However, the “good” thing about the whole affair is that Fayose not only effectively conveyed the depth of his own desperation but that of his coterie as well. We know Fayose’s political future is largely dependent on the way the 2015 elections cookie crumbles. For a man who claimed he spent time in Nigeria’s political wilderness after he was impeached as governor, his political future is largely dependent on the Peoples Democratic Party presidential victory. It is therefore understandable why he has turned to the PDP’s lickspittle, the one who will run errands that even a night soil man will consider beneath his dignity. If the PDP loses the Presidency, he knows the ground beneath his feet will give way. Unless, of course, as is the wont of most Nigerian politicians, he quickly defects and becomes, of course a progressive! He would not be the last to make a quick rehash of being a broom-loving politician from a former umbrella holding one. Femi Fani-Kayode, the newly installed media and publicity honcho of the PDP has crossed and re-crossed several times that who he works for is a matter of what the clock says and whose house the party is taking place.
The “death-ad” may carry therefore Fayose’s name but one cannot rule out that he has the endorsement of the PDP even if the party has dissociated itself from it. His desperation is equally a reflection of how frantic the party is about which way the election will turn out. Far from the PDP’s executing its vaunted pre-2015 “issue-based campaign” and shorn of an agenda for the next four years, its manifesto can be summed up in one word: Buhari.
Since the campaign season started, Buhari has been its perfidious recurring decimal. He is their daytime nightmare and night-time wraith. They have practically abandoned the marketing of their own agenda to the reactionary task of discrediting Buhari. Try ask them what their manifesto is because you want to assess their plans for Nigeria post-2015 elections, or inquire about the content of the “continuity” agenda, you can be sure they will go to sleep only for them to awaken to another Buhari chant.
Even if Nigerians have been living under Olumo Rock all this while, the PDP can take it for granted we know all the antecedents of Buhari; we do not need charlatans to beat us on the head with it. Many “alawada” and other hustlers in the fold of the umbrella have been parroting the mantra of what their candidate has revived but can barely stay on that subject before mouthing Buhari. It is, always, Buhari did this and that; Buhari will do this and that; Buhari! Buhari! Buhari, as if bashing Buhari is what will increase the value of the naira or make our refineries work to full capacity.
I shudder to think what will become of us if a “moonslide” is once more foisted on Nigerians. To think they started campaigning six months ago and now that they need to prove themselves with far more urgency, they can barely articulate how they plan to consolidate on the gains they have made in the past five years in office. What Fayose did on Monday is to extend the edges of the PDP’s Buhari obsession. Suppose they have been campaigning based on issues that affect Nigerians, one would have exonerated them from the tactlessness exhibited by their boy Friday.
Fayose is not alone in parroting the nostrum of ageism in a manner that makes you wonder if they are taking the election seriously at all. The height of clowning is Fani-Kayode, who, rather than engage Buhari in a logical interlocution, asked the man to jog round a stadium! I was left to wonder if the talent deployed in his comedic anticlimax would not be best appreciated in a B-comedy; at least, that will be a more dignified way to earn one’s bread. To their shame, the PDP has besotted this campaign season with cringe-worthy pettiness such as the issue of Buhari’s “semi-illiteracy”, computer literacy, the expensive lifestyle of Zahra Buhari, a jog to nowhere and forgotten phone numbers.
Do not get me wrong, their strategy, obviously, is to damage the Buhari brand – something perfectly legitimate in a political contest – but they have expended much time and energy on Buhari that he overshadows the substance of their own candidate. If the incumbent can descend to pettiness as has been done in the past few weeks, it should be an indication of the vagueness of what they have to offer.
What should worry the PDP about Buhari’s surging popularity is how they themselves wilfully contributed to it. They have failed Nigeria so badly that a man like Buhari – who has been rejected thrice – now gathers momentum such that he looks new and shiny. The PDP should have known that their four years would be up someday and they would have to face Nigerians. When they had the chance, they took Nigerians for granted. Now that elections draw close, they want to scare the nation with the possibility of Buhari’s death.
Sorry, Fayose and the PDP, what is at stake now is no longer just about life and death but change. And for some people, even if the “change” is only change for change’s sake.
[myad]