The traducers of this government are becoming increasingly vile and desperate.
It is unthinkable how anyone can see Buba Galadima as a rallying point in galvanizing an opposition to PMB’s govt. As the spokesperson of the defunct CPC, one of the legacy parties that formed APC, I am very competent to talk/ write about Buba Galadima. He is garrulous and traitorous; crude and rude; adversarial and mediaeval!
He is a very delusional bloke, who confuses or mistakes loquacity for erudition. He relishes generous control of the media space with his inimitably virulent bombast and demagogy! Without a doubt, his mastery of Hausa and Kanuri languages gives him a leverage in whipping the crowd into frenzy at political rallies. But that is how far it goes because his legendary indiscipline and nauseous narcissism easily even out whatever positives he packs as intrinsic values.
One of the notable encounters I had with him is indelibly etched on my memory:
CPC’s National Chairman, Prince Tony Momoh, instituted a weekly management committee meeting for ensuring smooth governance of the Party. In his wisdom, he ensured that each meeting commenced and ended with Islamic and Christian prayers, depending on which order was preferred. On this particular day, the meeting was to commence with Christian prayers. Pastor E. Folorunso Longe, the National Financial Secretary, an Osun state Christian, was called upon to lead the opening prayer. Just as he commenced praying, Buba Galadima also commenced a noisy telephone conversation. In a bid to put down Buba’s peculiar nuisance, Pastor Longe raised the decibel level of his voice. With sheer infernal feistiness, Buba also raised the decibel level of his already loud conversation. The atmosphere was understandably engendering high entropy.
Fortunately, Pastor Longe was sitting next to me, so it was easy for me to gently tap his shoulder; he opened his eyes and I told him, “stop praying!” He complied. Then, I turned to Buba, who sat opposite me across the table, ” Buba, please continue with your phone call. When you finish, Pastor Longe shall pray and then we start the meeting,” I intoned.
Whether it was what I said or he voluntarily did it, I noticed that Buba’s phone fell on the table. So I told him, ” since you are no longer making your call, it means Pastor Longe can continue with prayer!” We proceeded to have a successful meeting.
Prince Tony Momoh was born in 1939 and Buba Galadima in 1951, but anyone, who witnessed the irreverent and utterly pugnacious manner the national Secretary often castigated the Party’s chairman, would instantly understand the predilection of Buba to acerbic commentary.
Buba Galadima is more of political liability than asset to any group he decides to identify with.
Has anyone ever thought why, for three consecutive presidential elections, GMB never made being crowned as President while Buba Galadima held sway, but only made it in 2015 when he (Buba Galadima) was declared persona non grata from the precinct of GMB’s interests??? The answer is simple, Buba Galadima was never committed to the cause but another traitorous hypocrite! He openly and brazenly displayed the obscenity of his romance with the political adversaries of GMB. Whilst being the National Secretary of CPC, Buba Galadima rode (without prickly conscience) the Kia Sorento car, ostensibly given to him by a PDP governor!
He was unabashedly committed to trading off GMB’s goodwill for pecuniary gains. In Bauchi, Kano, Kogi, Jigawa, Katsina, Sokoto, Gombe,etc the same tales reverberate of Buba’s chicanery, in using his powerful office in changing people’s political destinies for his own gains!
Did he truly desire the merger of CPC with other legacy parties to form APC? Of course not! In meetings, he openly advanced the views that CPC could stand alone and win the Presidency! The unsuspecting listeners did not know the underpinning of crass opportunism in his position. For twelve years of his forays into constitutional democracy, GMB was held hostage as a Northern regional leader for the sole profiting of the likes of Buba Galadima. So, any attempt to give him a national appeal was rebuffed because it would disrupt the sole proprietary rights to the brand by a tiny clique!
I have often heard Buba Galadima countering the argument that it is not true that he did not want merger because his signature was in the merger document deposited with INEC. My riposte to his position is, did he really have any other choice? The stipulation of the electoral act is that, for any merger of parties to have force of the law, the National Chairman, the National Secretary and the National Treasurer of the merging parties must append their signature to the application! Gratefully, it was the Chairman of BoT of defunct CPC, General Muhammadu Buhari, who brought a memo to the Board of Trustees, canvassing the need for merger! Afterwards, a special convention of CPC was convened to ratify the position of CPC BoT! So, in all of these, did Buba Galadima really have any other choice than to concur ?
In 2014, after GMB rebuffed Buba Galadima’s entreaties for warming himself into reckoning, he ‘ported’ his support for Engr Rabiu Kwakwanso in the APC’s presidential primaries. He was obviously swayed by his cotravellers in untrammeled treachery, but could only deliver less than one-third of the votes garnered by GMB in that election. It was a crushing defeat for Buba Galadima with the vestiges of his garrulous impudence!
After that defeat, I asked what was his occupation and he said his major focus was farming. With this latest return to his natural pastime of open-ended treachery, it is obvious that another crushing and, inexorably, career-shattering defeat is ‘loading!’
God bless Nigeria.
- Engr. Fashakin was former National Publicity Secretary of Defunct CPC.
