Unless by some cruel twist of fate, the impending presidential duel between APC’s duo of Buhari and Osinbajo on one-hand and PDP’s Jonathan and Namadi on the other, is a mismatch made in heaven that will break a new dawn for a beleaguered nation. The selection of Osinbajo as Buhari’s running mate, to me, is the icing on the cake in the determined match to free this country from the vice grip of a buccaneering leadership. By escaping the ‘same faith’ ticket otherwise called Muslim-Muslim’, APC, warts and all, is set to make history as the coalition that would rout the ‘behemoth’ PDP.
I had no quarrel with a Muslim-Muslim ticket 21 years ago. I do now. A ticket like that can’t withstand the propaganda of Metuh and Oritsejafor. If the party had succumbed to the temptation of fielding a Buhari and a Tinubu docket, PDP will just sit cross-legged and savour victory in February. In today’s Nigeria, faith and face decide political fate.
In 1993 a ticket like that with Abiola-Kingibe as flag bearers of the SDP, was coasting to victory until the junta at the time, truncated it. I recall that the duo of late Abiola and Kingibe were simply unstoppable by the rambunctious propaganda mounted by the twosome of Tofa and Ugoh of the NRC. Tacitly encouraged by a dribbling military government in power, the propaganda was pointedly ignored by a much more informed and secured citizenry. In Kano for instance, voters traditionally leftist, voted Abiola to the shock of the son of the soil Bashir Tofa. At the time, Abiola as an individual connected with the people of Kano more than the haughty Tofa. When Abiola and Kingibe ran, there was no Boko Haram. These chaps, all of them misguided, are the biggest threat to the corporate existence of our dear nation. In the past, the idea of a dismembered Nigeria was ‘thinkable’ but not ‘doable’ at least not along the razor thin line of religion. Presently the idea has taken roots in the mind of separatists mainly for power.
Twenty-one years ago, we didn’t have elders speaking like militants. There was, for instance, no Northern Elders Forum matching a certain Asari Dokuboh vile for vile, threat for threat. We didn’t have a professor dignifying a street urchin with a response in a language fit only for those bred in the gutter. In 1993,there was no private jet owning, snazzy, junketing minister standing up to a ‘permanent Amrul Hajj’ Sultan not distinguished by scholarship or austerity. We didn’t have MEND or MOSSOB and for the heck of it, Boko Haram. And we didn’t have social media where separatists across the divide liberally mix fact and fiction to bamboozle the gullible.
In 2015,it would have been decidedly suicidal to field a Muslim-Muslim ticket to rout Jonathan. Under his watch, the fault lines were and are still exploited to then hilt. A Buhari-Tinubu ticket would have been a dream in driving more wedges into a festering sore by the ruling party.
Both GMB and GEJ are running on their record. The former is banking on a thirty-year record of an iron-fisted rule. He trampled on a lot of feet. As military maximum ruler, he took no prisoners. In 20 short months, he stamped his authority as no ‘nonsense’ strongman. His rule hit the elite more. That is not to say the downtrodden were spared. They were ‘whipped’ into line. The war against indiscipline made the masses tremble in fear of not queuing to board a bus. In Buhari’s Nigeria in 1984,it was a crime to litter the streets.
It won’t be the first time GMB will square with GEJ. Nearly four years ago, an ill prepared Buhari went to the polls against a better-prepared Jonathan supported by a strong political party and stronger sentiments. One such was the shoeless hoodwink.
Four years later, Jonathan is squaring with Buhari progressively weakened. His party is debilitated. The voters have wizened up to the to the trick of sentiments. The current president promised big but delivered at the height of pygmy. In four years he frittered the goodwill he mustered. His biggest albatross is the moral burden of coming across as untrustworthy. In 2010 in the build up to the presidential election, he promised to serve only one term but half way into his mandate, he began to show signs he is prepared to carry the cross of an apprentice politician whose word is not his bond.
The eggs heads in the APC should be jumping for joy. There are several reasons why they should beat the drums of delight. But three suffice. One, from this day forward, Doyin Okupe, a self-labeled “attack lion”, should be legally called a ‘bastard’. Recall his vow several months ago that should the APC lasts a year, his name should be changed to a ‘bastard’. In July 2015,it would be two years.
Two, the party has managed the out come of a keenly contested party primary. The expected acrimony has not occurred to the chagrin of possibly ‘bastard’ Okupe. General Buhari’s ‘no contest’ resounding victory at the presidential primary was foretold. But the galloping win was unforeseen. All of us, ‘pundits’, gurus and charlatans never thought he would ‘sprint’ away with 60 percent of the delegates’ votes. As a political star gazer myself, I had predicted a “close call”. I saw a tightly contested race between the former Head of state and the former Vice President and a current governor coming a distant third.
But the primary shocked many. One, I am pretty certain, was Buhari himself. Two is Atiku and third, Kwankwaso. But all that now is history. The third reason for celebration is the choice of Osinbajo as Buhari’s running mate.
In shelving his ambition to be no2, Bola Tinubu has come across as a statesman for once. His cross is only one-faith. Had he insisted, the APC challenge will have been dead on arrival. But thankfully he has sheathed his sword of vice presidential ambition.
Buhari and Osinbajo have a tough task if they eventually win. The pair is not magicians but from their profile and proven integrity, they are a mismatch of the Jonathan and Sambo. Their ticket is made in heaven.
