The emergence of All Progressives Congress (APC) after the 2011 presidential elections was considered by many Nigerians fed up with the mediocre performance of the federal government as a great opportunity for credible opposition to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, the PDP.
As is well known, APC emerged from the amalgamation of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and a splinter group from All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). The foundation members of the party were convinced that they would end PDP’s stranglehold on political power at the federal level and majority of the states in future elections.
In addition, the noise and momentum that heralded the entry of APC into the stochastic ecology of Nigerian politics reflects the negative feeling in certain quarters that members of the PDP are using the party’s preeminent position in the power equation to distribute the national cake amongst themselves leaving merely the crumbs for others “outside the umbrella.” According to Harold Laski, a noted political scientist, exclusion from power is also exclusion from the benefits of power.
Thus, the core motivation behind the formation of APC is consonant with Laski’s largely correct dictum, because pioneer members of the party who lost out in the power game won by the PDP in 2011 still wanted to remain politically relevant and share the benefits of power at the centre if the latter loses out in subsequent elections.
Like the PDP, APC is ideologically barren. The difference between the programmes of action formulated by the two parties is analogous to the difference between six and half a dozen. Most prominent APC members, such as Aminu Bello Masari, Bisi Akande, Bola Tinubu, Muhammadu Buhari etc., are conservative politicians without solid antecedents in what might be called progressive politics – never mind Tinubu’s ineffectual attempt to project himself as a “progressive” because of his membership of the defunct National Democratic Coalition (NADECO). The only progressive thing about APC is the occurrence of that word in its name. There is nothing to show that the party is positively and radically different from the PDP, based on which the electorate would prefer its candidates to those of the ruling party when the time for voting comes.
But many gullible politicians thought differently: they believed that APC constitutes the much-needed paradigm-shift from the shambolic performance of the ruling PDP to something better. As a result, some prominent PDP members, including serving and former governors, legislators, former presidential candidates, and so on decamped to the APC. For a brief period, it appeared that the party might eventually swallow up PDP. Of course, nothing lasts forever, especially in an ever-changing terrain as politics. Presently, the momentum for APC has died down; in fact, there is a reverse momentum in favour of the PDP, the latest and most visible of which is Nuhu Ribadu, former presidential candidate of ACN and APC stalwart.
Having sketched in the preceding paragraphs a silhouette of APC, it is time to focus on the main thrust of our discussion, namely, the inconsistencies and contradictions of Muhammadu Buhari, who has just paid a whopping N27.5 million for the presidential nomination form of his party. Buhari was thrust into public consciousness in January 1984 when he became military head of state after the overthrow of Shehu Shagari. Buhari and his deputy, late Tunde Idiagbon, inaugurated a dictatorial regime anchored on War Against Indiscipline (WAI).
Despite the egregious errors committed by that regime, especially in the areas of human rights abuses and draconian laws (like Decree 4) that severely curtailed freedom of the press, Buhari and Idiagbon were praised all over the country for their efforts to instill discipline in Nigerians. For example, politicians found guilty of corruption by anti-corruption tribunals were sentenced to long prison terms and hefty fines, regular environmental sanitation exercise was introduced, and soldiers enforced the queuing culture, etc.
Hence, after Buhari was toppled in August 27, 1985 and the government of Ibrahim Babangida, which took over eventually, upturned some of the measures instituted by Buhari and Idiagbon to stamp out corruption and indiscipline in governance, leading to the recrudescence of corruption and financial rascality, Nigerians started appreciating the positive side of Buhari’s regime.
With time, the feeling grew that Buhari is a disciplined anti-corruption crusader who is prepared to take on corruption even at the highest levels of political power. People still remember nostalgically the readiness and tenacity of purpose with which Buhari and Idiagbon tackled corrupt politicians, culminating in the failed attempt to repatriate Umaru Dikko surreptitiously so that he would face corruption charges leveled against him.
Since his exit from government, Buhari has been trying to project an image of himself as an honest, detribalised and incorruptible political leader deeply concerned about the deteriorating condition of life in the country. Unfortunately, over the years Buhari’s reputation has been sullied by inconsistencies and serious errors of judgment.
To begin with, Buhari was minister of petroleum in the military regime of Olusegun Obasanjo. While he was still serving, it was reported that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) could not account for $2.8 billion that accrued to the federal government from crude oil sales. Since then, Buhari had been trying to explain away the scandal. However, his refusal to appear before the Oputa Panel to address the matter conclusively made discerning Nigerians to wonder whether the former military head of state was hiding a $2.8 billion-sized skeleton in his cupboard.
One would have expected Buhari, given his much talked about anti-corruption stance, to avail himself of the opportunity to state all he knew (and did not know) about the missing money, not the least because $2.8 billion is a gigantic sum that can make a positive difference in Nigeria’s economy. To the best of my knowledge, Buhari has yet to give a satisfactory explanation of what transpired. Only die-hard Buharists like Tam David-West think that the former petroleum minister absolutely has no case to answer on the issue.
Again, Buhari seems not to realise that, by associating closely with prominent people of questionable character, he is invariably telling Nigerians that, in terms of character, he is not so different from them. The military dictatorship of Sani Abacha was undoubtedly corrupt. That much is clear from the hundreds of millions of dollars which have been identified by foreign countries and banks as funds stashed away by the late dictator. An English adage says, “Birds of the same feather flock together.” In my view, Buhari accepted the post of chairman, Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) under Abacha probably for self rehabilitation, having been unceremoniously kicked out of office by Babangida and his cohorts about a decade earlier. Having worked for Abacha, is it possible that Buhari was completely inoculated from the virus of corruption associated with the Abacha regime?
When Buhari was chairman, more PTF projects were executed in the north than in the south; moreover, of the six geopolitical zones in the country, the south east geopolitical zone got the least number of projects. A detribalised Nigerian would not be so biased in distributing federal projects to favour his own region. A probe of the activities and accounts of the trust fund in 2000 revealed that billions of naira were stolen under Buhari’s watch. There is no evidence linking Buhari directly to the missing money.
by ROTMANLUV 2023-07-08, 17:34
