Buhari: Which South-West?

By Akin Osuntokun
There is tragic irony in the choice of Professor Yemi Osinbajo as the South-west answer to the Muhammadu Buhari deficit in Yoruba-land. To be counted as a credential of the nominee would be the fact that he is married to the granddaughter of the late political juggernaut, Chief Obafemi Awolowo.
I expect that very soon a much orchestrated campaign visit to Ikenne would materialise where the reinvented Buhari would plant a specially packaged millennia peck (sharia permitting) on Mama HID Awolowo’s century old cheeks. Yet one of the mindless cruelties and victimisation of Awolowo’s political camp by then military head of state, General Muhammadu Buhari, was the seizure of Awolowo’s international passport, which resulted in the consequence of not being able to go for his annual medical check-up for the first time in his adult life (Awolowo died two years later in 1987). In tandem, the residential abode of the political icon in Lagos and Ikenne were besieged and ransacked by Buhari’s security goons.
Beyond the factor of the compensatory concession of the presidency to the Yoruba in 1999, the next crucial determinant of former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s success at the presidential election in 1999 was the political reciprocity of the ‘north’ to his candidacy. Shunned by his geo-political constituency of the South-west, he was practically adopted by the north as political payback for his generous identification with the region in deed and precept, when he was the military head of state. By the same token, the question begs to be asked — what is the political debt of gratitude that the South-west owes Buhari? At the time Buhari seized power, the government of Alhaji Lateef Jakande had embarked on a turnkey infrastructural project that would have had a revolutionary mobility impact on the economy of the South-west in particular and Nigeria in general. The project was the construction of a light rail city wide system known as the Lagos metro line-an infrastructure that had proved indispensable to the evolution of all developed economies.
Can we for a moment imagine the consequence of the absence of the sub-way rail transportation system for the London or New York mega polis? One of the first steps Buhari took as military head of state was the cancellation of this socio-economic transformative project. And the tragedy did not stop there. For violating the terms of the contract of the project, Nigeria had to pay a penalty of about $600 million. And again, the tragedy did not stop there. The penalty of $600 million actually translated to over 60 per cent of the entire cost of delivering the project-yet this was the choice Buhari made.
How a man so socially and economically obtuse and cruel can now be peddled as the solution to the problems substantially created by the megalomaniac misdeeds of rulers like him beats the imagination hollow. On October 13, 2000, Buhari led a delegation of prominent Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) personalities including General Buba Marwa, Alhaji Aliko Muhammed, Alhaji Abdulrazak, Alhaji Hassan and some others to confront Governor Lam Adesina of Oyo State in Ibadan on his characteristic divisive platform.
Said Buhari: “Your Excellency, our arrival here is to discuss with you and your government our displeasure about the incident of clashes between two peoples, my people and your people…The Fulani cattle rearers and merchants are today being harassed, attacked and killed in Saki like in any war. In the month of May 2000, 68 bodies of Fulani cattle rearers were recovered and buried under the supervision and protection from a team of Mobile Police from Oyo State Command.” The unfounded allegation provoked a response from the Oyo State police commissioner: “First to speak was the Commissioner of Police who debunked all the claims made by the General. Instead of the claims by the General that the natives were killing the Fulanis, the police commissioner said pointedly that the opposite was the case.
The killings of the natives by the Fulanis were duly reported to the police and, of course, we can’t make arrest because as soon as they kill they migrate to other areas. Who are you going to arrest? So that is the problem.” Governor Adesina concluded by questioning Buhari’s patriotism and nationalism and made a telling reference to the subversive role he was, at the material time, playing against the Obasanjo government:
“My appeal will be that effort must be made to unite this country and that will be to the best interest of all Nigerians. I am appealing to the Arewa Consultative Forum under which auspices our distinguished Nigerians are here. In recent times, they have been sending wrong signals to a number of us who believe in the unity and peace of Nigeria. You have been too critical of the efforts of the federal government.
I am saying this because Nigeria at this point cannot afford to break and words you northern leaders utter are very weighty. At the South here, we normally analyse them critically.” In a rather self-debasing manner Nigerians are being told they lack discipline and are in dire need of task master Buhari as antidote, but is there a greater act of indiscipline imaginable than an army officer taking arms against the state to overthrow a democratically elected government?
If in the improbable event of Buhari been elected president, on what ground would we stand to condemn a military coup against his government? And consistent with this treasonable predisposition, his campaign organisation recently went on record as openly declaring support for Army mutiny.
What greater lack of discipline is there than a former ruler of Nigeria habitually lapsing into parochial laden ethno-regional fulminations; regularly throwing Buharispeak tantrums on his preconceived sense of entitlement to the presidency of Nigeria-the dog and the baboon will soak in blood; not treating the Boko Haram insurgents like the Niger Delta militants amounts to an injustice against the North… What of the anti-corruption avenging angel platform? We may not need to wait too long for substantial answers to this query-as we eagerly await the release of the report of the inquiry into the activities of the defunct Petroleum Trust (special) Fund (PTF) under his executive chairmanship.
Did saint Buhari not absolve the late General Sani Abacha (under whom the PTF was established and lasted) of any iota of corruption even as governments and banks the world over were returning tonnes of Abacha stolen dollars to Nigeria? And is it not instructive that even before the election, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has been begging off from its candidate’s vaunted platform of anti-corruption? – as attested by the amnesty on corruption issued by party chairman, John Oyegun, a few days ago “the future of the people of this country is too important for us to spend valuable time trying to dig into the past”.