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Kenny Ashaka, Kaduna
The saying that nobody gives what he doesn’t have, appears apt in describing what is playing out in the North between incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari and candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and his main opponent, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
At issue now in the North is the challenge to supporters of the two main contenders to demonstrate by formal proof who will be Nigeria’s president this Saturday. It is not the first time the two candidates will be trying to outwit one another. Buhari, a retired general, former head of state, and then the presidential candidate of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) slugged it out with Atiku Abubakar who was the candidate of the Action Congress (AC) in 2007.
Ahead of this Saturday, while an elect circle of influential northerners appear to be rooting for Atiku, Buhari appears to still enjoy the support of the Talakawas. Thus, it would be difficult to achieve unison of spirit in their voting pattern like it happened in the 2015 presidential poll.
Perhaps for the first time, the North, will recourse to an unpredictable voting and perceptual structure. Tanko Yakassai, the cerebral nonagenarian and former President Shehu Shagari’s Liason Officer to the National Assembly believes the North this time around will be stubbornly resistant to authority and a voting convention that is not capable of being foretold.
“I am more at home with the present situation than the 2015 situation. Why I am at home is that the serious contentious issues such as religion, ethnicity, and sectionalism are now not part of the campaigns. In 2015 those three issues drove the campaigns because Buhari was from the North, was Hausa-Fulani and a Muslim. Jonathan who contested against him was an Ijaw man from the South and a Christian.
“So now these three controversial issues are no longer present. Now the two major contestants, Buhari and Atiku are from the same ethnic group, same section of the country and same religion. So these controversial issues are no longer the driving forces. So what should be the programme issue is: how are they going to make Nigeria better than it has been. So, I hope they will do that but not in the way it was done previously,” Yakassai said.
As it is, the PDP appears to be stopping at nothing to break into the strongholds and support bases of the APC in the demarcated areas of the North.
“The campaigns are going on and strategic contacts are being made and the areas of Buhari’s key supporters such as the peasant farmers, traders, members of the Ulamas, these are the key support areas and these areas are being poached because virtually all of them are not happy. There is the issue of betrayal and failure of implementation of promise. So, most of them are not happy”, Umar Ardo, Secretary of the Northern Leaders and Stakeholders Assembly, a political but non-partisan group of northern elites told Daily Sun.
Many of the elites say the war against Buhari is based on his politics of exclusion and the indigence, penury, want, increased destitution, need, necessity, privation, distress and the straitened circumstances besetting their dependants.
But Buhari believes that those in the category mentioned by the elites will give his re-election bid boost. In most of the states he has been to in the North, he tells the masses pointedly that those opposed to his re-election bid were doing so because he prevented them from stealing the country’s money.
For Atiku, many say he has only shown that he is a politician only forcibly compelled by ambition and who will do anything to achieve his political desire. The idea is being impressed on the downtrodden in the North that the PDP standard bearer is a schemer who tries to gain advantage and whose predominant mood is his presidential ambition. Those peddling this idea believe that Atiku cannot be trusted because, according to them, “he has no political ideology and principles.”
Atiku’s critics believe that he is not rightly positioned as a successor to Buhari in the current political trajectory. To these campaigners, Atiku will first have to go through striking change in character trait to be able to measure up to a transformational leader that can turn around the economy they once abused.
But many political analysts in the North believe that Atiku would not enter the presidential race without being sure that he would give President Muhammadu Buhari a run for his money in the face of the incumbent’s waning popularity.
For Buhari, even though his electoral fortunes appears tied to the absolute support he may get from the downtrodden, his victory, pundits say, is firmly in the hands of people who will do anything to make sure that he does not preside over the affairs of this country again.
For instance, the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), led by Ango Abdullahi and many Northern youths organisations are in a backward direction to his re-election bid. This class of Northerners abhors putting their fate again in the hands of a few who they claim “did not bake the cake during Buhari’s first coming in 2015 but who have now constituted themselves into persons united in close designs, promoting their private views and interests to the detriment of the nation’s wellbeing.”
And Dr. Junaid Mohammed, PRP Chief Whip and Parliamentary leader and one of the vocal voices in the Second Republic echoed their feelings. Mohammed warned in one of his interviews that “…if they want to rig the election and of course they have the wherewithal, the means of violence, the armed forces, the police, the para-military and what have you and they want to rig the election, I want to assure you if they rig this election there may not be Nigeria again.”
If anyone is in doubt of the seriousness in Mohammed’s warning, he speaks more on the potentially risky and damaging course of action. Hear him: “… And let me also tell you something that will surprise you. The crisis may not even begin in the south, it may begin here in the North because northerners have looked and have found there is nothing Buhari did for them. And I challenge anybody to tell me what Buhari did.”
The choice of who carries the day is now being drowned in the uncouth and disagreeable sounds of endorsements and defections, mostly from those close to the two candidates.
For example, about a week after Alhaji Muhammadu Ilyasu Bashar, (Major-General Muhammadu Jega) the Emir of Gwandu and Buhari’s course mate and friend in a tacit manner endorsed Atiku by praying for his success during the presidential election at the Abdullahi Fodio palace, the Lamido of Adamawa, Atiku’s paramount ruler under whom Atiku is the foremost Councillor with the title of Waziri Adamawa, expressed support for the candidacy of Buhari. The Lamido of Adamawa said: “The giant strides you recorded in various fields of our endeavours such as economy, security, and fight against corruption, which still remain the cornerstone of your agenda, would not have been made possible if not for your resilient focus, passion, and love for the country.
“Mr. President, there is no doubt that much has been achieved during your present tenure but certainly you need more time to actualise your dream for a better Nigeria. This, therefore, calls for all and sundry to rally round you to get to the next level to enable you consolidate the various laudable programmes of your party.”
Yet few moments after the rally that followed the visit of the Lamido of Adamawa, the people of Adamawa were seen at the Ribadu Square venue of the rally using water from tankers to wash away what they described as “bad luck”.
Few weeks ago a similar scenario played out in Sokoto after the APC rally there. Brooms were also burnt outside the palace of the Emir of Zazzau as soon as the APC stalwarts ended their campaign in Zaria.
Benue indigenes painted a similar picture with water tankers as soon as the APC train left Makurdi. About a week ago, the Islamic Movement of Nigeria IMN), otherwise called Shiites declared that President Muhammadu Buhari would not win in Sokoto, Kano, Kaduna and the Federal Capital Territory following the continued incarceration of their leader, Sheikh Ibrahim El- Zakzaky and the killing of their members.
Shiites have a large following in the North. And with the Izalla sect as symbolised by Sheikh Ahmed Gumi coupled with the northern Christian community’s choice of the PDP candidate, including southerners living in the North, the religious angle appears arranged in order to increase Atiku’s winning chances, even though the Izalla sect are opposed to the Shiites. Besides, a faction of the Izalla is supporting Buhari.
Although a table of statistical data from previous elections revealed superior performance by Buhari in the North, political analysts say the statistical relation between Buhari and two southerners, Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan did not show that he has advantage over Atiku, a northerner.
“Even at that if you scrutinise the statistics you will find out that Obasanjo and Jonathan defeated Buhari in some states of the North at some particular times. It was not the same when he contested with late Umaru Yar’Adua. Today, it is not North versus South and Christian versus Muslim, it is between two northerners and Muslims,” one of the analysts noted.
Pundits also say that threats from aggrieved APC members are conspicuously and offensively loud in most states of the North. To most northerners, Atiku and PDP appear excited about delivering the dividends of democracy and correcting the perception being sold by the APC that the party is one populated by looters.
Like Buhari, Atiku’s popular refrain now in the North is charting a roadmap for ending the insurgency, kidnappings and other forms of crimes which reared their ugly heads since 2015 when APC took over the reign of government.
Conversely, some pundits also say the PDP is also in a mess following defections of some of its strong allies, especially from Kano and Sokoto States. But the APC too is not spared. At present, different interest groups are plotting their final onslaughts. As the D-day draws close, more political drama and intrigues are sure to unfold. But clearly, the odds appear stacked against Buhari in some parts of the North.
