Dear Compatriots,
I have repeatedly asked myself: Why is IBB showing so much desperation for the Nation’s presidency at this time?
Is it to make SAP work? Is it to make atonement for the eight wasted years in Nigeria’s chequered history? Is it? Is it?
More questions, no answers!
The latest action from the gap-toothed General is a widely reported alliance with Atiku/ Gusau/Saraki with the sole purpose of stopping Goodluck E Jonathan (GEJ). As the agenda unfurls further, Atiku was reported to have gone to court to stop GEJ from contesting. If this is not an abuse of judicial resources, i wonder what is.
I remember in 1979, the presidential election was the last in a 5-week electoral schedule. After the first two elections, four (out of the five) presidential candidates -Chief Obafemi Awolowo;Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe; Alhaji Ibrahim Waziri & Mallam Aminu Kano came together to form the Progressives. But when the main and only agenda of the group was to stop Alhaji Shehu Shagari from becoming President; Mallam Aminu Kano opted out. I remember seeing him on TV asking rather rhetorically: “How can we be progressives when our purpose is to stop another?”
The desperation of IBB is akin to a military officer taking to coup-plotting as a way to save his career!
If the interest of the Nigerian nation is the raison d’etre for entering the presidential race, then it serves no useful purpose to unduly overheat the polity.
I have a gut-feeling that if IBB loses the PDP primaries, albeit fairly, he may come up with a capricious scheme to unsettle the polity.
The problem for his image launderers is that the IBB brand is a hard-sell. I watched his chief image maker, Kassim Afegbua, it was obvious that one of two
things must have happened to him. It is either the perks attached to the job was of such humongous proportion that he did not settle down to explore the realms of the appointment or that it is simply herculean marketing this product!
In the words of Fanny Amun, he wobbled and fumbled throughout the AIT interview.
He alluded to the clamour for June 12 as belonging to a geo-political zone. It is often said that when falsehood had been repeated many times, it would take on the coloration of the truth.
We know a matter of fact, that IBB sectionalised annulment of June 12.
Politics, in a democracy, is meant to culminate into electoral contest. In every contest, a winner must emerge
For the greater part of his life, IBB had only known authoritarianism or at best, deploying subterfuge and chicanery to clinch the coveted prize.
But now there is need to ‘unlearn’ the ‘do or die’ approach that his military training and service had inculcated into him.
Nigeria deserves stability at 50.
God bless Nigeria.
Oluwarotimi Fashakin