Frankly Speaking: 2023 Presidency: Of deceit and wild goose chase

By Tunde Abatan, tunde2013abatan@gmail.com 08165660217

Since the regime of firmer military President Ibrahim Babangida,Nigerias politics has been treated to new devious styles and values which has made politics in the most populous black nation on earth only for the strong and devious gamblers.

While General Babangida adopted a pot of tricks to manouvers politicians and political players,his stick and carrot approach coupled with grand deceit kept the political players confounded while perpetuated his stay in office until the June 12 election annulment dribbled him out of power and contention.

But along the line he has dashed the hope of many aspirants and divided the rank of politicians who sincerely thought he -Babangida, was up to any good.

By the time he banned the last set of political after the party primaries in 1991,he has not only pauperised many of them but painfully introduced new lexicons like Settlement,Banning and unbanning, proscription and the likes, all in a bid to keep himself in office.

However,the importation of annulment as typified by the June 12 Presidential election brought the climax.

Today,the rather taciturn,effasive but authoritative President Muhammadu Buhari,by his style has also introduced a new dimension which may be all what is needed to teach unserious, unfocused and greedy politicians a lifetime lessons though with severe injuries to the nations body polity.
Today,the ruling All Progressive Congress,which came in on the mantra of fighting corruption has as it’s helm,a man with 149 alleged corrupt charges before the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission,EFCC.

When all the charges are collated, the figure of money he tampered with as Nassarawa state governor is in the tune of N45 billion.

Yet,he made it to chairmanship of a party fighting corruption.

Contrary to pledges to reduce cost if governance and by inference cost of elective expenses,the APC has blazed the trail in fixing a whooping N100 billion for a nomination form for Presidency while state governors are to cough out N50million ..same outrageous figure for the assembly seats with the least being N1.5million.

Today, by the last count on Thursday 5th May,the party has racked in a whooping N19.940 billion from the 15 Presidential, 48 governorship, 241 Senate, 821 House of Representatives and 1505 house of assembly aspirants.

This is happening under the nose and watch of a President who promised to give the youth a chance in 2019.

If today, any youth among the countless millions without jobs while those lucky enough eking out a job with no living wage, could cough out as much, then something has gone wrong with our values and system.

Perhaps ,the most nauseating is the fervour and energy the various Presidential aspirants most of who are still occupying public positions engaged in mad rush to pick nomination forms from the ruling party using amorphous groups.

The question you ask is, if they or their so called sponsors could do much, how come the level of poverty, loss of jobs, insecurity and devaluation of the education and health sectors have not receive any fresh breadth of hope.

What system, if not grand corruption and deceit, would permit a sitting Education Minister to collect a nomination form so costly while University teachers under his nose and supervision are at home over disagreement on commensurate remunerations.

The question you also ask is if there is any soul left in the ministers and public officials when the youths of tommorrow they all claim to be serving, are Hopeless of today not to talk of any future.

For the fifteen or more aspirants,the question you also ask is are they driven by pure patriotism to serve or willingly decided to shed the loads of naira in their deep pocket to display ego or enrich their party.?

Beside the apparent lack of vision and focus f the army of aspirants from the Southern part of the country, have they bordered to reason why the Northern caucus of the party are yet to show face when indeed the Northern power brokers in the Northern Elders Forum etc have all voiced their opposition to retention of zoning?

If as being speculated, Senate President Ahmed Lawan eventually throws his hat into the ring, could the Southern candidates beat their chest that they could defeat him.

Besides,Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, none of the remaining pretenders could boast of having votes beyond their state.

Why have the Southern aspirants, most of who are his ministers, find it hard to read or understand President Buhari mindset after working for him for seven years?.

Worst still, the entry into the ring of Central Bank of Nigeria,CBN Governor,Godwin Emefiele with his nomination form allegedly paid by Rice Farmers is mind- buggling.

To justify Nigerias rating as a country of anything goes in Africa, Emefieles entry has revealed reasons why the country’s economic and in particular fiscal policies have created more job loss and devalued the nations currency than any regime in the nations history.

That a CBN governor who inherited exchange rate of $190 to the naira can have the audacity to join a presidential race while the value has nose dived to over $595 US dollars is puzzling.

What is more?
That he has the courage to institute court action against those challenging the legality and morality of his entry speaks volume of the state of mind of a President who espouse anti- corruption as his mantra.

If Emefiele is not so wise because of his temporal romance with power and Pastor Tunde Bakare,the fiery cleric of Citadel has no qualms as to his relevance in a party he has no known structure, what could have hoodwinked a Akinwunmi Adesina, the respected African Development Bank,AfDB President to have plunged into the uncertain party terrain.

Is he in possession of some facts we do not know about party organisation or privy to an arrangement outside the rules of party members?

Wouldn’t it be wise for the various aspirants to admit they didn’t knew the Man,Buhari and his unknown agenda .

Perhaps, the love of ego and grandstanding is the motivation for their display of material position even when they knew the odds are stacked against their emergency.

Could it be that the pretenders whose score card in office is nothing to write home about have such contempt for the citizenry they’ve trampled upon this past seven years?

Beside Peter Obi and noisome Governor Wike in South east and South South respectively, who can still garner much vote from their region for their messianic appeal, could they or any of the other pretenders outsmart the likes of Abubakar Atiku in spending, beside the North’s penchant for solidarity with one of their own to retain power?.

Today, head or tail, either in the APC or PDP, the North is at home if either of their son retains power.

It is obvious that they are working feverishly towards that.

This is obvious to maintain the lopsidedness of the Buharis policies over the years.

It is apparent that but for insecurity which is hitting at their belly, the Northern political establishment is not averse to any continuation of Buharis policies which could only be guaranteed by a Northern candidate.

In fact,their greatest fear about zoning or rotation of power which the South is clamouring for is the likely change in the policy direction of Buhari which has been deliberately tilted to favour the North.

With the Buhari government ethno-religious policies having thrown up the age- long North- South dichotomy, it is apparent that he is on the same page with the Northern power brokers on retention of power next year.

Hence, the army of serious contenders and pretenders especially from the Southern part of the country should have realized by now that their motley crowd will serve the Northern interest at the detriment of the South.

The South with the shaped of things face an imminent decapitation of their economic power by an emergent Northern President in 2023 to further Buharis military and political domination of the past seven years.

As things stand today, only the deep,selfless and visionary among the Southern contenders especially in APC can see through the grand conspiracy Buharis declaration that he would hand over to anybody Nigerians elect .

The integrity of next year’s election have been compromised years back.