Before the March 28 presidential and National Assembly elections, some Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftains were so sure of victory that they ran their mouths. There was nothing they did not say about President-elect Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and his party. Femi Fani-Kayode, the rabble-rouser, was in his element, dishing out lies about Buhari. Fani-Kayode came up with the story that Buhari does not have a school certificate. He said his party was putting Buhari to the ‘’strictest proof’’ to show that the president-elect has that certificate.
‘’Strictest proof’’ or not, Buhari did not have to break a sweat to prove anything. His school came to his aid by releasing his West African School Certificate (WASC). According to the result, he made Grade 2, but the Fani-Kayodes of this world refused to believe the documentary evidence tendered by the school. Fani-Kayode, Director of Media and Publicity of the Jonathan Presidential Campaign Organisation, claimed that the document was forged, but he could not prove his assertion, thereby rendering it valueless.
Step in Doyin Okupe, the loquacious doctor-politician, who swore heaven and earth that Buhari will not become president. ‘’If Buhari wins’’, he said, ‘’call me a bas….’’ Okupe, who is always on the side where his bread is buttered, was not done yet. ‘’The choice before Nigerians in this election is either good luck (making a pun of his principal’s name) or bad luck’’. Going by Okupe’s submission, it is our ‘’good luck’’ as a nation that Buhari defeated President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the historic March 28 poll. Buhari won because men are not God; they can only play god but they do not have the power of the omniscient and omnipresent One, who anoints leaders.
He anointed Buhari and that is why the former Head of State won the March 28 election. APC and PDP went into the contest determined to win and as both parties know only one of them could emerge winner. Since the return to democracy in 1999, PDP has been in the saddle. For 16 years, it has held sway at the national level. Its founding fathers had a dream for the party to be in power for 60 years. It is a good intention but it seems it was not backed with a plan of action. If there was a plan for the country, the party did not execute it for the 16 years it held power. Can it then benefit from its mistake? Why did it not impress it upon its members, who led the country between 1999 and now, on the need to execute programmes that would make the party the people’s choice?
PDP lost the March 28 presidential contest because the people were fed up with it. The party had run out of ideas. It is good to have a concept to be in power for 60 years; but a concept will remain a concept if not backed with plans and programmes for the country’s growth. Ideas, they say, rule the world. If PDP had bold ideas for moving the nation forward, it would not have suffered defeat in last month’s elections. It had a golden opportunity to turn things round, but it flunked it. Things got to a head under outgoing President Jonathan, who did not help matters because, as it were, he lacked what it takes to reinvent the wheel.
But we must credit Jonathan for running a good race and for conceding defeat in a sportsmanlike manner. By his action, he nipped in the bud the plan of some people to create crisis. He should remain true to himself to the end by not allowing the hawks in government to use him to foment trouble. The president has acted like a true statesman. He pulled us back from the brink despite the huge cost to his own ambition. If he had played Laurent Gbagbo, the former Ivorian president who refused to leave office after losing election, only God knows where we will be as a nation today.
After the 16-year disaster that PDP was, Buhari will be a breath of fresh air on assuming office on May 29. The president-elect knows that he carries a huge burden because the people are looking forward to a magical performance from him. He knows too well that the mission to rescue Nigeria from the 16-year rot of PDP is one that must be won, come what may. His party, APC, also knows that PDP and its members will not wish it well. The Fani-Kayodes and the Okupes will always be waiting in the wings to run it down no matter the good it does. But no matter what they say, the good the party does will always speak for it. The only way to keep their mouths shut is for the party to concentrate on the job at hand.
Like Fani-Kayode and Okupe, Commodore Bode George has also been running his mouth. George is still finding it difficult to accept that Buhari has emerged president-elect – about two weeks after the election. George is threatening to go on exile because his party will no longer be in power from May 29. Why does he want to go on exile? Is it because his party has destroyed the economy? Our economy is in doldrums today because of the wrong policies enunciated by the so-called eggheads of the Jonathan administration. So, he should have since gone on exile to protest the bad policies of PDP, which has led the nation thus far. Threatening to go on exile because Buhari won the election is just to draw attention to himself.
‘’What will I be doing here? I can decide to go and live anywhere. So, I am not joking about it; what will I be doing here? At 70, what will I be doing here? All we have been doing to restructure the country has been lost. We have been trying to ensure balance in the polity, but all that has gone. What will I be doing here?’’ Is he still around? By the time he returns from exile, he would be shocked to see that things have changed for good in the country.
NATION
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