Act 1, Scene 1: Pre-presidential elections of March 28, the word on the street was that Chibuike Amaechi, immediate past governor of Rivers State, would be President Muhammadu Buhari’s Secretary to Government of the Federation. So also was Babatunde Fashola, immediate past governor of Lagos State, being touted to be the Chief of Staff to President Buhari. Similarly, Ogbonnaya Onu, ex-chairman of the All Nigeria Peoples Party that dissolved into the All Progressives Congress and Chris Ngige, a senator and former APC governorship candidate in Anambra State, were on the way to being SGF and Minister of Works respectively in the APC-led government, if initial permutations were anything to go by.
These strategic political positions which were assumptions made with the mindset of all things being equal, are like gold, if weighted for their political values. With such lofty promises which reflect equity in national power balancing in their sight, you can imagine that all hands would be put on deck by the South-South, South-West and South-East supporters to deliver Candidate Buhari, the change agent in the presidential polls, so that their dreams could come true.
Act 2 Scene 2: Post-presidential election and over 100 days after Buhari took over as President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic, most of the aforementioned expectations have not been met as David Lawal got the job earmarked for Amaechi and Abba Kyari occupies the seat envisaged for Fashola. The jury is still out on Onu and Ngige since the federal cabinet has not been formed.
The scenarios above reflect the prevailing atmosphere between the APC and its teeming supporters and also confirm the existential contradiction of the dictum, “All things being equal”, because the reality is that things never remain equal, especially with the passage of time as evidenced by the past 100 days in office of President Buhari.
In my considered opinion, the reason there is a wide gulf between expectation and reality is that while ordinary folk on the street are motivated by the idealism of equity and justice, when it comes to implementation, politicians are driven by other values which are not easily discernible to the ordinary eyes as they are compelled to align with practical reality in the course of balancing political power. It is such inconsistencies that give credence to the notion in some quarters that politicians are liars and not to be trusted.
Before we dig into the plausibility of the notion of the politician as a liar not to be trusted, let’s first of all put things in context by recalling that President Buhari is believed to have won about 12 million votes in the last two presidential contests (2007 and 20011) which he lost, from the northern part of the country only, and received a very paltry number of votes from the South-West, South-East and South-South.
Incidentally, in the 2015 election which he won, President Buhari only added a little over two million votes to put his total votes in excess of 14 million, but this time, the votes were nationally spread in fulfilment of the constitutional requirements of winning 2/3 majority of votes nationwide for a candidate to be deemed to have won the Presidency.
To achieve the feat, President Buhari needed to reach out to politicians in the zones where he won little or no votes in his previous quests for the Presidency and this gave rise to the merger of three legacy parties, his Congress for Progressive Change, Bola Tinubu’s Action Congress of Nigeria and Onu’s ANPP in addition to Atiku Abubakar and Amaechi-led Peoples Democratic Party splinter group.
Having identified and bridged the gap that resulted in the vote deficits that he suffered in previous attempts via merger of regional parties, Buhari in his 2015 bid for the Presidency, vigorously wooed politicians from the zones where he previously underperformed like precious and beautiful brides.
Notably, politicians like Amaechi of South-South, originally of the PDP stock, were the first to jump on the Buhari change train, so also was Tinubu-fronted by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo/Fashola of the ACN in the South-West and Onu of the ANPP who embody the interest of the South-East.
Working together under tumultuous circumstances arising from the stiff challenge put up by the then ruling party, the PDP, the seeming impossibility was made possible by the sheer grit and brinksmanship of the politicians symbolised by the personalities earlier mentioned hence they were penciled down for the juicy offices by their supporters based on equity and justice.
As it has now turned out, those initial permutations were mere wishful thinking because as the saying goes, “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride”.
Left with bitter tastes in their mouths, the teeming supporters of the proposed President Buhari’s “dream team” ( Amaechi, Fashola and Onu/Ngige) are miffed by the unsavoury tastes that they have been made to swallow and shattered dreams that they are compelled to endure thus far, at least.
So, with or without the prodding of their principals, but in sympathy, they went back into the trenches or is it online platforms to savage their erstwhile hero (Buhari) for the let down. In the process, all sorts of unprintable names have been ascribed to the APC and President Buhari.
In panic, the trio of Femi Adesina, Garba Shehu, Presidential spokesmen, and Lai Mohammed, the APC image maker, entered the defensive mode and muddied the water by claiming that the President never promised anything in 100 days.
To say the least, the denial of ascribed promises was uncalled for because the hype preceding Buhari’s election created the platform for the high expectations as all sorts of magical feats were attributed to Candidate Buhari who was adorned with the toga of a super human and had the mien of an incorruptible messiah. In fact, Buhari consolidated his inviolability in his inaugural speech by emphasising his neutrality when he said, “I belong to nobody and l belong to everybody”.
No matter how vehemently Buhari campaign promises are denied, from the prism of an average Nigerian, he and the APC have violated their promise of neutrality since in their view, equity and justice which are supposed to be the fulcrum of the party are not being observed in the allocation of offices so the Buhari myth is being shattered.
The push back has been very damaging and it has taken a heavy toll on the pristine integrity of Mr President and the APC. So, the shape and colour (in terms of the character, content and ethnic balancing) of the candidates for the cabinet office which Buhari presents to the Senate this month for clearance would determine whether the goodwill quotient of this administration remains robust or suffers early death.
Somehow, the APC and Buhari must have anticipated the potential backlash of the high expectations of Nigerians if they fail to keep campaign promises when the President in his Acceptance and Thank you speeches advised Nigerians to tone down expectations as he had no magic wand to wave so that all the imperfections of governance in Nigeria would vanish over night.
While Mr President’s admonition had yet to sink in, the firestorm which engulfed the legislative arm of government, when principal offices were allotted or when power was seized, as the case may be (sometimes power has to be seized not given), the APC lost focus of its initial task of dousing the high expectation of Nigerians.
To be concluded on Tuesday.
PUNCH
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