‘We rode to power… believing that things will change for better. But, things have not changed and many things are getting worse and the people are bitter. We should not assume that we could win even with massive rigging.’
Senator Bukar Abba Ibrahim (APC, Yobe, East), at the weekend in Abuja, hinted that the North-Eastern states of Yobe, Borno, Bauchi, Gombe, Adamawa and Taraba would massively vote against President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2019 presidential elections as a result of his bad governance that brought agony upon Nigerians. Ibrahim, who is a threeterm serving senator and former governor of Yobe State, made the shocking assertion on Saturday night, during the launch of his book: ‘Poorlitics’ at his 70th birthday celebration held in Abuja.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) lawmaker also declared that massive rigging might not save Buhari from the imminent defeat, stressing that realities on ground showed that Nigerians had been enmeshed in more excruciating socioeconomic difficulties under him within the last three and half years than they were, throughout the 16 years of governance under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from May 1999 to May 2015. The lawmaker, whose wife, Khadijat Ibrahim, currently serves as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs in the Buhari Presidency, in a 17-paragraph speech delivered at the occasion, said the North-East should not be taken for granted since it’s not compulsory for the zone to support Buhari who is from the North-West. Ibrahim further noted that both the North-East and the North-West zones only came together for the first time under one political umbrella in 2015 since several decades of party formations and democratic governance in the country, spanning 1950s to date.
His words: “In fact, the politics of the North-East has always been different from the politics of the North-West and it was under APC that we all united for the first time. “As we move towards the elections, I have to give a dire warning to the APC that things are no longer the way they were in 2015 when we rode to power on a cloud of euphoria believing that things will change for better. “Simply put, things have not changed and many things are getting worse and the people are bitter. We should not assume that we could win even with massive rigging. “The economy has gone down because of our action and inaction and we are blaming the past too much rather than solving the present problems. “I am going to give a dire warning. Let the North-East not be taken for granted that we must support APC. Our interest in the North-East has always been progressive and I will personally be watching for required improvements in the APC before the elections.
“Improvements that can guarantee victory such as respecting the rule of law and releasing political prisoners as well as unselective war against corruption as against one sided witch hunt.” Still firing his missiles at Buhari and the APC, Senator Ibrahim cautioned that if the APC under Buhari did not get its bearings in terms of good governance before the 2019 general elections, the North-East would have no other option than to vote for a candidate of another political party. According to him, one of the candidates that might be considered as an alternative to Buhari is Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who is from Adamawa State and the standard bearer of the PDP in the 2019 presidential elections.
He said: “I shall sit back and continue encouraging my party to do the right thing. But if we don’t, I still reserve the right to ask my people to go our separate ways and do what must be done for good governance to reign in Nigeria.” Recalling the ideological differences between the North-East and the North- West geopolitical zones of the country over the years, the lawmaker said: “At my age, I have no reason to lie, being a socialist progressive over the years, as against capitalist conservatives that dominate the other zone (North-West).” According to him, the geographical zone called North-East today, was on the same page with the progressives politics played by the late Aminu Kano of NEPU, Obafemi Awolowo of the defunct Action Group (AG) and Nnamdi Azikwe of the defunct NCNC as against capitalistic and conservative ideology of the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC), led by the late Sir Ahmadu Bello and seen as aggressive and ruthless to North-Eastern and Middle Belt people generally. He pointed out that his book ‘Poorlitics’, co-authored by Mr. Sam Agha Egwu, was designed to discourage money politics in the polity and promoting people- centred politics as he did in Yobe State, where he contested for governorship position in 1991 with just N20,000 in his account and yet with massive support of the people, defeated the money bags and their godfathers.