•Ready for 2015 presidential run
Muhammadu Buhari has opened campaign offices, in the ground work to repeat his gambit for Aso Rock in February 2015, a contest likely to pit him against President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Muhammadu Buhari
Buhari, 71, former military Head of State now a democrat in the All Progressives Congress (APC), is riding on the success of the party’s national convention on June 13, which detractors had thought would lead to its implosion.
This is Buhari’s fourth attempt to become the country’s democratically elected leader.
He ran for president in 2003 and lost to Olusegun Obasanjo, in 2007 was defeated by Umaru Yar’Adua, and in 2011 by Jonathan.
The retired general, who is not easily fazed by obstacles, has opened his first campaign office in Abuja for the next contest in 2015, according to a senior member of the APC, Osita Okechukwu.
Link men, home and abroad
A campaign team has emerged in Abuja, with a journalist and former Minister of State for Petroleum, Umaru Dembo, as Director General.
Buhari Support Group Organisation (BSGO), with its head office at Cotonou Crescent, Abuja, appointed Ibrahim Dauda as National Secretary and Hammed Hassan-Olajoku, who is based in Canada, as Diaspora and External Relations Director.
BSGO insists that Buhari is the biggest contender for the presidential ticket of the APC.
It has a website which disseminates information about the ambition of Buhari, in the belief that “the presidential position will become vacant by May 29, 2015.”
Hassan-Olajokun, a former senatorial aspirant, told TheNiche that he will return from Canada to Nigeria “to take part in [Buhari’s] presidential campaign.”
Dauda confirmed that the old structures of Buhari’s campaign are being re-activated because he is on pole position to get the APC ticket.
“The structures and the machinery were already on the ground before now. What we are doing is to reactivate and launch them simultaneously,” he explained.
“What we have in Abuja is a campaign office which will oversee the campaign offices in other parts of the country.
“The chances of [Buhari] becoming APC candidate are very good. We have our strategies and programme.”
Up against corruption
Okechukwu added that Buhari is the de-facto candidate of the party. based on the cardinal programme of the APC, which includes national re-orientation and war against corruption.
His words: “If we say who among Nigerians is capable of leading Nigeria it is Buhari. Why the PDP has failed since Obasanjo’s time to Jonathan is corruption. We see that Nigeria cannot grow with the monumental corruption going on.
“We think Buhari is the best man for the job. The old man is the only person who can help Nigeria to reposition, and if we have to look at the cardinal programme of the APC, Buhari is the best qualified.”
Okechukwu maintained that what also gives Buhari extra mileage is that nobody in the party has his kind of support among voters.
He recalled that Buhari received 12 million votes in the 2011 election, even as he did not have money to pay party agents.
Possible consensus candidate
He said although Buhari still has to contest the primaries, he can get the presidential ticket through consensus, as was the case of John Oyegun, who emerged APC National Chairman on June 13 through consensus.
“To provide a candidate or executive, it can be through consensus and the consensus must be affirmed, as done in the case of Oyegun. If a consensus is reached, there can be direct primary or indirect primary,” Okechukwu clarified.
Buhari’s confidant, former Petroleum Minister, Tam David-West, also insisted that the man is the best person to get Nigeria out of the woods.
“There is no other person on the political scene that can move Nigeria forward. Buhari is the cleanest man in Nigeria’s political scene. He was not corrupt as Minister of Petroleum and Chairman of Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF),” he stated.
On whether it was the decision of the APC for Buhari to fly the party’s flag, he argued that Buhari has the constitutional right to contest and can begin his campaign, as Jonathan started his campaign months back through proxies.
David-West said: “I have solid confidence in him. I can work through the fire because of him. If my father is contesting against Buhari, I will work against him”, he said.
He dismissed other contestants as too corrupt to take Nigeria out of its myriad of problems.
He also decried the “campaign gimmicks” of Jonathan, saying it is wrong to draw any comparison between him and United States President, Barack Obama, the late South African President, Nelson Mandela, and the late American civil rights activist, Martin Luther-King.
“Jonathan cannot be compared to Mandela, Martin Luther or Obama. It is an embarrassment,” David-West said.
He reiterated that he is from the same South South as Jonathan, who equally has the right to contest, but who should keep his promise to serve one term, if indeed he made it.
Another source in the APC, who did not want his name in print, confided in TheNiche that Buhari has the right to hit the ground running, which shows that he is serious about his ambition.
He said others who are interested also have the right to begin their campaign as the election draws closer.
However, Section 99 of the Electoral Act (2010 as amended) stipulates that “the period of campaigning by every political party shall commence 90 days before polling day and shall end 24 hours prior to that day.”
This means that Buhari and all other candidates cannot begin public campaign until November 2014, three months to the presidential ballot in February 2015.
Talk of Buhari, Tinubu ticket
There is also talk in the APC that former Lagos State Governor, Bola Tinubu, could be Buhari’s running mate.
However, the snag, from the point of view of antagonists, is that both of them are Muslims.
Since independence in 1960, Nigeria’s leaders have been Christians with Muslim deputies, or Muslims with Christian deputies.
Former Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) National Publicity Secretary, Rotimi Fashakin, now Buhari’s spokesman, told TheNiche before now that his candidature is the decision of the majority of the party members.
“The truth of the matter is that in the CPC days, he had said he wasn’t going to run again.
“But we have told him pointedly that he is now the topic of the party and we will determine whether he will still run or not and the overwhelming majority of our supporters want him still in the race. That is that,” Fashakin stated.
He, however, clarified that the APC leadership has not taken a decision on the Buhari/Tinubu ticket.
Fashakin noted that the story was reported in the newspapers “and since then people have been going about carrying rumours and entertaining themselves.
“It’s not anything to worry about for us. We are going about our normal businesses. It is after the convention that the presidential primaries would take place. It’s still a long way out and we don’t want to dissipate energy unnecessarily at this time.”
Governors’ grouse
But it was learnt that the possibility of Buhari’s candidature is causing disquiet among the APC top brass, particularly its governors.
“The governors want one of them to be APC’s presidential candidate in the 2015 election. They are already scheming to whittle down Buhari’s influence in the party,” said a source in the APC, who pleaded anonymity.
Another source disclosed that Buhari has complained that the governors are biting more than they can chew.
He is reportedly unhappy with the way the governors have taken over control of the APC in their states and sidelined those who built the party from scratch.
However, APC National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, has quashed as “absolutely untrue” the talk of a crack in the leadership over Buhari’s ambition.
“In our party anyone is free to aspire for any office in the land. Our nomination process will be transparent, free, fair and will be in accordance with the party’s constitution and guidelines,” Mohammed said.
