Activities for the February general elections officially get underway with PDP and APC, kicking off their campaigns, Editor, Politics/Features, EMEKA ALEX DURU, writes.
With the flag-off of the presidential campaign of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos, last Thursday, the battle line for the February general elections has finally been drawn. All Progressives Congress (APC), the main opposition political party in the land, had earlier on Tuesday, kicked off its campaign in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
Speaking at the kick-off of his campaign at Tafawa Balewa Square (TBS), Lagos, President Goodluck Jonathan, said his government has put in place legal and institutional frameworks for tackling corruption and putting the country on the path to economic prosperity. He also went down memory lane, recalling efforts of his administration in repositioning the country. High point of the occasion was unveiling of the party’s flag bearers in various states of the federation.
Lagos, PH for flag-off
Analysts saw the choice of the two Southern states for the take-off of the campaign by the two parties as strategic. The two rank among the states with highest voting population in the country. Lagos boasts of up to five million voters, while Rivers posts over two million. The states had also come handy in influencing outcomes of presidential elections in recent times. Results from the two states for instance, went a long way in giving President Jonathan remarkable edge over General Muhammadu Buhari of the then Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and Nuhu Ribadu of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in 2011 presidential election.
For PDP, and particularly Jonathan, the Lagos engagement was akin to a return to a familiar and presumably, friendly terrain. This is especially as the party has insisted that it has been “touching lives and transforming the nation”. It was perhaps, this consideration that informed the mantra of his campaign team that “one good turn, deserves another”. PDP also appears to have got its acts together in the state, at least for once. It, for example, seems to be speaking with one voice and working in one accord so far, in the current dispensation.
But whether the outcome would be for the president what it was four years ago may not easily be estimated. For one thing, the political atmosphere in Lagos appears to have been altered in a way. In 2011, Buhari was seen as an opponent to ACN that was essentially driven by the Bola Tinubu tendency in Lagos. His chances of winning Lagos voters then were limited, given also that his CPC was relatively not strong in the state.
There were also insinuations that ACN lords in the South West stuck a deal with the president for votes in the region against Ribadu, the party’s candidate. In the current era, most of the then opposition parties have coalesced into APC, thus making Jonathan’s PDP the common enemy.
This factor may not have been ruled out in APC settling for Port Harcourt for the kick-off of its presidential campaign. Four years ago, the state was literally a no-go area for Buhari. In fact, the governor, Rotimi Amaechi, then, ensured that the president mopped almost 100 per cent of the votes in the state. The governor has since defected to APC and has pledged repeating the same feat for the party’s presidential candidate.
But the president hails from Bayelsa – a state carved out of Rivers. Coming from South South, a zone where the prevailing sentiment has been on Jonathan’s re-election, the possibility of Amaechi repeating for Buhari what he did for Jonathan in 2011 remains to be seen. What many see as main considerations that may come to play for and or against the presidential candidates and their parties would largely be their agenda for the people, among other factors.
Issues in the campaigns
APC presidential flag-bearer had commenced his campaign with a promise to fight insecurity and corruption as well as reviving the ailing economy of the country. In this regard, he remarked that his party had already assembled capable hands that would work towards improving the economy as soon as he is sworn in on May 29.
He said: “The major problems we are facing in Nigeria today is economy and insecurity. We have arranged competent hands to manage the economy once we come on board on May 29, 2015…. We have lined up programmes on how to tackle unemployment. We are going to assemble team of professionals for wealth creation and employment for our teeming youths. We will put mechanism in place to fight insecurity and improve the country.”
The emphasis by the former head of state on tackling corruption, unemployment and insecurity did not come to many as a surprise. In the last couple of years, for instance, public perception of the Jonathan administration on these key indices have been contentious. While supporters of the government score it high in fixing abandoned infrastructure in the country as well as steering the economy on the path of recovery, his opponents disagree, dismissing him as lacking the initiative to tackle the challenges before him.
Insecurity, occasioned by the Boko Haram challenge in some parts of the North, easily falls into this consideration. The terrorist group, which has increased its offensive on the country since the inauguration of Jonathan’s administration, has put the country in bad light among local Nigerians and international observers.
In its murderous onslaught, churches, mosques, schools, communities, markets and other public places have not been spared. As it launches its odious campaigns, it leaves in its trail sorrow and blood. What, perhaps, exposed the audacity of Boko Haram to the international community was the Monday, April 14, abduction of about 276 girls of Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, by suspected members of the sect.
The abduction, which totally laid bare the fault lines of the nation’s security network, saw some countries signifying interest in the efforts to rescue the girls. United States of America (U.S.), United Kingdom (UK), France and China were among the countries said to have made the offer. The girls are still in captivity.
In similar vein, social life and economy of the ravaged states have been in doldrums. While the menace lasts, the country’s image among nations, has been on the negative side. There have also been other incidences of criminality as manifested in armed robbery, kidnapping, corporate and cyber crimes.
It is thus, not out of the ordinary for APC to list eradication of insecurity among its priorities. Incidentally, Buhari’s antecedent in going against the menace, offers the party a lot to boast of. His records in crushing the Maitatsine Muslim fundamentalists in Kano and warding off the Cameroonian gendarmes in the North East flank of the country as a soldier in the 1980s are easily advertised as reference points on how he would deal with the Boko Haram insurgency if he gets to power.
The party also flaunts his zero-tolerance for corruption as an agenda that will sell it to the people. The retired General had, in his first coming as a soldier, embarked on measures that indicated that with purposeful leadership, corruption can be exorcised from the country considerably. Though some of the approaches by his administration in tackling the menace were considered unconventional and draconian, they were seen in some quarters as being imperative in repositioning the country by the average Nigerian. Buhari has not lost that charm and admiration, at least among his supporters that are mostly drawn from the down-trodden and unemployed youths. It is to this people that the APC agenda of fixing the economy if elected into office, registers enormous impact.
PDP preaches consolidation
PDP, however, does not seem intimidated by the issues raised by APC flag-bearer. For example, at the inauguration of the party’s presidential campaign organisation, on Thursday last week, President Jonathan reminded the members that they had solid grounds to anchor their campaign. He stated that on account of the federal government’s activities since the institution of his presidency, the job on the campaign team would not be much.
He said: “Nigeria, under our watch, has made significant strides in every aspect. Our economy today is the largest and strongest in the African continent and preferred destination for foreign direct investment (FDI).
“We have focused on job creation and the expansion of opportunities for our teeming youths as well as interventions to promote micro, small and medium scale enterprises. Through an internationally-acclaimed transformational agricultural programme, we have re-established agriculture as a business and a major driver of economic growth.
“We have successfully privatised the power sector; a process that was adjudged by the international community of investors as transparent and credible. Our trains are moving again, from Lagos to Kano, from Lagos to Ibadan, from Port Harcourt to Enugu.”
Preaching consolidating on these feats and attaining more, he said, would earn PDP a re-election.
The people, the verdict
The president’s supporters see him as the man to beat in the election. In fact, shortly after the official kick-off of his campaign, Femi Fani-Kayode, the Director-General of Media and Publicity of his campaign organisation, described him as the country’s hope for a greater future.
“Jonathan represents our hope for a greater and better future. We believe that the APC, on which platform General Buhari is contesting the presidential election, represents everything that is unholy and unwholesome in our society, and that the PDP represents all that is decent and good.”
Igbonekwu Ogazimorah, ex-newspaper editor and former Enugu State Commissioner for Information, also argues that Buhari cannot fly in the February elections, on account of his antecedents that were defined by dictatorship and sectional world view.
In an elaborate piece in his facebook outing entitled ‘Buhari can’t fly’, Ogazimorah argued: “Truth of the matter is that General Muhammadu Buhari cannot secure the vote of Nigerians to be the president. There are many factors he can’t make. One is that, if the truth is told, Buhari comes in the hold of the old hegemonic North, not of the younger generation with broader views of Nigeria and in tune with modern trends. Second, he is actually old, though he did not commit any offence being of age as we all pray to get old and healthy. Third, Buhari was a Nigerian head of state whose track record is not fashionable, particularly in the region of human rights. Fourth, he does not seem to come of fairness. When he was boss of Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), he had the entire money to play with and make impact. He did, but mainly in the North. Actually, prior to assuming headship of PTF, many of us had seen Buhari as the upright, rigid man for good, but this was quickly exploded when he became too lopsided in the jobs he did across the country. The South East was the worst case in his era.”
The president, he noted, has also not been fair to the South East in distribution of democracy dividends, adding, however, that he posts better democratic credentials than his APC counterpart.
“Yes, again, Jonathan has not reciprocated gestures of support from the South East. He made promises he never fulfilled or never even intended to fulfil, yet, one would say he represents a greater shed of democracy than Buhari, who, to me, has no orientation at all in plural society. Jonathan looks far more like it for onward Nigeria,” he stressed.
But a chieftain of APC, Osita Okechukwu, disagrees, stressing that the APC presidential candidate is actually the man to beat in the February 14 election. According to him, it is the Nigerian elite that are opposed to the emergence of Buhari as president because they are aware he would wage unreserved war against corruption.
“The tiny top elite are fully aware that Buhari, as a president, will stridently, in line with the manifesto of the APC, wage war against corruption.
“They know he will build new refineries, having built two before as petroleum minister; hence putting a stop to refined petroleum products importation where they make billions without query. They know he will not carry raw cash to South Africa to buy military equipment or under-fund the army. They know that he and Tam David-West are the only former Ministers of Petroleum who neither own an oil block nor a petrol station,” he said.
Abdullahi Walid, a public affairs analyst, also gives the day to the former head of state, even before the poll. In his words, “Buhari has run the race and kept the faith. It is left for Nigerians to give him the prize on February 14.”
Founder, Igbo Youth Movement and South East Self Determination Coalition, Elliot Uko, however, looks at the coming election from a different angle, preferring to set agenda for President Jonathan. In an advertorial in a national newspaper last week Friday entitled ‘What Nigerians want from Jonathan’, he reminded the president that after 54 years of nationhood, Nigerians want to see the fruits of the regrowth of the years the locust had eaten.
He stressed that though the journey for a greater future has commenced in the country, the citizens are eager to reap from the impact of the policies already in place.
“Six weeks to the February 14 presidential election, Nigerians scream with a loud voice that we desire to see the emergence of a new, united, better Nigeria built on equity where true federalism reigns,” he wrote.
Other analysts make case for free and fair election devoid of violence.
 in Lagos, last Thursday, the battle line for the February general elections has finally been drawn. All Progressives Congress (APC), the main opposition political party in the land, had earlier on Tuesday, kicked off its campaign in Port Harcourt, Rivers State){kind=link}