I had a hearty laugh last week after reading Senator Jonathan Silas Zwingina’s admonition to Nigerians in general and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) faithful in particular not to vote for the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Muhammadu Buhari, on March 28.
Zwingina, PDP candidate for Adamawa South, reportedly urged his party members at a rally in Yola to ensure that Buhari fails in his bid to become President.
“We have to stop Buhari and his plan to build more prisons to jail politicians,” he said. Claiming to know Buhari well, he whimpered further, “You know Buhari, he will send us to jail for between 200 and 300 years and it is the lucky ones among us that will get 50 years.”
Why would Zwingina be so frightened by the prospect of a Buhari Presidency if he is beyond reproach? Is it a question of the guilty being afraid? Zwingina says no. It does not matter how clean you are, he claimed. In Nigeria, you are guilty as long as those in authority say so.
“As you know, there is no way you will hold office in Nigeria and go scot free if the authorities want to get you,” he told his bemused audience, among whom was former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nuhu Ribadu, Adamawa PDP governorship candidate.
“Buhari is determined to send people to jail and even APC governors are not comfortable with him, and that is why many of them are not following his campaign team,” Zwingina alleged.
I couldn’t but wonder what was going on in Ribadu’s mind as Zwingina blabbed. Perhaps nothing! Time and circumstance have done a great job on the former “anti-corruption czar.”
Perhaps, he even agrees with Zwingina’s insinuation that the fight against corruption in Nigeria is all about witch-hunt. But that is a matter for another day.
Zwingina is no ordinary Nigerian. He came into limelight during the ill-fated June 12, 1993 poll as the Director General of the MKO Abiola Campaign Organisation. Abiola won the vote but the military government led by Ibrahim Babangida annulled it.
When Abiola was clamped into detention by Babangida’s successor, Sani Abacha, Zwingina betrayed the cause and moved on – like many other chieftains of the victorious Social Democratic Party (SDP), including Abiola’s running mate, Baba Gana Kingibe, and SDP National Chairman, Tony Anenih.
At the inception of the Fourth Republic in 1999, Zwingina contested and won the Adamawa South Senatorial seat on the platform of the PDP and was re-elected in 2003.
So, he has been a major player on the national political turf, and that is the man who wants Nigerians to choose their president not on the basis of proven track record of performance and integrity, but sheer scare mongering.
Why does Zwingina think the long-suffering masses of Adamawa will care a hoot if anyone ends up in jail on account of his wayward stewardship in the public space?
Perhaps, he thinks the electorate are dimwits who can neither think for themselves nor aspire to enthrone a political environment that will make them live decently.
If the price to pay for such a political environment is the imprisonment of the fat cows who have ensured that Nigeria remains “a big for nothing country” in the comity of nations, why would anyone lose sleep over that?
But the fact is that Zwingina and his co-travellers on the boulevard of deceit are just being smart by half.
Deploying scare mongering as a campaign tool is a slippery slope. It even harms President Goodluck Jonathan’s campaign, which is rather unfortunate because he can still win this election on his record of achievements.
But rather than highlight Jonathan’s achievements, people like Zwingina are drawing attention to what some believe is his Achilles heel – the inability to fight corruption decisively.
Since many believe that Nigeria’s greatest undoing is corruption, wouldn’t they rather vote for the man who they perceive as having the capacity and political will to tame the monster?
By telling PDP stalwarts not to vote for Buhari because he will jail corrupt public officials, isn’t Zwingina indirectly saying that they should vote for Jonathan because he will look the other way while the malaise festers?
Perhaps Zwingina’s fears will be assuaged by Buhari’s declaration in his speech at Chatham House in London on Thursday, February 26 that “any war waged on corruption should not be misconstrued as settling old scores or a witch-hunt,” because as President, he will “lead Nigeria to prosperity and not adversity.”
Yet, that did not detract from his avowal on corruption and waste.
“In the face of dwindling revenues, a good place to start the repositioning of Nigeria’s economy is to swiftly tackle two ills that have ballooned under the present administration: waste and corruption. And in doing this, I will, if elected, lead the way, with the force of personal example,” Buhari pledged.
“On corruption, there will be no confusion as to where I stand. Corruption will have no place and the corrupt will not be appointed into my administration. First and foremost, we will plug the holes in the budgetary process.
“Revenue producing entities such as the NNPC (Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation) and Customs and Excise will have one set of books only. Their revenues will be publicly disclosed and regularly audited.
“The institutions of state dedicated to fighting corruption will be given independence and prosecutorial authority without political interference.”
Buhari disclosed what savings from waste and corruption will be used for.
“In reforming the economy, we will use savings that arise from blocking these leakages and the proceeds recovered from corruption to fund our party’s social investment programmes in education, health, and safety nets such as free school meals for children, emergency public works for unemployed youth and pensions for the elderly.”
These are the kinds of promises that resonate with the masses. That is why the Buhari campaign seems to be having more traction. But I don’t agree with the opposition that the Jonathan administration is the most corrupt in Nigeria’s history.
There was, in my view, more corruption in President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government where Obasanjo was the Petroleum Minister for more than seven years.
Perhaps Jonathan’s greatest failing is his inability to prosecute Obasanjo for corruption and allowing the former president to, in his characteristic manner, use such failings to mischievously burnish his own image as an anti-corruption overlord.
And this pro-corruption epaulet on the Jonathan Presidency is being accentuated by the assertions of characters like Zwingina because the only message such pronouncements send out is that Nigerians should vote for Jonathan because, unlike Buhari, he will be soft on corruption.
People believe, rightly, that the major reason why this country continues to plumb the depths of mediocrity – despite the surfeit of human and material resources – is corruption.
Therefore, Zwingina’s dubious and self-serving red herring is counter-productive to Jonathan’s second term quest.
