By
Fisayo
Soyombo
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Buhari remains
the single most popular man in northern Nigeria, writes Soyombo [Reuters]
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With Goodluck
Jonathan's collapsing popularity, Muhammadu Buhari actually stands a chance of
winning the 2015 elections.
For the first time in Nigeria's 16
years of democracy, there is real chance that the president could be someone
other than the candidate of the People's Democratic Party (PDP).
Many times, I have described Muhammadu
Buhari, the man who will face Jonathan in 2015, as a "perennially-losing
presidential candidate".
In 2003 he emerged as the sole
candidate of the All Peoples Party (APP), after two candidates Rochas Okorocha
and Harry Akande were pressured into stepping down, while Yahaya Abubakar
failed to show up on the date of the primary. In the elections, Buhari lost to
then incumbent, Olusegun Obasanjo of the PDP.
In 2007, he was consensus candidate of
the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) after Bukar Ibrahim and Pere Ajunwa were
made to back down on convention day. Buhari then lost to PDP's Umaru Musa
Yar'Adua.
In 2011, he contested the elections on
the platform of the Congress for Progressives Change (CPC), which he formed,
losing again, to Goodluck Jonathan. In all three cases, his emergence was
without intra-party opposition.
But I am first to admit that Buhari's
story has changed. By contesting and winning the presidential primary of the All Progressive
Congress (APC) - the first time his presidential ambition has been challenged -
Buhari has recorded the most important victory of his political career. And if
the 2015 election is free and fair, he could well better that record.
Why Buhari may win
Buhari remains the single most popular
man in northern Nigeria. Despite lacking real party structure, Buhari, with CPC
in 2011, defeated Jonathan in Yobe, Zamfara, Sokoto, Niger, Kebbi, Katsina,
Kano, Kaduna, Gombe and Jigawa. He single-handedly polled a total of 12,214,853
votes, which amounted to 54.3 percent of Jonathan's tally. Riding on the
back of APC's nationwide structure backed by 14 governors and their war chest,
a Buhari victory in 2015 is quite possible.
Buhari is popular outside the north as
well. Four days after he created his Twitter account (@ThisIsBuhari), he had already
amassed 45,000 followers. This is testament to Buhari's growing national - not
just northern - acceptability, because the north remains Nigeria's least literate zone. The north, therefore, has a
sparse population of Internet users, which means that Buhari's crowd of Twitter
followers probably come from across the country.
In truth, Buhari cannot take full
credit for his popularity outside the north. Full marks should go to Goodluck
Jonathan, the man who has unravelled as the antithesis of his opponent's unique
selling point.
Presidential spokesman Reuben Abati can
deliver the floweriest prose about his boss's aversion to corruption while his
colleague Doyin Okupe hurls the foulest words at the opposition and other
Nigerians daily puncturing the president's professed incorruptibility. But the
majority of Nigerians have come to accept that Jonathan, even if re-elected for
10 terms, will never fight corruption.
The courage is lacking, the political
will is nonexistent, the desperation for re-election is so consuming that he
would not hurt the weakest of his corrupt political allies. So Nigerians are
prepared to turn to Buhari, unarguably the least stained presidential aspirant
in the eyes of the people.
When APC was formed in February 2013,
senior PDP figures dismissed it as a failure-bound union
of four parties. Who would blame them? Many were sceptical that this merger
would not survive even a year. Yet, in another two months, this merger would be
two years old. But that is not the story.
The story is that all APC presidential
aspirants defeated by Buhari have offered him their support. Few expected it.
Atiku Abubakar, the man most expected to bolt out of APC in the event of a
loss, congratulated
Buhari the moment the ex-general's vote count overtook his, even though the
winner had not yet been officially announced at the time. There is a massive
movement for Buhari, which Jonathan didn't face in 2011.
Negative perceptions
That Buhari stands a good chance of
winning does not mean he is not facing challenges. Nigerians, though forgetful,
are largely an unforgiving lot. Their memories only need to be reignited by
reminders of an individual's past indiscretions.
That was what Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka did, first in 2007; and his thoughts have been
massively re-circulated since Buhari's emergence as the APC candidate. The
unjust execution of Lawal Ojuolape, Bernard Ogedengbe and Bartholomew Owoh,
through a retroactive decree, will haunt Buhari ahead of February.
There is nothing Muhammadu Buhai can do
- and
he himself knows - to extricate himself from his perception as a religious
bigot. For the second time running, he has chosen a pastor as his running
mate. But even if he chooses a pope, there are Nigerians who won't pick Buhari
for fear of enthroning a religiously extreme president.
In 2011, Buhari was accused of inciting
the violence that followed his loss to Jonathan. The following year, he said
"the dog and the baboon would all be soaked in blood"
should the 2015 election be rigged. Buhari has shed blood before for his
presidential ambition, some people believe. And they think he would do it
again. Such man, they reason, should never taste power.
And there are those who would never
vote for a 72-year-old. How can APC be trumpeting change while fielding a man
who was military president more than three decades ago? That's no change; it's
recycling.
The candidature of a septuagenarian is
a dent on whatever progress we think we have made as a democracy. And although
there have been arguments on the immorality
of voting for either Buhari or Jonathan, Nigeria badly needs the
"recycled freshness" that voting Jonathan out would herald!
Fisayo Soyombo edits Nigerian online
newspaper TheCable.
Source: http://www.aljazeera.com
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