By Steve Nwosu
These are not the best of times to give your opinion on any national issue. Elections are around the corner and the authorities are on edge. Similarly, the opposition is also looking for who to blame for their inability to cobble together any meaningful resistance.
Virtually everything we say, or write, these days is viewed misinterpreted from the prism of partisanship. Simply put, its either you’re working for Buhari against Atiku or vice versa.
If you question the anti-graft war, it must be that you’re sour-graping over loss of the filthy lucre you enjoyed under the PDP. If you expose unseriousness of the PDP campaign and the utter lack of direction on the part of the opposition, then it must be that you have been contracted by the APC.
If you condemn the killings of innocent Nigerians at every corner of the country, you would be reminded that more Nigerians died in similar circumstances under Goodluck Jonathan. And if you complain about the economy, they would throw up outlandish statistics that have no bearing with the present hunger in the land. And if that does not convince, or confuse, you, they would then put the blame on 16 years of PDP. And if you’re still stubborn, they invoke the law.
Yes, the law! Armed with every imaginable and unimaginable law, both written and unwritten, the government literally has the power to decree rainy season and dry season. And it is not leaving anyone in doubt that it intends to use the power to the fullest. It’s so serious now that even the EFCC can arrest you for Hate Speech. All they need is for Lai Mohammed, for instance, to just say ‘it’s fraudulent of Bukola Saraki to make unverifiable claims about Offa robbery’, and Ibrahim Magu would just pick on the word ‘fraudulent’ from the statement, and claim it automatically falls under the purview of EFCC. And the next morning, a platoon of policemen would be laying siege to Saraki’s home – neither going in to arrest him, nor allowing anybody go in or out of the house. And they could be there until after the general elections. Just as they are currently doing with Sen. Dino Melaye.
Yes, as I write this, it’s seven days since the Nigeria Police set up a ‘headquarters annex’ outside the gate of Melaye’s Abuja home. Suddenly, we have no better job for a detachment of or policemen, except to go do ‘maigaurd’ job! In these days of widespread insecurity. At a time when the governor of Zamfara is begging for Emergency Rule! Crying that the incessant attacks on his state by insurgents is largely because many communities in the state are unpoliced!
But then, we can’t question the judgment of the police because one would be accused of canvassing for the sack of the IGP. Moreover, it could also be a ‘security matter’.
It is also because of this omnibus ‘security matter’ redline that we can’t interrogate the ongoing national embarrassment we unashamedly insist on calling a war against terror. We can’t question it because it is a security matter. And as we throw more money at the problem, it continues to expand to new frontiers, as though the money we’re pouring in is energising the insurgents, rather than our troops. Now the insurgents have opened shop in Zamfara and Katsina states, even as they have yet to close the shops in Kaduna, Benue and Plateau.
But, before I let the redhead muse run riot, I want to limit my not-too-fercund imagination to just what the security chiefs want us to know, and think. So, irrespective of whatever video Boko Haram insurgents send out. I choose to believe our military: Baga is still under the control of the Nigerian Army. Irrespective of whatever propaganda the insurgents dish out, I insist on believing that the helicopter which went down a few days ago, killing five of our gallant officers, was not gunned down. Rather, it crashed as a result of some technical fault.
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I also choose to believe that Boko Haram remains downgraded, and defeated. I still believe that what we have been experiencing in recent times are the last gasps of a dying rag-tag army. Don’t ask me why the Minister of Defence and the service chiefs are running to Borno.
Like I said earlier, elections are only a few weeks away, and I don’t want to be accused of being sponsored by the PDP and Oby Ezekwesili, and Jerry Gana, and Sowore, and KOWA. I don’t want to be accused of gifting victory to Buhari, even before the first vote is cast – even when that seems to be where we’re headed.
Meanwhile, I’m still waiting for when the frontrunners will begin the issue-based campaign they promised us. Or is that going to be one of the failed promises? Now, if they begin to fail on their promises before we elect them, what would they then do when we elect them? Just wondering!
For now, all we are hearing is APC accusing PDP of failing to address the real issues bothering the country, and rather desperately trying to smear the integrity of Buhari.
Ironically, APC is not addressing these same ‘real issues’ either. Nearly everything that emanates from its campaign office is the desperation to prove how much of a thief Atiku is. Unfortunately, the same APC that is challenging PDP to produce proof of Buhari’s alleged sleaze has yet to produce any proof on its own allegations against Atiku either.
In fact, it is actually the PDP that has come closest to producing any proof. It is rather a shame that after nearly four years of trashing around, the APC government is yet to take the Atiku case beyond where President Obasanjo left it, in his own desperation to stop Atiku in 2007.
For some reason, it appears there is an eternal fear of dragging the Waziri Adamawa before a proper court – maybe because the allegations lack substance and would collapse before any proper court. It is, therefore, a smarter idea to leave the case in the court of public opinion, and then, deliberately feed that same public so much falsehood and hearsay that it is never able to make a fair judgment – and hope the elections would have been over before Atiku clears his name.
The reason for this is simple: There are not too many things that Buhari has over Atiku. There are very few things the APC can point a finger at Atiku to accuse him of, without the other four fingers pointing at its own candidate. So, there has to be some unorthodox way of stopping the PDP ensign.
Of course the fear of Atiku is also understandable: His mythical wealth. Having, through its scorched-earth economic policies, ensured that not too many people have enough liquidity to fund election against the incumbent – since most of our famed billionaires are rich by literally stealing from government, anyway, the Buhari government inadvertently cleared the way for Atiku’s emergence. Now, it is thrashing in all directions to ensure the money never comes out.
I have heard it said in many PDP and APC circles that Atiku is the only person who can drop two billion dollars for election and nobody would be able to trace it to government coffers. He is unlike several other politicians whose wealth are, even if wrongly, readily linked to the public offices they have recently occupied.
The other person who can, though not to the level of Atiku, equally bring out a significant sum that cannot be said to have been looted from government treasury is Mr. Peter Obi.
So, PDP delivered a masterstroke when it settled for the two as presidential candidate and running mate, respectively.
Since then, every discerning, non-partisan mind can easily decipher the desperation of the ruling party to warn us ahead of time, that the money PDP would be bringing for campaign table is stained, blood money – even more blood-stained than the billions that were allegedly diverted from funding the ongoing war against insurgents. Yes, dirtier than that lump sum that was unilaterally withdrawn from the Excess Crude Account ‘to fight insecurity’.
But jokes apart, everyone is playing dirty. PDP is in it. APC is in it. The same way PDP went to Dubai to resolve that one of the strategies for their campaign is to tear down the integrity cloak covering Buhari and Osinbajo, is the same way APC resolved never to let us forget that Atiku is a person of interest to the US anti-graft authorities, and has since been mortally scared of stepping foot on God’s Own Country. The ruling party also resolved never to let a day pass without their reminding us that the economy is in bad shape today because PDP stole everything in the treasury.
Seemingly, the ruling party has also gone into some unholy alliance with certain Anambra elements, to try to foment some ‘home trouble’ for Obi. Everybody is playing dirty. It is only left to the respective camps to ensure that they did not leave any poorly buried corpses anywhere. Or, whenever something really messy is unearthed, be ready with a believable defence.
As the general elections daily close in on us, I guess we will have to make do with this campaign of mutual mudslinging, since we’re never going to be able to get them to discuss the real issues anyway.
Until the polls open next month, all we would keep hearing is: “PDP stole the country blind in 16 years”, “There is more looting in this APC government than PDP”, “yes we stole, but you stole with us before decamping to APC”. After that, we would be served: “Atiku is a thief”, “Buhari is also stealing through his family members”, “Obi is dishing out wrong figures”, “Osinbajo has no figures to even dish out, rather he’s hiding under the name of pastor to do ‘unpastorly’ things”. Issued-based campaign indeed!
