Buhari: Inauguration of a Political Phenomenon and the Looming Crisis of Expectations

 

By Franklin Otorofani
Putting the Wrong Foot Forward

“Nigeria Presidential Inauguration 2015: President-Elect Buhari Slams Jonathan’s Outgoing Administration Over Power Transfer,” screamed the Australia based International Business Times’ headline signaling to the world that president-elect Muhammadu Buhari, like the chameleon, may have changed his stripes to blend with the color of democracy, but he has not altered his political DNA one bit and kicking off his inaugural activities by playing his favorite blame game.

How many more of these make-believe whining, complaints and excuses are we prepared to tolerate as a change seeking people? It’s still morning yet and there will be no rush to judgment yet, but has nothing truly changed with Buhari? If nothing has changed with Buhari then nothing has changed after all, and nothing will change hereafter. Change must begin with Buhari, for one who wants to change others must begin with himself.

From all indications so far, including, but not limited to the despicable attempts by Buhari’s transition team to, in effect, carry out what amounts to an inquisition or probe of the outgoing Jonathan government which had on its volition set up at the earliest possible time, a federal transition team to smoothen the handover, it would appear that we shall once again be contending with the self-same feisty, accusatory young military ruler of old; self-same old grumpy civilian presidential candidate; self-same whining, complaining and finger pointing president-elect; and self-same vindictive civilian ruler who will be chasing shadows all over the place rather than governing. And these back and forth with Jonathan over ordinary transition issues are early indications of that probability if not dead certainty in the style of the incoming administration. The Buhri transition is not looking good with so much negative media reports coming from both sides, but particularly from the Buhari team that is crying wolf all the time in the media.

Related reading: Brewing crisis between Jonathan and Buhari transition teams

Buhari has not been sworn in yet as president but his transition team is already “acting like a parallel government” as the Federal Executive Council had revealed to the nation. If true as alleged, it shows nothing but total disrepect for the outgoing administation. A transition team’s job is not to go and understudy the operation and functioning of an outgoing government but simply to coordinate handing over notes by the various ministries and departments of government and not to inquire deeply or at all into the propriety or otherwise of the policies or lack thereof of the outgoing administration. Handover notes are not meant to be detailed and granular but generalized in nature. His team appears to be demanding too much information at this stage. That is overreaching, yes an inquisition.

If, as I suspect, that is what Buhari instructed it to do he should be told point blank that he’s overreaching as president-elect. Jonathan is not legally obliged to constitute a transition team for crying out loud. And Buhari’s military coup background with governments changing hands through the barrels of the guns with no handover notes whatsoever could not have afforded him that privilege either in his past governmental takeover as military ruler. So where is he getting his ideas of detailed handover notes from if not to rake up dusts unnecessarily? Is he telling the world that he cannot assume duties and govern effectively without the benefit of detailed handover notes from Jonathan?

I do not pretend to have all the facts but there is no reason whatsoever why the Buhari team should be expressing frustration as though the outgoing administration is making out with government’s properties and records that would be irretrievable. That is clearly not the case. The records of government are there and career permanent secretaries are not leaving and have deeper knowledge of the goings on in their respective ministries and departments which would of course be made available to the incoming government at the appropriate time.

This is not the time for Buhari to be picking up quarrels with Jonathan or his officials but to return the favors done to him by the Jonathan administration by setting up a full-fledged federal transition committee. Not all outgoing governments go to such great lengths to put an incoming administration into the picture other than the usual security briefings. Once again Buhari is showing his anti-social hand this early in the day, and that is a bad signal to send to the nation. It does him no credit at all to start off on a needlessly combative and belligerent note like this.

It’s déjà vu all over again. This then, in a nutshell, is the true essence of the Buhari political phenomenon that suddenly emerged from the woodworks in 2007 to torment the nation and is still running its perilous course in Nigeria. And thus far, the auguries are not terribly encouraging; in fact they’re downright scary, to say the least. And I’m not in government to be fearful of any Buhari probe or for that matter even persecution. I’m just an ordinary citizen contemplating these grave national matters with deep and wide ramifications for our dear nation.

For now though, Nigerians will brush that aside and look up to the inauguration proper, not the ongoing transition shenanigans on both sides. I would, therefore, urge both sides not to look down but to lift up their eyes to the skies and behold the Nigerian sun rising, not setting, because a thousand Buharis and Jonathans and their parties cannot undo what God has ordained for the country. They should cut out the childish fighting and stone throwing and conduct a smooth and peaceful transition worthy of peaceful election and a great country like Nigeria. Period.

So what’s going on in Nigeria towards the end of this month—May, 29th, 2015? Everything is going on in Nigeria because for starters that’s Nigeria’s Democracy Day instituted and consecrated by the military since 1999. But wait, there is more. May 29th, 2015, is Nigeria’s second date with history in the year of 2015 AD, in as many months—the first being March 28th, 2015, Nigeria’s own “D-Day”. As we may all recall, that was the fateful day when millions of disenchanted Nigerians, constantly goaded, incited and eventually turned against the Jonathan administration; and tantalized with juicy, low hanging fruits dangled before their eyes by the opposition, suddenly became hungry for leadership change across the board.

The word “change” or its Hausa transliteration “changee” became a national mantra of sorts—the magic wand waved by the opposition to turn on public hysteria. Magical or not, it’s about time somebody defined that term and imbue it with some specific contents. Quite often it is usually assumed that a people desiring change want change for the better but that is entirely presumptuous. Yes they might naturally want change for the better alright but do not always wind up achieving their goal and in some cases wind up on the opposite side high and dry lamenting their impulsive, thoughtless and foolish decision. Change is a double edged sword that cuts either way. There is no guarantee anywhere that change would always be for the better—it could very well be for the worse as history has demonstrated time and again. Do the people consider the possible directions and ramifications of change before taking the plunge headlong? Hardly.

Unfortunately, the people are collectively unable to articulate for themselves the type of change they desire, leaving politicians to whimsically and opportunistically fill in the gaps for them. And they (politicians) get to determine the character of the change for the people. And the politicians do this so well by simply telling the people what they figure, through their own internal opinion polls, the people want to hear, which could fundamentally be at cross purposes with what the politicians really have in mind as their ideas or notions of change.

This is the inbuilt disconnect that triggers discordant notes later on and causes the people to suffer disappointment when it would be too late to do anything about it except of course to demand change of the change. It’s the vicious cycle that democracy has imposed on all nations that have fallen under its sway and have to live with. For all its pretensions, therefore, democracy is an elite leadership recycling political system drawing from the same pool and shuffling and reshuffling them around with new recruits joining the pool and learning the tricks of the game from the old horses who hardly retire from politics and continue to play political godfathers.

What type of change does the public desire to bring about? Is it change of unpopular policies or change of unpopular leadership or both? This, seems to me, a fundamental question that needs to be addressed by those seeking change. Unfortunately, it’s never ever addressed during electioneering campaigns. It seems that all that is required is to chant “change” and the contents will be filled later on without the benefit of pre-knowledge of it.

A people who hand a blank check to political demagogues to fill as they wish in the name of change are not only fool-hardy but courting disaster and possible existential perils. The Germans once did through their own votes for Adolf Hitler and brought utter ruination to their nation. Egged on by political demagogues who are adepts at whipping up even the dead into frenzied agitation the history books are filled with cases of nations and people willfully albeit naively transitioning themselves and their nations from better to worse conditions in some cases cataclysmic conditions. The Russians did under Vladimir Lenin and Stalin in the name of so-called proletarian revolution that simply translated to the same elite change of guards in the name of the people.

Am I suggesting that Nigerians did similar thing on March 28, 2015? No, I’m not suggesting that. But I’m not ruling it out either because the future is still pregnant and that history is yet to be fully written. Even so one thing remains constant in all these and other cases—scourge of elitism. Nigerians simply replaced one set of elites with another from the same old pool, not even a new one. Buhari, Tinubu, Jonathan and all the so-called PDP bigwig deserters now fancying themselves APC change agents belong to the same old pool of ethno/religious political gladiators.

What an insult to call themselves “progressives”. What progressives, for crying out loud? And where exactly did Buhari fit in, in this progressive nonsense? APC is substantially made up of PDP renegades that had been crossing over in drip, drip fashion until the mass exodus took place in the last two years. And the last time I checked, they did not leave the PDP because of ideological differences but for entirely mercenary reasons in consonance with the unprincipled and self-serving character of the average Nigerian politician.

They did not quit the PDP because they woke up one day and suddenly discovered it was no longer serving the people. They quit it because they woke up one day and suddenly discovered that the PDP was no longer serving them either enough or at all and they moved to where they figured their own bread might be better buttered and APC held out that promise for them. As such, the Nigerian people will always get the short end of the stick even after empowering this new political recruits from the old pool.

Therefore to expect something radical and revolutionarily beneficial for the Nigerian people from this same elite pool is, to be charitable, patently delusional. But it didn’t matter anyway, because as you may have already figured out yourself, democracy is a Weapon of Mass Deception (WMD) and will always pre-program and manipulate the people to do its bidding under the pretext of “empowering” them. No, the people are not empowered by democracy but hijacked by it to empower the elites to rule over them as their masters rather than servants.
Local and Global Conspiracies

How did they do it? How did they execute this democratic coup de tat against the incumbent leadership so flawlessly? No change comes easy more so against a sitting president who had entrenched himself in power for six years like Jonathan not including the two years he was vice president under late President Musa Yar’Adua. That said, the odds were considerably improved for the opposition with the treacherous Yorubas on board. I’m sorry folks I have no other adjective to describe the Yoruba leaders who hatched this coup to unseat Jonathan and invited General Buhari to lead reminiscent of military coups. Coming from an ethnic minority, which is at loggerheads with other ethnic minorities in the South, Jonathan’s own political base was, realistically speaking, next to zero in a presidential election.

Of all the major ethnic groups only the Igbos stood by him till the bitter end. And for that I, for one, will always honor Ndigbo as a principled ethnic nationality and disdain the Yorubas collectively for their unmitigated treachery and backstabbing—though admittedly not all. And here I must hasten to separate the Yoruba patriots who stood by Jonathan from the traitors who deserted him. They’re patriots because they believed in the inalienable right of every Nigerian citizen from any ethnic group by whatever name called to lead this great nation and President Goodluck Jonathan was an affirmation of that principle, who bore and flew that flag for six years.

Those who harbor contrary opinion on this are the enemies of the country. And they sorted themselves out by deserting Jonathan. Certainly he was not the worst president Nigeria ever had. Perhaps when the dusts finally settle he may yet turn out to be one of the very best presidents because his transformational agenda has kept the economy growing when all others were cratering. He is leaving behind an economy with over 6% growth rate in GDP and the largest in Africa.

These are verifiable facts on the ground not fiction. Now, if President Obama, for example, who is busy destroying American traditional values, could be returned for a second term in office with a shameful record of average 2% growth rate in GDP (0.2% 1ST quarter 2015) in the US economy in the last six and half years in office, Jonathan deserved a better deal from Nigerians and would have got it if only the Yorubas had not stood between him and the presidency. They did for purely selfish reasons and here we are licking the wounds that will take another generation if not an eternity to heal, if it all.

Thus deserted by his own party men and a major ethnic group in the south—Yorubas for sure—that would have made a difference, he went to war virtually alone with the rump of his troops. And at the appointed hour, the rebels and enemy forces charged at him in hordes in the battlefields like ancient Greek warriors on chariots in medieval times, and summarily sacked his government and his party, the PDP, from power in what can only be described as an electoral Tsunami. Yes, let’s call it what it truly is: An electoral Tsunami that, in one deadly tidal wave, swept away the biggest and most powerful political party in Africa’s largest democracy and nation. And, as they say, the rest is history that is still in the making. Power changed hands and political parties in Nigeria for the first time in her existence, yet remains firmly with the infinitely corrupt and visionless elites whose only claim to leadership is unbridled kleptomania.

However, the sack of the Jonathan presidency and the PDP was by no means fortuitous but carefully planned long term operation for years. And it was orchestrated by a broad conspiracy of local and foreign forces joined together at the hips and desirous of getting a foothold in Nigeria’s political environment for their own selfish interests. And when the elections were postponed for security reasons, which by the way, was entirely warranted, lawful and legitimate in the circumstances, public outcries and condemnations of the postponement were coming fast and furious not from Nigerian state capitals and cities and even villages as one might expect, but from meddlesome Western capitals of all places, notably Washington DC.

Folks, nothing happens by chance including the formation of the APC itself. Nigerians are no fools and many are aware of the fact that APC did not defeat Jonathan—the West did. Buhari did not defeat Jonathan—the West did. Jonathan did not lose the election—Nigeria did. Make no mistake about it. APC was and still a western political project in Nigeria in alliance with its local stooges such as Bola Tinubu. It was a long term project about which the Jonathan administration was entirely clueless, or if it knew about it did nothing serious and significant to confront and defeat its purpose.

However, although the principal beneficiary for now, Buhari is the odd man out in this configuration. Buhari and the North don’t usually look up to the Christian West for cultural direction as does the Yorubas and the rest of the South. On the contrary, they looks up to the Islamic East—in particular, the Arab world in the Middle East for cultural direction. While both North and South-West share same religion of Islam to a great degree, it remains to be seen how that alone will cement this APC party contraption.

Related reading: US campaign group AKPD to work for APC in Nigeria…

Lagos and Abuja were bristling with Obama’s political operatives anchored by his former campaign manager David Axelrod, who by the way, hails from the same Chicago as Obama. If candidate Jonathan was savvy enough politically, he would have made the involvement of foreign political operatives in Nigerian election a major campaign issue like PM Benjamin Netanyahu did in the Israeli elections before Nigeria’s in which he battered and crushed Obama’s left wing candidate because patriotism counts. For Obama it is not about national interests but about liberal ideological fixation.

He’s in Nigeria to promote his immoral liberal policies just as he attempted in Kenya and got a black eye when the Kenyan government outlawed same-sex marriage with heavy jail term attached to the offence as Nigeria did under Jonathan—the same immoral policies he was trying to impose in Israel as he’s doing with some success in the United States, and roundly rejected by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the brave, principled Israeli people. And we see now that Obama and Netanyahu have fallen apart even more so since he crushed the liberal opposition candidate.

These were some of the significant but unarticulated issues that were brewing in the background that were not brought to the attention of the Nigerian people at all that had the potential of at least affecting the results of the election. When faced with such international conspiracies Jonathan owed a duty to himself and the Nigerian people to bring these issues to the fore and throw whatever weapons he had into the ring and fight to the finish. Bibi Netanyahu did and he was assailed for that by Obama sitting in Washington as he watched his candidate walloped by the no nonsense Bibi.

Related reading: 1. Senate panel probing Obama ties to anti-Netanyahu…

Related reading: 2. Source: Senate panel probing ‎possible Obama … -…

Related reading: 3. Are Obama Operatives Meddling In Israeli Election…

Why is that? Why would the West be howling about postponement of an election in Nigeria—the same West that kept mum and did nothing when the results of the freest election ever held in Nigeria was annulled back in 1993 for no reason? Or is Nigerian a western nation—part of NATO or EU? Well you should know why if you’ve been reading my articles. It’s because they feared that the execution of their electoral plot might suffer setbacks and even failure due to a number of unforeseen factors and developments that could undermine its success. So in desperation they began to issue warnings and accusations about alleged Jonathan’s plot to postpone or even delay the elections indefinitely in a supposed self-succession agenda.

US Secretary of State John Kerry, for example, at the promptings of his boss, President Barack Hussein Obama, had warned the Nigerian government of dire consequences should the elections fail to hold as scheduled. And of course the local puppets were quick to pick up the danger signal from the puppeteer and thus agitated began to echo his voice ever so stridently in order to be heard loud and clear by their masters on the other side across the Atlantic Ocean. And the naysayers, acting as Washington’s local echo chamber asked scornfully and mockingly to earn their keep: How can he bring the security situation in the country under control in one month when he couldn’t do it in four years? There must be a secret agenda for the postponement!

What’s more, we’ve seen reports of how Obama had worked hard behind the scenes to sabotage Nigeria’s counterterrorism campaign against Boko Haram while publicly pretending to help Nigeria by denying military assistance to the Nigerian government. Why, because he had figured that denying Jonathan such military assistance would prevent him from defeating Boko Haram in which case Jonathan would be perceived as a weak and failed leader which would ultimately undermine his victory at the election. In other words, helping Jonathan defeat Boko Haram would effectively hand him a second term in office and Obama is the last man on the planet to do Jonathan such a favor. He would rather help Buhari defeat him as payback for defying his immoral, perverted sexual agenda for the world particularly Nigeria, the leading nation in Africa to which other African nations look for direction.

And this is coming from Obama himself, the weakest commander in chief ever in the US history, who has consistently failed in each and every US military engagement under his watch everywhere in the world including his present so called war against IS in Iraq and Syria. But what does it matter to Nigerians who generally do not know much about Obama’s own well documented failures of leadership in his own country? Anyway, I do not so much as blame Nigerians for misreading the political dynamics as I blame Jonathan for his willful blindness and/or inability to act proactively to defend and protect his administration and the country he leads from foreign meddlesomeness. What the heck? He should have been a little more aggressive.

We should not fail to note in this connection how his late boss President Musa Yar’Adua boycotted Washington DC over policy issues and did not even go to the West for his treatment. A leader must stand up for principles as Jonathan did but must also let his people know the price he’s paying for it and they will rally to his cause. Keeping mum and pretending that all was well with his relationship with the West, particularly Washington, was a fatal mistake on his part. Such matters must reside in the public domain and consciousness.

The imperialist West will always try to meddle in the internal affairs of all nations for the purpose of imposing its demented rotten values either through the UN or directly. It’s in its DNA and it’s doing it even to such superpowers as Russia and China, for crying out loud, that are forcefully pushing back at it and telling it to back off or else there would be big trouble in its hands, how much so on third world countries like Nigeria. This is the global environment in which all third world leaders are operating and must be accounted for in their foreign policy mix.

With Jonathan keeping faith with history, however, those spurious and scurrilous attacks and accusations turned out to be totally and completely baseless and false. The security situation was significantly brought under control with “troops surge” and revamped military campaign that eventually enabled the elections to be held in the affected parts of the Northeast, thus entirely justifying their postponement. Ironically, all of these were to the benefit of the opposition rather than Jonathan and PDP because the Jonathan liberated North-East did not vote for Jonathan and PDP but for Buhari and APC. Jonathan provided the peaceful environment for voting that benefitted the opposition rather than himself and his party because it is his duty to as commander-in-chief.

In other words, he cleared the way for the West and the opposition to launch the stealth attack and the electoral fate of candidate Jonathan was sealed, not in Nigeria or anywhere in Africa, however, but in Western capitals. Folks, this is the reality we’re dealing with in Nigeria’s democratic experience today. Nigerian democracy has seemingly been successfully hijacked by the West as I had always forewarned in my several writings.

It remains to be seen how it will all pan out under Buhari, and I’m still mildly and cautiously optimistic that it will not fly for long if only because I’m an optimist by nature. It remains to be seen, however, whether President Muhammadu Buhari, leader of the greatest black nation on the face of the earth, and a more accomplished and experienced statesman than Obama and all the Western leaders combined, would allow himself to play the lapdog of the West to be ordered around by riff raffs masquerading as leaders in Western capitals, or stand up for Africa and African values and corporate interests or kowtow to the West as an underling.

That said, Nigerians should watch and pray because the APC, as earlier indicated, is a special purpose imperialist vehicle with parts produced in the West and assembled in Nigeria. This will be made clearer in the days ahead. But watch out for the tell-tale signs and giveaways in Buhari’s inaugural address on May 29th, 2015. And read between the lines to decode his words and phrases. You bet I will and I can’t wait, neither should you. He will give himself away in just a few seemingly innocuous soundbites, and you can take it from there and monitor his subsequent policy pronouncements.

In particular, watch out for such phrases as “human rights” or the like –euphemism for debauched sexual depravity by the West, in the name of freedoms, which they have deployed time and again against China and Russia to no avail because the leaders of those nations couldn’t be bothered and perfectly understand the Western game plan. The good news though is that Obama is on his way out and there is no guarantee that another filthy and despicable liberal like him will grace the Oval Office again in this decade. It’s over for liberals! The British people just told them that to their faces.
Battlefields Encounters

And so it came to pass that in one concentrated bombardment with Jega’s INEC providing the virtual intelligence and directing the targets for attacks from behind the scenes, Aso Rock buckled under a barrage of shelling and fell to superior electoral firepower from the opposition led by General Muhammadu Buhari of the APC—a more experienced veteran of both military and electoral battles himself at the presidential level than Jonathan himself, who had gate-crashed into the presidency in 2007 with just one presidential election in 2011 behind him. As indicated in an earlier piece, Buhari has been in this power game all his life and in the political trenches since the beginning of this dispensation long before Jonathan showed up.

Lest we forget, Jonathan was only a deputy governor in Bayelsa state whose former boss Governor Alami Alamiesegha, the self-styled Governor-General of Ijaw land, was driven from power by Obasanjo’s EFCC then led by Nuhu Ribadu on account of corruption charges and had fled to Britain, allowing Jonathan to succeed him just as he did on Yar’Adua. He was therefore not a tested political warrior with a solid power base of his own and had to fly on the wings of his bosses, including Yar’Adua and Obasanjo to power and a bit of luck too, hence his name Goodluck. So Buhari has, in effect, successfully changed Jonathan’s first name from Good-luck to Bad-luck in this presidential election and the “Good” part no longer holds.

For a reminder and some contrast, Buhari had electorally fought his former boss and superior in the army President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2007 and lost badly,including his deposit. Thereafter, he took on late President Musa Yar’Adua and again lost badly, including his own Katsina state, just to show you how badly he lost in 2007. However, seeing in the 2011 election cycle a soft target from Niger Delta with virtually no political base besides fragmented minorities in the South-South with no cultural affinities amongst them, he charged at President Goodluck Jonathan, then a lightweight, like a bull. But unknown to Buhari, back then millions of Nigerians had Jonathan’s back as the underdog, including Professor Wole Soyinka and Bola Tinubu seeing as he was badly treated by the North after Yar’Adua’s death.

It would be recalled that the Adamu Ciroma led Northern Elders Forum (NEF) in which IBB and Atiku had fought for adoption by the North to challenge Jonathan had declared war on Jonathan within the PDP which was a carryover of the North’s attempt to deny him the presidency after Yar’Adua’s death. The crude tactic of the NEF backfired on the North and the country as a whole rallied behind Jonathan to deliver a crushing defeat to Buhari that caused him to retire from contesting elections and hung his boxing gloves. Unfortunately for Jonathan that goodwill was all but gone in 2015.

How that happened is a mixture of political immaturity in handling party affairs and the conspiracies alluded to above. And seeing an opening offered by the West’s democratic project in Nigeria with Tinubu and Wole Soyinka behind it, Buhari roused himself up from retirement for a return match with Jonathan. Without the West Buhari would have again been mauled by Jonathan. This is why Nigerians must be made to understand from where the arrow that struck Jonathan in the presidency came from. It did not come from Nigerians but from abroad with Tinubu, Wole Soyinka and Buhari properly directing it to its target.

His defeat was therefore foreseen and foretold and many of us had feared the worst even as we continued to put a brave face. And it would appear that the gods had abandoned Jonathan for reasons that are not entirely clear to mortals like us. When one of Jega’s election rigging machines deployed to service Jonathan’s polling station in his home town failed Jonathan during the presidential election and had to go home and come back to cast his vote, my heart sank, for it occurred to me as a bad omen.

Though he put a brave face on it, it dawned on me that the gods were sending a clear message of his impending defeat. Why of all places is Jonathan polling station would Jega machine fail him when the global media were on hand to record his vote? Jega did not purposely deploy a derelict machine to his polling station. He is the president and the greatest advertisement for the machines, which would be credit for Jega. Why of all voting machines would the one given to his ward be the failure with no back-up machine? How come? It raises a lot of troubling questions that were neither asked nor answered.

Needless to state that he left the polling station sad and disillusioned at the electoral abracadabra Jega was about to wreak on the nation with supposedly brand new voting machines seemingly programmed to fail right in the face of the President and Commander in chief. He had allowed Jega to procure and deplore them unchecked and un-vetted at his own peril. Shouldn’t he have insisted on their proper functioning and reliability before the elections?

Yes a smarter leader would have done so and the people would have insisted on such voting machines vetting process before the election but not Jonathan who was already seeing defeat in his shadows. Never in the history of Nigeria had a sitting president been so electorally humiliated that he had seen the end even before it came and conceded defeat even before it arrived his door with an eviction notice from Aso Rock served on him.

I guess he was too naïve and too trusting. His enemies and detractors have a word for it: “Clueless”. How uncharitable! But what exactly does “clueless” really mean in the parlance of the opposition? It can only mean what it ordinarily means, i.e. not being cognizant of what is happening around you in your surroundings that others know about. In this case, they were saying to Jonathan: Look at you smiling and cheering us while we’re busy digging your political grave right under your feet and you’re funding the project generously with a hefty vote from the National Assembly!

But Jonathan was not the only victim as a defeated general must go down with his defeated troops. Buhari’s troops did not just stop at Aso Rock where they laid siege on its battlements for months, eventually breached and knocked out embattled President Goodluck Jonathan and the National Assembly cold and left him for dead.

With Aso Rock fallen and Jonathan’s defeated troops waving the white flags and surrendering, Buhari’s all-conquering army advanced further afield into the hinterland and descended with a heavy hand on PDP controlled states already abandoned by the cowardly PDP governors and legislators, who, like deserting Iraqi forces at the rumors of advancing ISIS forces would not fight. Brandishing their old and dirty but yet APC emblazoned brooms, his troops fell on those states to sweep out terrified PDP governors and their state houses of assemblies into the streets.

They were driven out of their stately mansions—where they had always gathered to share public funds amongst themselves and their hangers on in the name of development—into the political wilderness as homeless politicians looking for some shelter. And many, fearful of the dire fate that awaits them under a vengeful Buhari regime, have made haste to join the enemy ranks as insurance against possible prosecution or, if you like, persecution.

Yes hurricane Buhari made landfall leaving a trail of utter devastation and yet unfathomable misery in PDP country that will take years to rebuild, if at all. Today, the PDP or whatever remains of it, is a walking corpse even in Jonathan’s own Bayelsa state and local government as the state’s representatives have also joined the bandwagon of carpet crossers to jump ship and moved over to the conquering APC, leaving deposed King Jonathan without robes to cover his nakedness in his own homestead.
Jonathan: A Marked Man?

Jonathan has been hit with a double whammy in quick succession that he’s reportedly taking refuge in the Church where he had gone to seek forgiveness as Ijaw gods and goddesses seem to have turned their backs on him. If that were not the case why would his own people abandon him so soon after the Yorubas and Hausa-Fulanis did barely a month ago. Why wouldn’t he be at least comforted by his own people for his defeat? There must be a reason because it’s unlike the Ijaws to do that to their own son and president for that matter. Why would a leader of Jonathan’s stature suddenly fall into disfavor today by his own people for whom he was a god only yesterday? Not even IBB, the self-styled evil genius and criminal annuler of June 12th 1993 presidential election had suffered such ignominy in the hands of his people.

Related reading: Attack from home: Jonathan’s troubles in Bayelsa

And what does it say about the character of the Ijaw people themselves—certainly not all—but notable ones amongst them? It tells me that they’re not entirely happy with the way and manner their son had handled his presidency by allowing himself to be humiliated in this way with all the powers and authority in his hands. Could that be part of their grouse against Jonathan by any chance? Don’t forget that the Ijaws are by nature a warlike people not given to the gentility and gentlemanliness exhibited by Jonathan even in dealing with Boko Haram considering what Presidents Obasanjo and Yar’Adua did in Ijaw land fighting MEND and other militants that were not even as murderous as Boko Haram.

In those military campaigns, Nigerian soldiers found their footings and leveled towns and villages to fight them and Jonathan was part of that campaign under Yar’Adua. He did nothing of the sort when it came to Boko Haram and instead was on the verge of being defeated and humiliated by the rag tag terrorists, incurring the wrath of Nigerians who knew that their military, which had proved itself abroad in peace keeping missions could do better but allowed to be humiliated by a seemingly incompetent commander-in-chief. At least he came across that way inside and outside the country.

Related reading: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/05/we-accept-responsibility-for-all-wrongs-in-nigeria-pdp/

Did Ndigbo, Orhobos, Isokos, Edos, Itsekiris, Ekitis, Ishans, Ibibios, Calabaris, Ogonis, Anangs, Idomas, Tivs and the rest of other Nigerians put their lives and reputations on the line to stand with Jonathan to the bitter end in the last election only for his own people to betray and turn their backs on him after the fact in this callous and cowardly fashion? Did they fawn and fall at his feet and strove to touch his robe flowing with power and authority only yesterday when he came commissioning one federal project after another in their communities and spat at him today while still reeling on the floor because he allowed himself to be felled by hurricane Buhari from the North?

Oh how true it is indeed when they say success has many fathers but failure is an orphan. This is one of the main reasons why Nigerian leaders cling to power at all costs in order to avoid this sort of humiliation. And this informed my previous piece titled, “ Ndigbo: Nigeria’s Light House of Principled ,“testifying to the quality of the Igbo ethnic nationality in matters of this kind. Believe it or not, after the initial adulation President Jonathan is being gradually transformed into a political orphan by his own people.

With that said, I fear that the worst has yet to come for President Jonathan whose neck could be marked with red for the guillotine during the night of the long knives. Does Jonathan deserve this treatment? From what’s in the public domain the answer is negative. But we do not have all the facts. With the benefit of hindsight, however, it is perhaps fair to conclude that given the robust party and good fortunes bequeathed to Jonathan by the Obasanjo and Yar’Adua administrations, he grossly mismanaged his party affairs to the point of losing it all.

The greatest assets of any organization whether commercial or political, are human resources—its people. Yes a few aggrieved members do call it quits with their political parties every now and then, but when such departures become a wave like the type that hit the PDP in the last two years including the grandfather himself, President Olusegun Obasanjo, it’s an indication that something is seriously wrong with the party—probably a malignant tumor that need’s the surgeon’s scalpel to excise.

And who knows Jonathan himself could very well be part of that tumor, but that is a matter for insiders to ponder not me. At the minimum, the PDP executive should be kicked out and leave with Jonathan. Who am I to pass judgement on those who quit the party except to say that they did not do it for public good but for purely selfish interests? It seemed to me like they were bailing out of a ship that was already taking in water in the middle of the ocean. How much and hard captain Jonathan worked to stop the leaks that eventually flooded and sunk his party ship remains a matter for debate.
PDP’s Lesson in Humility

With the benefit of hindsight, it would appear that the Nigerian people were out to teach the PDP which had been in power for the last sixteen years, and had arrogantly boasted that it would rule the nation for fifty years unchallenged, a bitter and unforgettable lesson in democracy. And the incoming APC administration will do well to imbibe this lesson otherwise a similar fate awaits it before long. In fact, I fear that its own payday will arrive faster than PDP’s given the impatience of Nigerians today and the grandiose and outsized promises ditched out by the APC to lure them in.

By throwing out Jonathan and the PDP, Nigerians have at the same time sent Buhari and the APC notice of what could be coming their way should they begin to play hide and seek with them. The message is performance and accountability. To rule for sixteen years with Nigerians still in darkness and boast of extending it to 50 years still in darkness smacks of gross insensitivity and arrogance of power on the part of the PDP. No enlightened party would say such things in a democracy unless of course it is delivering on its promises and the people see significant positive impacts in their lives. Even that is not a guarantee for governing in perpetuity, for governments have been thrown out even in times of national economic prosperity for other reasons. The humiliation of the PDP in the last elections should help drive this point home to the APC and other parties in Nigeria.

However, there is more to it than arrogance of power and unpopularity of the PDP. As earlier stated, internal sabotage and foreign meddlesomeness played a huge part in Buhari’s victory and Jonathan’s defeat. For a presidential candidate to invite foreign agents to his country and meddle in its electoral processes is, to me, treasonable. I don’t care which country is involved. And with a Jega in charge at INEC, only God knows how deep this foreign involvement went at INEC. It would not surprise me one bit if it someday transpires that Jega had given the passwords to INEC electoral systems to John Kerry or his agents in Nigeria to manipulate the elections under the guise of professional consultancy.

In contrast, former INEC Chairman Professor Maurice Iwu had intimated in Washington DC during a public presentation that the US had in fact requested—no, demanded—direct access to INEC’s database of voters which he of course, turned down as a patriot. What a daring request! His refusal later earned him a global campaign of calumny and character assassination and eventual de-legitimization of the 2007 general election results. Of course we all know what happened to Maurice Iwu, don’t we? Under pressure from the opposition and Western stooges in Nigeria, President Jonathan, seeking to please the opposition, caved in and kicked Iwu out even before his tenure ended. With Iwu out and Jega in, it’s an open season for the West in Nigeria. In a neo-colonial posture, the West wants to determine for us who is in and who is out—who wins and who loses our own elections.

Dispirited, dehydrated and abandoned by his party’s usual cheerleaders who had decamped to his challenger’s side, Jonathan lost his balance and strides midstream but it was too late to quit. Though anguished, he limped on gallantly literally dragging himself to the finish line with his humble heart bleeding at the sight of his party deserters raucously cheering his challenger waving the victory sign ahead of him. If Nigeria ever had a Julius Caesar it would be Jonathan. If she ever had a Brutus, Casius and Casca, they would be PDP stalwarts and the Yorubas who stabbed him in the back. And if she ever had a Mark Anthony, it would be Ndigbo and other minorities in the South who rallied to his side amid the treachery and betrayals.

With the future still ahead of him at his relatively young age Jonathan is already a candidate and subject for the history books. Is he a fulfilled man? Did he give off his best? Did he rise to national prominence too quickly and crashed too quickly too? They say never say never. Will he plot his way back to power? If yes, under which party platform? Can he still lead the battered PDP under his watch? He was the driver of the PDP train and he crashed it. What happened? An accident or sabotage? Whatever it is the PDP has already set up an investigative committee to unearth the immediate and remote causes of this electoral calamity that has befallen the greatest political party ever in Africa. All of these questions will be addressed in another piece.
Inaugural Address

May 29TH 2015, belongs to Buhari who is expected to make his grand entry into the center stage of Nigeria’s democratic leadership, all things being equal, as economists would say. And on that day, Buhari will address the nation and the world. The world will pay attention and latch onto every syllable of the English language that proceeds from his mouth whether pronounced correctly, mangled or not. His body language—gestures and gesticulations—the cadence of his oration and even his breathe—will all be carefully analyzed, weighed and evaluated in primetime.

All of that is not for nothing. Nigeria is an important country under the sun and its leadership matters a lot to the international community, even more for Africa where she has no peers and stands in a class of her own. It’s great to be a Nigerian and even greater to live in these momentous times of great historical change where one African nation has held the entire world spell bound in the celebration of democracy even amid a murderous campaign by implacable insurgents.

As such, Nigerians themselves who are witnesses to history in the making that will later be read in the textbooks by their offspring, will be even more attentive, probing, curious, evaluative and perhaps judgmental too, because on Buhari’s every word, smile, frown, nod, or gesture of approval or disapproval, their lives will, to a great degree, depend. And of you might ask: What is he, a god? And the answer is: not exactly, but something humanly close—a political demigod of sorts, if you don’t mind. No other living politician has evoked such political emotions and ardent followership in Nigeria than Buhari in modern times—Jonathan and Obasanjo don’t even come close.

So either for good or ill I just have to give the man his dues because whether we like it or not he is the political phenomenon of our time. It brings back to memory a similar political phenomenon in the past in the person of the late sage Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who just like Buhari, ran for the presidency each and every election cycle, not just thrice, and was consistently rejected by Nigerians with the same Nigerians coming to his graveside lamenting that he was the “best president Nigerian never had,” (my apologies to the late Nkemba of Nnewi, Chief Odumegwu Ojukwu). Buhari has avoided such cruel fate and history beckons on him to justify such appellation.

Could he be the best president Nigeria ever had? It’s too early to tell but the answer to that question is on the way and it won’t be long before we all find out for sure. For now it is what it is—a hope—a potential—a promise—forged in the crucible of national desperation. And despite my critical appraisal of the Buhari candidacy hitherto and even now for obvious reasons, Nigerians nevertheless had cause to trust and believe in his leadership and lay their hopes and aspirations for a secure and prosperous nation on his table.

Rigid, taciturn and not exactly an orator by any stretch, one once in Buhari’s speech is worth more than a pound full of platitudes and make believe rambling rhetoric in Obama speech, for example, including his inaugural addresses that no one believes in, including I might add, himself. All you have to do is go through Obama’s inaugural addresses and match their contents with the contents of his policies and you would come away wondering if they were made by Obama opposites. Every now and then people go back and dig out Obama’s words that are exact opposites of what he’s spouting and promoting today in his airy speeches. It should therefore not be a surprise at all that he has lost the people’s trust and his words these days mean nothing to people, including yes, world leaders.

You know something? This is probably one of the most guarded secrets in the world: People are not as dumb as they might seem and they can tell the real from the fake over the course of time even if taken in at the beginning. Therefore, unlike the latter who has callously frittered away his credibility and public goodwill, Buhari consistently comes across as forthright and credible with a force of character and personality that lends itself to trustworthiness, honesty of purpose and personal integrity, which are entirely lacking in the types of Obama, and regrettably, Jonathan too, to some degree.

With that said, public trust is a double edged sword that cuts either way. Its beneficiary must live up to it and that is the hard part. The challenge, therefore, is whether or not Buhari can live up to these high expectations Nigerians have of him. And it is not a given that in the complex political environment in which he will operating in he can live up to the billings. He had promised a lot. But he cannot promise to deliver the world and wind up delivering a village. He cannot promise to deliver a lake and wind up delivering a well and then proceed to justify it by telling Nigerians that “half a bread is better than none.” No, half a bread will no longer be better than none for Nigerians, not after all those promises of better life.
The Obama Trap

Seven years ago the United States had a similar date with history and a rookie named Barack Hussein Obama, who had mastered the teleprompter to wow his audience with flowery rhetoric had promised to roll back the tides, lift up the poor from poverty, calm a troubled world, change the tone in Washington DC and end the racial divisions in his country. And more…Yes he promised full transparency, respect for individual liberties including privacy rights, and rid the world of crisis through the use of what he termed America’s soft power.

Seven years later the report card in all these subjects or promises is below “F” grade to be a little charitable and the conditions he had grown even worse than he met them. Obama has been grilled by the media on these issues time and again and quite readily admitted that things had gotten worse. Every politician in the land on both sides of the isle and ordinary Americans now declare that Washington is badly broken and dysfunctional and needs serious fixing.

Incidentally that’s precisely one of the major issues Obama campaigned on in 2008—to come and fix broken Washington. Seven years later under his watch it remains broken and not just broken but now broken almost beyond repairs. And all we hear from him when confronted by the American media is play the blame game, of which I fear Buhari might be aiming to displace Obama as the reigning champion of the blame game. He need not be. Nigerians did not vote for him to represent them in that championship against Obama.

Related reading: Liberals finally get a taste of Obama’s arrogance

Washington is broken to the point that President Obama is not seeing eye-to-eye with members of Congress since the Republican takeover in 2014. It is so broken that the partisan divide has become an unbridgeable gulf such that Obama has been forced to resort to rule through “executive orders” or executive decrees that the courts are throwing out faster than they’re issued—all because his agenda on anything from immigration to trade, foreign affairs, and environmental policies have been stymied by political wrangling in Washington. Yes Washington is so broken and dysfunctional that Obama could not even present let alone secure the passage of ordinary routine national annual budgets for several years until this year and had to resort to ad-hoc spending authorizations from some of which led to government shut down or threats thereof just to keep the government running from month to month rather than year to year.

The very things he had attacked President Bush for he is guilty of perpetuating; violation of citizens’ civil rights, executive orders, national debts, undue secrecy, arrogance of power, lying to the American people, fomenting crisis abroad, etc. He has broken every promise in the book.

Related reading: Obama Record On Civil Liberties Disappoints

Related reading: Jimmy Carter slams Obama for continued human

Related reading: Liberals finally get a taste of Obama’s arrogance

Every public opinion poll conducted by reputable polling agencies in the US says this. Worse still, Obama himself is busy fanning the embers of racism and racial divisions and running around stoking the fires of racism. The second term Obama is vastly different, in fact, the direct opposite of first term Obama who was running away from race issues. Today, he actively seeks out, magnifies, blows up and literally breathes racism with Al-Sharpton and Jesse Jackson as his de-facto advisers on race relations. All first term pretenses and the make believe Obama are out the door and the real Obama is revealing himself daily to the shock and disbelief of a great many Americans.

Related reading: How Obama Poisoned Race Relations in America

Related reading: Barack Obama promised transparency: The White

And on transparency which he had staked his presidency on during his inaugural address in 2008, he has equally been found miserably wanting. The Obama administration has been ranked as one of the most secretive if not the most secretive in recent history and has prosecuted more whistle blowers than his immediate predecessors combined whom he had criticized for the same thing. I’ll stop there for now, because there will be time and place to properly asses the Obama administration and this is not the time and place for that at the moment.

Related reading: The most secretive administration ever – WND – A…

Related reading: Obama debt hole deeper than George W. Bush’s in…

I have gone this far to draw this analogy not necessarily to bash Obama but to demonstrate how easy it is to make promises and how difficult it is to keep them. And, in particular, to caution the incoming Buhari administration against falling into the same booby traps as Obama that he would be unable to extricate himself from. What then does the future hold for Buhari’s promised change? You know something? The easy part is the promise. Any Musa, Okoro or Tunde can make a promise. The hard part is keeping it.

This much I can promise though: Like war plans, Buhari government’s policies are unlikely to survive their first encounters with the real world. And what real world are we talking about here? The real world in the Nigerian context is represented, not by the Nigerian people who are praying for his success, but his own party members who see politics not as call to serve but as get rich quick avenue; the cash and carry politicians, ethnic champions and jingoists, political contractors and sundry hirelings. He should and must not see the opposition as the enemy and will do well to embrace constructive criticisms even if laced with partisan flavors they often are in politics.
The Patriot in Me Speaks to Buhari

But why am I telling Buhari all these? What stake do I have in his administration? Am I not supposed to be one of his implacable critics who should just let him crash and burn? I’m telling him these because I’m first and foremost a Nigeria and a patriot at that, not a partisan hack doing the biddings of the opposition. I carry no party card and tell it like it is, no holds-barred. Therefore, though an implacable critic of the incoming president patriotism enjoins me to help him succeed for the benefit of our great nation and her suffering people.

I’m duty bound so far as humanly possible to point the incoming administration in the right direction and make it a great success for our great nation. Again I don’t carry any party card and would just as well descend heavily on the PDP and Jonathan, which I had in fact done in the past, just as I would of APC and Buhari, which I have done here and in the past too. Here, I’m wearing a different hat of the constructive critic and analyst because there is so much at stake. Many of our compatriots are looking up to Buhari’s inaugural to find some glimpses of hope in the future amid the darkened firmament. He must hasten to lift up the spirits of the people not depress them.

What will he tell them? What will be the theme of inaugural address? The same old clichés and soundbites? The same tired rhetoric and blame game or something new, refreshing and uplifting such as Jonathan’s concessionary act that caused the nation to heave a mighty sigh of relief and renewed faith in the nation? Will his address be couched in the language of finger pointing and lamentations about lost opportunities? Or will it seize the moment and ride the tide of victory all the way to Nirvana? President-elect Muhammadu Buhari don’t, with due respect, want to hear any rehash of our problems read from one huge catalog, which everyone knows. Solution! Solutions! And more solutions! Do you have what it takes to provide the solutions? Solution is the language of the future and problem is the language of the past.

Therefore, if your inaugural address which is probably already written or almost by now and probably undergoing some fine tuning, will have any impact at all on Nigerians and the world at large, it must in broad strokes reiterate and renew those solemn campaign promises and pledges made to the Nigerian people in good faith and taken in good faith as well. That would assure Nigerians that the promises and pledges were made in good faith and not just to win votes and cast aside. If it must have any meaning at all, it must credible, sincere, honest and realistic.

This being one of the reasons why I brought up Obama in the preceding paragraphs to serve as case study and illustrate the futility of over promising and under delivering. I need not add that the road ahead is hazardous and perilous, metaphorically speaking as demonstrated by Jonathan and PDP’s crushing defeat. A great and mighty party towering above all else was gutted from within by its own members and crumbled like a house of cards at the first arrival of the political winds. A similar fate is reserved for the APC and Buhari if they allow their victory to get into their heads and begin to play god and dance on the heads of Nigerians as their new slave masters. Sovereignty resides with the people not politicians. And when the time comes they will exact punishment on those who take them for a ride playing god.

The campaign season is over and realism must take hold which enjoins thoughtful and somber assessment of things on the ground and approach to governance. And regardless of the situation he may meet on the ground Nigerians do not want to hear excuses or playing the blame game. As stated above in relation to Obama, Buhari must eschew the blame game which belittles and reduces a leader to whiner and complainer in chief. Leaders are not elected to whine and complain, huff and puff and playing the blame game all the time as we have seen, for example, with Obama. These things a leader must take in his or her strides and work behind the scenes to address. And, perhaps most importantly, Buhari’s agenda must be forward looking rather than backward looking. He should dwell less in the past and more in the future. This is because while the past cannot be undone the future is there to be molded and cast whichever way we want it to be.

Therefore while it is proper to examine and assess what’s on the ground in order to remedy any observed deficiencies or improprieties, dwelling excessively on the past will bind him to the past and blind him to the future. And by the time he’s done looking backwards and chasing shadows all over the place it’s all over for his presidency. This is the problem bedeviling the Obama administration in which he appears fixated to past injustices suffered by African-Americans in the hands of whites. Buhari must not fall into the same pit of lamentation and anger and finger pointing like Obama.

Apart from the stylistics articulated above for Buhari, here in nutshell, are my eight-point agenda for the incoming Buhari administration.

· Security of lives and properties. Jonathan failed signally in this department and Buhari just cannot afford to fail Nigerians in this. Period.

· Review all reviewable contracts and projects but by all means complete all ongoing capital and social development projects. No more spectacle of abandoned projects in Nigeria wherever they are cited without regards to geo-ethnic consideration. Nigeria must turn a new leaf and do away once and for all the nuisance value of abandoned projects and save the nation this colossal embarrassment and wasteful past time. He should not initiate any new projects until all ongoing ones have been completed or substantially completed except warranted by particular exigencies of state. And all new projects must be properly costed and executed within deliverable budgets and timeframes

· Extermination of corruption from the body politic. This must not be ad hoc but institutionalized with credible manpower to make a real difference. Away with corruption and restore public confidence in the integrity of public affairs regardless of whose ox might be gored

· Seek credible, detribalized and competent Nigerians from everywhere on the face of the earth at home or abroad to come and serve their fatherland

· Institute best practices in all governmental affairs and have a government accountability board or commission to monitor compliance

· Lead by example let your word be worth its weight in gold as Nigerians have come to expect of you. That means he should play the statesman at all times and not be unduly partisan or parochial in the handling of state affairs. There is time for politicking and time for governance

· As much as humanly possible observe the tenets of democracy under which you were elected to power but don’t be a slave to democracy needlessly. Democracy is made for man and not man for democracy. Avoid populist rhetoric and temptations that ensnare leaders and let Buhari be Buhari—straight and direct—and get sycophants and bootlickers out of the way lest they ruin your rule. And finally;

· Let there be light.

And after all said and done, including the scathing but highly constructive criticisms in good faith leveled by yours truly, this is Franklin Otorofani, Esq., citizen and patriot looking in from the outside, wishing the president elect: Muhammadu Buhari—God’s divine guidance, protection, purposeful and results-oriented tenure and one heck of an inaugural come May 29th, 2015—Nigeria’s date with history!

Franklin Otorofani is a Nigerian-trained attorney and public affairs analyst resident in the United States

Contact: mudiagaone@yahoo.com