2015: AS PRESSURE MOUNTS ON AL-MUSTAPHA TO SUPPORT JONATHAN

Former head of state and the presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressives Change(CPC) in 2011 general elections, General Muhammadu Buhari used to be the only leader in the north in recent times with cult following; now there is another. The former Chief Security Officer (CSO) to late head of state, General Sani Abacha, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha has shown that he is a crowd puller ever since he was set free by the Appeal Court from the allegation of murdering Kudirat Abiola, wife of the late business mogul and politician, Chief M.K.O. Abiola. In every city in the north that Al-Mustapha has visited the crowd keep surging and you will be forgiven to think that a Hollywood star has just come to town. These are not rented crowds as is common these days when politicians want to make a point. These people are not given money to make them show up. These are crowds coming to celebrate one of their own who they felt was unjustly incarcerated and who they see as having a role to play in the future of the north and Nigeria. In my treatise entitled “2015: Is Al-Mustapha Jonathan’s Game changer” I did say that despite the fact that Al-Mustapha was freed by the court, the impression in many circles was that his freedom was allegedly with a helping hand from the Jonathan administration. I did also say that Jonathan can leverage on the goodwill of the north for being the only leader in the last 14 years to have restored the freedom of Al-Mustapha to garner support from the zone in 2015. In the aforementioned article I did draw attention to the fact that the man Al-Mustapha now calls “father”, Dr Federick Fasheun, the founder and leader of now factionalised Odua Peoples Congress (OPC), is an unrepentant campaigner for President Goodluck Jonathan’s re-election in 2015. Last week the leader of Northern Elders and Youth Forum (NEYF), Dauda Birma alleged that it was President Jonathan and the national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, that facilitated the release of Al-Mustapha. He made the revelation while on a courtesy visit to the national chairman, where he also declared the group’s support for the re-election of Jonathan in 2015 for this gesture. Birma, for those who don’t know, is a former minister of education under the Abacha administration. Birma was also quoted as saying, “Goodluck Jonathan’s leadership has been rated as the best so far with what Jonathan has done in Maiduguri, I can affirm that the city is safer than most parts of the country.” Similarly, Bayelsa leaders as well as Alhaji Mujaheed Asari Dokubo, who are all supporters of the re-election of Jonathan have met with Al-Mustapha. And I am sure that these pro-Jonathan groups did not meet Al-Mustapha to discuss prison life or the weather forecast from Nigeria Meteorological Agency (NIMET). It is all about 2015.

However the big and perhaps most difficult question which can only be unravel by time is whether Al-Mustapha would squander his goodwill in the north once he formally declares support for Jonathan’s re-election in 2015 in a region that strongly believed that it was wrongfully short-changed by the death of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua(a northerner) whose death shattered the zoning arrangement of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), as the presidency was taken over by the South-south. All protestations by the north that President Jonathan should not contest presidential election in 2011 failed, as the Bayelsa born politician contested and won. As the 2015 is fast approaching the north is still laying claim to the position, insisting especially through the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) that nothing short of a northern president in 2015 will satisfy the region and its peoples. Professor Ango Abdullahi, a former vice chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University and the spokesman for the NEF has alerted the nation that the region has the capacity to use its voting power to determine who becomes president in 2015. As the battle for the presidency intensifies, Nigerians are awaiting Al-Mustapha’s next move.