2019 May Be A Walk In The Park For Buhari

Buhari

It is becoming increasingly difficult to make objective analysis of the politics of Nigeria without being accused of partisanship. Sometimes you lose a friend or two because of it. It is okay. That is the price you pay for being a public intellectual.

That said. Here is my stand. Unless the opposition political parties put their acts together, and quickly too, the 2019 presidential election will be a walk in the park for President Muhammadu Buhari despite the alleged failures of his administration that the opposition parties have been putting out in the media.

President Muhammadu Buhari is a dogged fighter. He is the only opposition presidential candidate in the recent history of this country that has consistently contested for president between 2003 and 2015. And in all these years he had always felt cheated and had taken the matter to the Supreme Court consistently. He had never compromised on his belief that he was cheated. How many Nigerians can muster the courage and resources to put their money where their mouth is by taking election matter from the tribunal to the Supreme Court in 2003, 2007,  and 2011?

Your usual presidential candidate will suffer from litigation fatigue and give up. Not Muhammadu Buhari. A man who has passed through tumultuous periods to get to the Presidency of this country, is not going to give up the crown with ease.

Perhaps it was in realization of this reality that the former spokesman of President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Goodluck Jonathan, Dr Doyin Okupe said that it would be difficult to defeat President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019. Okupe is also a chieftain of SDP and a member of Nigeria Coalition Movement (NCM) led by former President Olusegun Obasanjo. The CNM is being touted as the Third Force that would displace APC and PDP in 2019 general elections. “CNM is a brilliant idea and to every discerning mind, it’s absolutely impossible to oppose the incumbent and a towering figure like President Mohammadu Buhari and hope to win. To defeat Buhari will take the exact reversal of what Bola Tinubu and others were able to do with APC. A broad platform encompassing the political majority in the country must be put together to present a candidate to contest against Buhari with the hope of being able to win. To that extent, the coalition that Obasanjo is leading is what I’m proud to be a part of and I’m part and parcel of it. Even though I’m the South-west leader of Accord Party. As a party, we identified with that movement and we hope to come to a working relation in not too distant future”, Doyin Okupe told LEADERSHIP Newspaper in a recent interview.

Similarly the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) national chairman, Prince Uche Secondus has warned that the party cannot defeat APC alone. He declared that his party would not be able to defeat the APC in the 2019 presidential election all by itself. Secondus, who spoke at the emergency meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party recently called on opposition platforms to work together in order to remove the APC from office. The PDP chairman likened the present administration to the pre-1999 military era and noted that former presidents are in unison to make sure that a fresh president and new government was formed in the interest of the people in 2019. Secondus said, “We commend our elder statesmen and other patriotic Nigerians who have spoken up on the urgent need to rid the country of the current bad APC government and enthrone a government that will serve our needs. All hands must be on deck to achieve the great task of removing this APC government and replacing it with a government that will fulfill the hopes and aspirations of Nigerians.”

Are the opposition really putting all hands on deck? It is doubtful, given that Obasanjo who is the arrow head of the so-called Third Force has ruled out any merger or alliance with PDP, a party he described as dead and populated by hugely compromised lots. Ruling out a major political party like PDP with its huge war chest that is second only to that of APC, showed how naïve Obasanjo’s Third Force is and why it is becoming increasingly obvious that 2019 may become the easiest election to win by Buhari.

Obasanjo’s Third Force has not only ruled out alliance with PDP, its talk with SDP has also reportedly collapsed. The CNM was said to have called off the alliance talk. According to the Punch the decision, it was learnt, was taken after a ‘highly-guarded meeting’ with members of the Nigerian Intervention Movement, the Coalition for Nigeria Movement and other concerned groups in Abeokuta recently.

Some persons at the meeting included the former governor of Osun State, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, who is the Chairman of the CNM; as well as the two Co-chairmen of the NIM, Dr. Olisa Agbakoba (SAN) and Dr. Abdujalil Tafawa-Balewa; and a former Director-General of the National Orientation Agency, Idi Faruk.

Punch reported that an impeccable source close to Obasanjo told one of their correspondents that the talks between Obasanjo and the Chairman of the Social Democratic Party, Chief Olu Falae, failed as both parties could not agree on the modalities and strategies for the 2019 polls.

Okupe is right the kind of coalition that defeated President Goodluck Jonathan may not work with Buhari. A former military President General Ibrahim Babangida was once quoted as saying that “ we are not only in Government, we are in Power”. He was emphasizing that he was in total control of his regime. A gentleman politician, Goodluck Jonathan, was president between 2010 and 2015, and he could arguably be said to have been in government and not in power. He was not in power or did not appreciate the importance of power, so he relinquished it so easily. The same cannot be said of Muhammadu Buhari. A former military head of state, who has experienced the bitter taste of losing power abruptly and its consequences knows the importance of power and what it means for the interests he represent. Buhari is not only in government, he is in power. What Obasanjo and APC did with Jonathan will not work with Buhari. He will be a hard nut to crack by the opposition as represented by the Third Force and quasi opposition groups without structures or even resources. They better put their acts together if they want to pose any serious challenge to APC and Buhari in 2019.