General Buhari: The ANPP Horse Bolted a Long Time Ago

GENERAL BUHARI: THE ANPP HORSE BOLTED LONG AGO

Last Friday, January 2nd, 2009, DAILY TRUST carried a front page lead story, which confirmed that General Muhammadu Buhari has decided to remain in the All Nigeria People’s Party, ANPP; and as the report underlined, “despite frosty relations with the party leaders”. General Buhari chose to stay in the party “to try to chase out the national officers who flouted the ANPP constitution by joining the so-called Government of National Unity without following due process”.

The general’s tone seemed emphatic, even optimistic; he told his interviewers that “we will insist on discipline (that very familiar Buhari word!) of the party executive who have gone to join the GNU. We will insist on removing the leaders of the party who have gone to do this without consulting the revenant (SIC) organs of the party and without resigning from the party leadership as required by the party’s constitution”. There are two interrelated issues here. It seems Buhari is making a last ditch effort to punish the party leadership which clearly betrayed him every step of the way in his quest for the presidency of the country, and in turn have ridden the horse of betrayal of General Buhari as the bargaining chip to feather their individual nests! If this effort fails, then Buhari might consider an alternative political road map for himself and followers. “Buhari…said his group will meet at the end of this month to take a decision on how to achieve their plan. It is only if they fail to remove the leaders, he said, that they will consider leaving the ANPP”, according to the DAILY TRUST report.

The newspaper spoke to the National Secretary of the ANPP, Saidu Kumo, who said that he was not aware of any plans by Buhari to leave the party (although one might almost read the train of his thought, that he was hoping for Buhari’s exit to be able to shout “Good Riddance”!). Kumo, afterall, is one of the beneficiaries of the betrayal of the ANPP’s constitution, to become Special Adviser to President Yar’adua, on Inter-Party Relations. His counterpart in the game of Judas Iscariot (to Buhari’s Jesus) is the gerontocrat, Edwin Ume-Ezeoke, ANPP’s National Chairman (or ANPDP, with apologies to Sam Nda-Isaiah) who was Buhari’s running mate (a clear expression of Buhari’s poor political judgement!), but who subsequently denounced the ticket, ran for cover under the PDP umbrella; turned the back on the party’s constitution and was also given “a few silver coins” by the PDP, through the appointment of his son, Chimene Ume-Ezeoke, as Special Adviser on Civil Society Relations.

Well, those who felt that General Buhari was going to become part of a new national movement to create a formidable  and alternative platform of mobilization and struggle for democracy in the country, are to face disappointment; at least for now. The buzz in political circles has been that General Buhari might abandon the ANPP to join the Nigeria Labour Party. The Chairman of the Labour Party, Dan Nwanyanwu, also informed DAILY TRUST that his party had been “talking” to people from the Buhari camp. “I can confirm to you that we have been talking to a lot of politicians including people from The Buhari Organisation”, said Dan Nwanyanwu, “we have not concretised anything yet but we are discussing”. Osita Okechukwu of the TBO also confirmed that “a committee of associates have(SIC) advised Buhari to form a ‘granite coalition’ that should be built around the LP because it shared the same philosophy with him. The philosophy of Labour Party is similar to the General’s philosophy (REALLY?). It is poor people’s party. So, we think there is a synergy between General’s philosophy and the philosophy of the Labour Party”. It is clear that Buhari himself does not share the effusive comparisons of philosophies with Okechukwu, because he told DAILY TRUST with some finality: “It is not true that I am joining the Labour Party”.

Buba Galadima, TBO Spokesperson, reinforced Buhari’s rejection of the link to the Labour Party, by saying that “ I do not think General will join any political party, the thinking is (whose thinking this is, Galadima did not volunteer an explanation) that other political parties will work with him(he will then stand above all parties like a “para-political” patriarch?). If he now joins one of the political parties, the others may not join him”. The question here is just what is it that different individuals see in an effort to create Okechukwu’s “granite coalition”, built around the Labour Party (even Tony Momoh texted Buhari that ‘he is under pressure from the Labour Party’, according to the general), that General Buhari cannot or refuses to see? Why is he so determined to hold on to the poisoned chalice that the ANPP is? Could he be blinded by his determination to “discipline” the party leaders who went into the GNU, contrary to the party’s constitution or is there far more than meets the eye? Does he really have the political punch to achieve this ambition? Or is there something still resembling a rational kernel in the ANPP which can still be rescued, that Buhari is putting his name and prestige on the line for?

I am honestly skeptical about General Buhari’s latest act of political intransigence to stay in the ANPP to “discipline” the Edwin Ume-Ezeokes who are part of an elaborate agenda within the party and who have already cashed their cheques with the appointments into the GNU. In my piece of December 18, 2008, BRACING UP FOR NIGERIA’S FUTURE, I had canvassed for “alternative platforms around which the Nigerian people can be mobilized to win power(because)….Nigeria needs a patriotic stream of parties and leaders who can provide new directions away from the rottenness which the PDP regimes have instituted since 1999”. I had been somewhat hopeful, because I was aware of the various discussions taking place around Nigeria, on the possibility of bringing all patriots into one political party, the Labour Party. Unfortunately, it is looking like General Buhari, whose TBO was expected to become a major part of the new stream is clearly throwing a spanner in the works! It is either he has ideological reservations about the Labour Party or is afraid of the serious political mobilization which will be required between now and 2011. It will be another example of very poor political judgement in my view.

General Buhari’s experience of serial betrayal in the ANPP since 2003, should have educated him that the party is a den of betrayal deliberately constructed by the PDP and the list is long. By 2007, the list of those working for the defeat of their own candidate was as long as the River Niger! Party leaders encouraged Buhari to go to court and then publicly denounced his effort to find justice. The truth is that the horse bolted from the ANPP’s barn a long time ago. It was clear that a formidable APP (as it then was), was likely to give the PDP a run for its money in the 1999 transition; but the outgoing  military-political establishment was determined to impose Obasanjo. It was from this period that the PDP began the tradition of planting agents’ provocateurs in the ANPP to ensure within it a perpetual crisis. It is symptomatic of that, that the greatest supporters of Obasanjo’s Third Term Agenda were ANPP elements, with Saminu Turaki, handing over billions of naira to Nnamdi ‘Andy’ Uba, as he confessed, to aid the Agenda!

The ANPP is far too compromised, because the PDP will never allow it to play an effective role in the democratic development in our country. General Buhari and other patriots interested in providing an alternative for the Nigerian people must see this fact clearly. It will be very difficult to justify a continued stay in the party, just to pursue the “discipline” of its rotten leadership.  What the Nigerian people need today are new political re-alignments that can provide a serious challenge to the unpatriotic and anti-people agenda which the PDP has represented since 1999. If Buhari chooses to stay put in the ANPP, we will have to begin to seriously reassess his political skills. Could it be that he has been far too over-rated? Or is there something he still sees in the ANPP, which is hidden from other Nigerians? The answers to these questions will become clear, if at the end of the day, no serious challenge is posed to the absolutely incompetent hegemony of the PDP, which has lead Nigeria into the abyss of hopelessness. Of course, one general does not a movement make; but who can deny Buhari’s incredible appeal to the mass of our people? General Buhari’s duty today, in my view, is to play a leading role in helping to construct a new political platform in Nigeria, to democratically contest for power in order to rebuild our country.

GAZA ON MY MIND: A WORLD OF TROUBLING INJUSTICE
The world has continued to watch in absolute horror, the systematic massacre of the Palestinian people, by the army of Israel. Those crimes against humanity are abetted by the United States. Many people have been surprised by the deafening silence from President-elect, Barack Obama; it is said there cannot be two American presidents and they might have a point. But Obama is too pro-Israel and is even more reactionary than George Bush, in his perspective on the Palestinian issue while most members of his team are unrepentant Zionists. I think that Obama’s slogan of CHANGE rings very hollow in foreign policy, which is what will concern us directly when he becomes American president. So don’t be surprised if a President Obama strengthens support for Israel or launches attacks on countries around the world. The lesson here is that the USA remains an imperialist country and one African-American presidential term cannot change that! Meanwhile, PLEASE spare a thought for the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and deepen your hatred for the injustice which rules the international system.

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By IS’HAQ MODIBBO KAWU
[email protected]
0805. 9100368 [SMS TEXTS ONLY]

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