By Ilobi Austin
It is very difficult
for this writer not to believe that majority of the minders of the Goodluck for
president campaigns are not actually secondments from the camps of fellow
aspirants for the same position or even fifth columnists working independently
to thwart his come-back.
This submission
is against the back drop of series mudslinging campaigns so far carried out by
them on the person of Atiku Abubakar, former Vice-president of the country and
a leading contender for the ticket of the PDP, but which has ended up achieving
the opposite amongst objective followers of the campaigns messages from both
camps.
One of the campaign
messages was the one on his well known unfortunate but inevitable decampment
from the PDP to the Action Congress on whose platform he contested the 2007
presidential election. According to them, this action of his and his subsequent
return to the PDP showed him to be a man of unstable character and to use their
words, a flip-flop.
Though,
Ambassador Yahaya kwande has already provided a comprehensive rejoinder to this,
one would like to know what the people responsible for such message makes of the
personality of the current national chairman of the PDP, Governor Ikedi Ohakim
of Imo state or Orji of Abia state, Sen. Chukwumerije and the members of the Abia
state House of Assembly, who like Atiku, are returnees to the party; perhaps, flip-flops
as well.
And they are all
flip-flops for doing what? For seeking relevance in other political parties
after being de-registered by the agents or linkmen of Obasanjo from a party in
which they had, individually and collectively, invested time and resources hosting
meetings across the country in private homes and expensive hotel to put
together indefinitely for Obasanjo who, to all intent and purposes, is a
usurper who is not known to have invested his personal resources in keeping the
party together, even as an aspirants? I think not.
He has a bigger
share than virtually all the reigning persons in the party, today, particularly,
Obasanjo and therefore, deserves not just to return but a prominent place
amongst the elders of the party. Dwelling
on his movement out and back to the PDP as a means of denigrating his person is
to say the least amateurish politicking born out of the near lack of critical
thinking on what constitutes damaging information on him or laziness on the
part of the research team. Rather than sway public opinion against him this
would even aggregate it for him as it only serve to remind the public of the recent
past under Obasanjo, a seemingly Jonathan supporter.
And their efforts
at portraying him as a corrupt politician, the Obasanjo created formula for
tackling opponents, has equally not being as rewarding as they would have love
to, as his explanations on the US senate investigation ,which the pro-Jonathan
camp had vigorously tried to pass off as a judicial trial and conviction ,virtually
took the wind off their sail. Ironically, the same corruption challenge: Ribadu’s
testimony to the senate involving their principal and the fact of his being the
shy-investor in some hospitality business back in Bayelsa state and attempting
to bribe with 50,000$, thrown at them by Pastor Tunde Bakare of the SNG has all
been unconvincingly responded to.
Pastor Bakare is
a Man of God, notwithstanding his meddling in political issues; if he says
there was an attempt at bribing, then, there must be an element of truth in his
statement and it behoves the EFCC ascertain the veracity of his claim. Reviewing
Pastor Bakare’s allegation one gets the feelings that the people responsible
for the bribe only wanted to smear the image of the president, considering the
amount involved and the calibre of persons that makes up the Save Nigeria Group
that Pastor Bakare leads.
An interesting
aspect of the word-war is in the rejoinders to every assault from either camp. For
instance, when one of the supporters of the president claimed that the former
VP was dismissed from the Nigeria Custom Service, the VP camp replied with
documented evidence to prove that he resigned voluntarily from service. When
the camp of the president pronounced pompously that zoning was illegal, the other
side went to court to prove wrong.
Then they fired
that Atiku was desperate and the other camp retorted that the President was
actually the one desperate with attempts to change the ordering and method of
the primaries for the party and trying to change the electoral act to recognise
ministers and aids as delegates. In the
midst of these, Wikileaks came to town with reports that portrayed the
president to be less than honest with Nigerians in his admission of zoning.
They are even telling Nigerians that Atiku is not the North consensus candidate
in PDP but they have not told us why there is no formidable candidate from the
North in the race under the same party as him.
When they decided
on politics of issues they ended up exposing the lack of originality of their
team as their attempt at proffering solutions to the myriad of challenges
confronting the nation ended up being, in
part, an undisguised admiration and endorsement for the policy document of Atiku, from which
they copied verbatim thereby, putting more ammunitions in the hands of the
supporters of Atiku to portray them as a pack of pseudo intellectuals with no
original solution or even creativity in reinterpreting other people’s ideas.
Atiku, like every
other human has, no doubt, got his quirks and kinks but unlike most,
particularly politicians of the Nigerian variety, did not allow himself the
brazenness and unconsciousness of the future that has made corruption charges
or allegations against them look like red wine stain on a snow white material. At least, he is not known to have
blinded-trusted himself into billions of naira from just less than few hundreds
of naira nor does he raid his home front for pleasure.
President
Jonathan had better review the activities of his so-called campaign minders to
be sure it is not a Trojan horse. I am not his support but as an academic Dr.,
I want to be sure he is not been taken for a ride. By virtue of his education,
he should be able to assemble a better team than is currently the case. This
team blunders that are avoidable like pirating particularly the efforts of your
strongest opponent.
Disband them even
if their replacements are those who will harp on: G: God is for us; J: Jesus is
for us and E: everybody is for us and A: alleluia, alleluia . It is better than
these crops of campaigners that throws mud at opponents only to plant political
landmines and graves around the president. As for Atiku, he is lucky to have
some of the best at what they do, work for him.
All they do is
keep their gun powder dry waiting for the neophytes in the other camp to raise
a topical issue like corruption and they simply fire from all cylinders. He does not need A: ALLAH IS FOR US, A:
almighty God is for us, AA: amen amen. He does not. Ii is too elementary but good for the other
side.
Ilobi Austin, an event analyst lives in LAGOS