By: Jackson Ude
The atmosphere is charged, the romance and night meetings yielding fruits, the intrigues, subterfuge, game plans, all intertwined to make the Nigeria’s political movie full of entertainment and suspense. It is indeed the defection season. That season when Nigerian politicians scramble to belong to the political party where power may swing to.
The All Progressive Congress, APC, is at the losing end. By the minutes, the party of Change is losing its broom sticks. Some getting burnt in faraway Kano, the state of the magical 1.9million votes in 2015.
The once revered broom meant to cleanse Nigeria of the odious 16years affliction of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has suddenly become the evil broom. The broom is shrinking. It can no longer sweep.
In all, it is the fault of President Mohammadu Buhari. The timed-balloon from Daura has been deflated. In short, the quackery in Buhari, has, after all been exposed!
All the cosmetics used on Buhari in 2015 are all washing off. He has no integrity. He is corrupt. No leadership skills. He does not understand Nigeria and Nigerians. He cannot manage his success and that of his political party, the APC. He has polarized his party just as he polarizes Nigeria. He is clueless about his surroundings the politics and would not want to learn. He is the same Buhari of 1984.
Buhari’s political incompetence has caused APC’s early menopause. The party is bleeding on all front, losing membership and there seem not to be an end to the defection that has hit the party of the lying barbarians.
At the last count, heavy weights have deserted the APC. From Senate President Bukola Saraki, Governor Abdulfattah Ahmed of Kwara State, the entire Kwara House of Assembly, Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State, 15 Senators, 35 members of the House of Representatives and a host of others still warming up to receive political healings from the APC Ogbanje spirit.
Those still warming the bench of APC are just bidding time. They mourn at night and hail in the day. They are very calculative and would soon decamp.
That cacophonic Buhari orchestra has stopped. The veils are off. The so-called massive support for Buhari; the once-upon-a-time ‘Mr. Integrity” has evaporated. Mohammadu Buhari, husband of Aisha, is now in the cold, left with the carcass of his own shadow and the delusion of his so-called achievements, powered by praise singers and his unending quest for political powers.
This may pass for the season of “I told you so”. The Season when you remind hailing hailers that President Buhari and the APC were never prepared for the leadership of Nigeria and shouldn’t have been voted into power!
Even though some like to argue that former President Goodluck Jonathan was not a better choice, Buhari is still and would never have been a choice for anyone desiring a better Nigeria.
During the 2014-2015 campaign era, the airwave was thick. The propaganda from the machineries of the APC was loudest; the loudest ever seen or heard in the political and democratic history of Nigeria. The promises for a better Nigeria was huge and the excitement and hope for a better Nigeria under Buhari/APC Government was equally huge.
In 2014, at a White House meeting I attended as a member of the Presidential Delegation on Nigeria’s preparation toward the 2015 elections alongside Alhaji Lai Mohammed and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo who represented the then opposition Party, I saw in real life, the desperation to package and sell the lies called Buhar/APC. Lai Mohammed was at his best!
The then Spokesman of APC would not allow the White House Director, African Affairs, to conduct the meeting. He yelled and shouted at the top of his voice how the Jonathan’s Government ruined Nigeria and how APC is better prepared and equipped to fix. I was stunned at his diatribes, jabs and unnecessary attacks on not just the office of the President of Nigeria but the person of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan who occupies that office. Lai Mohammed was highly uncouth at that meeting.
Lai Mohammed took same harsh and acerbic lies against the Jonathan’s Government and sold to Nigerians during the 2015 Presidential campaign. At the end, APC, with its loudest megaphone of propaganda came out victorious. The broom waved!
Now, we have entered that season when we need to remind ourselves how we were dubiously sold a packaged box of lies by the APC in 2015. The season of “I told you so.”
I told you so, right? That Buhari and his friends in APC, are just power grabbers with no intent for good governance, all those chants that heralded the APC to power in 2015 are after all fake!
I told you so, right? That the APC propaganda machineries would collapse and Nigerians would be the ones to pay dearly for falling for the bag full of scams sold to them through the cacophonic tools of Lai Mohammed.
In 2016, weeks before I returned back to the United States, I sat down with Mallam Garba Shehu at the Protea Hotel, Asokoro, with my friend, Churchill Umoren. It was purely a professional meeting. In a no-holds-bare conversation, I warned Shehu of the consequences of not being able to manage the propaganda that shot them to power.
As a Political management and Strategic Communications expert, I told the Special Assistant to Buhari that the Government is heading for the rocks, it has no substance, no colors, no direction and was built on quicksand. Shehu chuckled in shock. Perhaps no one had been that blunt. My reason? Propaganda can only take you a short distance. Propaganda cannot be sustained by propaganda.
APC used an overdose of propaganda and had no plans on how to sustain it. David Axelrods, the former President Barack Obama Strategist and his AKPD Media who packaged Buhari/APC had collected their Dollars and left. Breeze blow, we see fowl yansh!You cannot build nothing on nothing.
Governance is certainly not a tea party. It requires tactfulness, diligent planning and execution. It requires knowledge. It requires understanding of needs, problem solving skills and so on. Mr. Buhari and his gangs are lacking in all!
They told us it was a Government of Change- a Government, intolerable to corruption, a Government that would right the wrongs of “16years of PDP misrule”, a Government that would fix the rots in Nigeria. But in the last three years, it has been a somersaulting Government with no achievements!
First, it was the inability of the Buhari/APC government to appoint Ministers. Buhari was searching for men with angelic personalities. He spent seven months scrambling through resumes in search of qualified men with no blemish. And when he found them, he unveiled the faces of men and women who have adorned the corridors of Government, some with files in the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, awaiting prosecution.
We were not done from the shock of the seven months “Ministerless” Government. We were yet entertained with another shocker. Babachir, the Secretary to Government was indicted for Corruption. He still floats around in the corridors of power even though on paper, he is sacked.
And then also came the N500million bribe money from MTN to Buhari’s Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, then the Maina scandal, the $25billion NNPC contract scandal and the list goes on and on. Today, we are witnessing the unveiling of one of the most corrupt Government in the history of Nigeria when the Buhari’s story is told after May 29, 2019.
We are now at the rock bottom of Governance in Nigeria with seemingly the worst Government to ever grace Aso Rock. Nigeria and Nigerians are now at the mercy of a cabal made up of Buhari’s families and friends. They have decided to dictate to Nigerians what the best form of Government is. To them, Buhari is God sent and the only one with the right ideas to fix Nigeria.
Buhari is a disaster. He has been a disaster yesterday, would be a disaster today and forever. I told you so. And I am beating my chest that I told you so. Adios!
Ude, A Political Management and Communications professional, writes from New York.
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