This has triggered a rash of reactions from the President’s camp. The President’s Media Adviser, Mr. Femi Adesina, returned a backhand slap in a treatise widely published in the media at the weekend. Entitled, Wanted: “A Restructuring Of Minds,” every line in the piece dripped with caustic innuendos. The presidential aide delivered his message in torrents of combative sibilants. In what many interpreted as his master’s voice, Adesina attempted to eviscerate some real and perceived enemies of his principal, who would see nothing good in what he held out as the President’s achievements 27 months into his four-year tenure. Adesina threw garbage at unnamed critics of the President; young, old, far and near.
Adesina’s parting words for those he described as Buhari’s “haters, wailers and purveyors of fake news” invoked images of a looming war of attrition between the President and his opponents in the months ahead.
His words: “A final word for haters, wailers, purveyors of fake news, or whatever you choose to call them. Evil minds wax worse and worse. A hater would envy others unnecessarily. He would conjure evil thoughts that would poison his system. He would manifest all sorts of negative tendencies that turn him into a proper child of the Devil. And at the end of it all, his master welcomes him home with open arms. ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here.’ (Dante’s Inferno). And there will be plenty weeping, and gnashing of teeth.”
Many are of the view that, coming from the President’s public image maker, the stench in Adesina’s piece reeked of official intolerance for dissenting views. Echoing a familiar official refrain, Adesina dished out unkind words to proponents of restructuring. Calls for restructuring are being articulated and canvassed by a large and diverse chunk of the informed publics across the strata. Incidentally, Atiku happens to be one of the prominent Nigerians that have continued to sustain the calls.
The President’s man did not conceal his disdain for the agitators. According to him, restructuring should not be on the country’s priority list. The demand for restructuring, he said, is ruinous for the country. He went ahead to describe it as hemlock, bound to poison the entire polity, and send it to a premature perdition. Adesina said: “For me, what is more urgent is the restructuring of the Nigerian mind. A mind that sees the country as one, that believes that we have a future and a hope, that believes that we are one people under God.
“But, what we see now is ruinous for any country. It is hemlock, bound to poison the entire polity, and send it to a premature perdition.”
However, political pundits are of the strong view that “restructuring of the mind,” which Adesina vigorously canvassed, ought to start from within. Their argument is premised on a well informed submission that only a restructured mind can appreciate the malignant flaws in the present dysfunctional federal arrangement. According to them, giving perfidious interpretations to the call for restructuring the way Adesina did, appeared to have sent the signal that the Buhari administration may have foreclosed restructuring.
The prevalent mood in the polity strongly indicates that the push for restructuring may become a major issue in the 2019 general elections.. Other notable figures in the Buhari camp have picked up the gauntlet, giving the indication that the President may seek re-election in 2019.
Presidential Adviser on Social Media Lauretta Onochie sent the message on Twitter on Saturday in unmistakable terms: “We’re working on Buhari’s return to power in 2019″. The Northern governors of the APC stock have also joined the fray. Speaking through Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje last weekend, the governors declared their support for Buhari’s 2019 re-election. In an address delivered by Ganduje’s Commissioner for Information and Culture, Muhammed Garba, they said the support for Buhari was total and unconditional should the President decide to seek a second term.
Governor Ibikunke Amosun of Ogun State has also lent his voice to Buhari’s yet unannounced re-election bid. Speaking at the weekend, Amosun, however, stressed that the only thing that could stop the President from contesting is his failing health.
The governor said: “The only thing that can prevent President Buhari from contesting is if his health cannot take it.” Painting a messianic picture of the Buahri administration, the Amosun added that, “If not for this present administration, only God knows where Nigeria would have been. When the government came on board, it was like jumping into the pool at the deep end.”
Kaduna State Governor Nasir El- Rufai has also identified the President’s health challenges as a critical factor in the 2019 calculations. Speaking with reporters at the Presidential Villa last week, El- Rufai expressed the wish for good health for the President to enable him seek re-election.
Also in the fray is the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), which has supported the President’s re-election bid. It’s Secretary General, Anthony Sani, stated last weekend: “If President Muhammadu Buhari is able to deliver on his campaign promises substantially, and be as fit as a fiddle to undertake presidential responsibilities and tasks by the end of his tenure, there will be no reason not to support him.”
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who has remained a factor in the choice of presidential candidates over the years, has adopted a wait-and-see approach. In a recent BBC Hausa Service interview, Obasanjo said: “If Buhari says he will re-contest, I will look at his overall performance before I take a decision. I voted for him two years ago because I could vote for anyone besides Goodluck Jonathan.”
In the view of the Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE), the President must address restructuring before the 2019 election to get the required acceptance.
The Secretary General of the YCE, Dr. Kunle Olajide, said: “As far as we are concerned, Buhari has absolute right to start campaign ahead of 2019 just like any other Nigerian. I don’t think that he has personally begun the campaign. We suspect that his fanatical supporters are the ones pushing him behind the campaign. He is still spending one term so he has the constitutional right to contest for one more term in office. However, Nigerians will decide if they still want him in the seat.
“His fate is in the hands of the electorate. YCE said that Nigeria cannot go into 2019 election without restructuring the country. We want a restructuring of the architectural outlook of government before the 2019 election”.
The pan-Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, Afenifere, said it would decide on the candidate to support for the 2019 presidency at the appropriate time.
The spokesman for the group, Mr. Yinka Odumakin said Afenifere would not speak specifically on the President’s ambition for now. He was further quoted to have said that the group would weigh other candidates in the race before taking a decision.
Several militant groups in the Niger Delta have also voiced their opposition to Buhari’s re-election bid, as it is being canvased by some of his loyalists. As expected, the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has registered its displeasure with the Buhari administration, saying there will be no second chance for the retired Army General.
According to the party’s spokesman, Prince Dayo Adeyeye, Buhari and his APC would be defeated in the next election. He said the declaration of support for Atiku by Buhari’s Women Affairs Minister was an indication that the government is incompetent. But the President and his party have remained silent on Buhari’s aspiration, leaving his loyalists and the electorate to guess his next move. Not a few of the President’s loyalists are believed to be waiting patiently in the wings for the opportunity to join the race should Buhari decline to run. On the other hand, having stirred the hornets nest, there seems to be no going back for Atiku Abubakar.
The open declaration of support by Buhari’s Minister can hardly be dismissed as a fluke. Atiku is in the race for real, even though it is not clear on which political platform he is going to run. For now, he is one leg in the APC; his other leg is sticking out of the window.
From all indications, the Jedda -born politician cannot realise his presidential ambition in the APC as it is presently constituted. The fact that Atiku, who dumped the PDP for the APC in February 2014, still has a support base firmly rooted in the erstwhile ruling party is not in doubt. Spread across the six geo-political zones, his numerous political groups are ready for activation at the drop of a hat. Some of his loyalists that followed him from the PDP to the APC and who are occupying strategic elective positions may also tag along when it is time for him to dump the ruling party. But while there are no visible signs of serious consultations yet in the Buhari camp, the Atiku camp cannot be said to have gone to sleep. In the latter’s camp, groundwork for realignments across party lines are already in the works, with point men and trusted allies of the ex Vice President operating in the background.
The developments in Buhari’s APC hardly give members any reason to cheer. It is apparent that the party leadership is isolated. Party sources have observed that it was a similar crisis of confidence that led to mass exodus from the PDP in the run up to the 2015 elections. A few of them have predicted that the same scenario may play out in a reverse order, with a sizable number of prominent APC chieftains retracing their steps back to the PDP before the 2019 elections. And if the declining living condition of a greater majority of Nigerians is a yardstick to judge the Buhari administration, it is doubtful if the President can still command the cult-like following he enjoyed during the 2015 campaigns. Most of his party’s electoral promises have been left unfulfilled, even as many of the various political groups and individuals that worked for the President’s electoral victory have continued to complain of being left in the lurch. As it were, President Buhari is being accused of surrounding himself with cronies and close relatives that he appointed into strategic positions. They piqued that many of these cronies and close relatives wielding enormous political power around the President, contributed nothing to his victory at the polls… “Unfortunately for the President, virtually all these cronies and relatives he has surrounded himself with, have nothing to offer in terms of electoral value. Some of them cannot even win 10 votes for him in their wards back home”, one of the party’s chieftains from the Northwest told our correspondent at the weekend. But, event watchers are quick to posit that judging by his fragile health, occasioned mainly by nagging geriatric strains, Buhari may not be able to stand the rigours of re-election in 2019. On the other hand, should Atiku also fail to get the ticket of his targeted political party, it may leave the battle field open for a proxy war between the President and the former Vice President. Given that scenario, Atiku may back the candidate of another party for a proxy political war with a candidate of the APC that Buhari may back. A clash of two political titans may be inevitable in the unfolding permutations leading to the 2019 general elections.
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