Your Aspiration For 2015 Is Ill- Adviced: Open Letter To Gen. Muhammadu Buhari. By Salihu Moh’d Luman

Sir, I am a citizen of Nigeria,
from what is known
geographically as the
Northern part, and by my
training and upbringing, I am
taught the virtues of respect
for the elder and obedience
to responsible and
accountable leaders. Coming
from Zaria, I have grown up
to understand that trust and
honesty are important pillars
for leadership and this, in
cases of aberration, leads to
dissent as a result of
leadership failure, which
always find legitimacy in the
absence, or perceived
weakening, of these pillars.
This leads to the rise of
injustice and descent to
immorality and criminal
conducts in society, giving
rise to crisis of confidence
and overall anarchy, as we
have witnessed in Nigeria
over the last few decades.
On December 31, 1983,
when you spearheaded the
overthrow of the Alh. Shehu
Shagari led Second Republic,
one of the justification for the
coup was the ‘crisis of
confidence afflicting our
nation’. The reality before us
since 1999, as Nigerians, is
that we continue to face this
crisis of confidence. In fact, if
your coup speech is to be
replayed, word for word, it
will reflect present national
conditions. And like in 1983,
the yearning for change is
evident in the conduct of our
politicians which you so
lucidly captured in your 1983
speech as follows:
“It is true that there is a
worldwide economic
recession. However, in the
case of Nigeria, its impact
was aggravated by
mismanagement. We believe
the appropriate government
agencies have good advice
but the leadership
disregarded their advice. The
situation could have been
avoided if the legislators were
alive to their constitutional
responsibilities; Instead, the
legislators were preoccupied
with determining their salary
scales, fringe benefit and
unnecessary foreign travels,
et. al ,which took no account
of the state of the economy
and the welfare of the people
they represented. As a result
of our inability to cultivate
financial discipline and
prudent management of the
economy, we have come to
depend largey on internal
and external borrowing to
execute government projects
with attendant domestic
pressure and soaring external
debts, thus aggravating the
propensity of the outgoing
civilian administration to
mismanage our financial
resources. Nigeria was
already condemned
perpetually with the twin
problem of heavy budget
deficits and weak balance of
payments position, with the
prospect of building a virile
and viable economy.
“The last general election was
anything but free and fair.
The only political parties that
could complain of election
rigging are those parties that
lacked the resources to rig.
There is ample evidence that
rigging and thuggery were
relative to the resources
available to the parties. This
conclusively proved to us that
the parties have not
developed confidence in the
presidential system of
government on which the
nation invested so much
material and human
resources. While corruption
and indiscipline have been
associated with our state of
underdevelopment, these
two evils in our body politic
have attained unprecedented
height in the past few years.
The corrupt, inept and
insensitive leadership in the
last four years has been the
source of immorality and
impropriety in our society.”
With very minor editing and
emphasis, these would aptly
describe our reality today.
The only fundamental
difference was that, unlike in
December 1983, our political
reality today is in spite of
your active partisan
involvement. Active partisan
involvement to the extent
that you were the strongest
opposition Presidential
candidate and one of the
political parties that
contested the last general
elections (2011) was a party
you organized, promoted and
fielded candidates for the
elections. The party today
has a serving Governor for
Nasarawa State, Senators,
House of Representatives
members and many
members of House of
Assembly in many states
under the Congress for
Progressive Change (CPC).
The fact that, based on
performance or conduct of
these elected CPC
representatives, I can not
differentiate them with PDP
representatives, is the source
of my worry. I am therefore
writing you this letter as a
contribution to the process
whereby we must critically
evaluate our actions and
honestly provide leadership
to the process of moving our
people and nation forward.
Let me quickly admit here, in
the effort to move our people
and nation forward, our
primary task must be to
develop the capacity to fight
oppression and injustice. This
requires a capacity to live
above board, in other words,
the capacity to live exemplary
life as a source of moral
authority, if you like
discipline, which has today
come to be strongly
associated with your
leadership qualities. To that
extent therefore one would
expect that the CPC state
government of Nasarawa will
be a model and a source
inspiration for Nigerians.
Alternatively, we should have
a situation where CPC
legislators would be “alive to
their constitutional
responsibilities” and would
not be “preoccupied with
determining their salary
scales, fringe benefit and
unnecessary foreign travels.”
Unfortunately, we are not
able to make this assertion.
Perhaps, it is still very early
since there is still three years
ahead of us.
It is with these issues in mind
that I believe it is important I
write you. Your recent
declaration as reported by
News Agency of Nigeria
(NAN) on April 13, 2012, to
the effect that you will be
contesting the 2015 elections
compelled me to, not just
write to you, but make my
views open to the public. In
making my views open the
public, I am conscious of my
limitations as an ordinary
citizen and to that extent,
therefore, my views will not
enjoy the benefits of wide
publicity and acceptability.
Consistent with my
upbringing, I intend to state
my views honestly, truthfully
and with the utmost respect
to your person. Also,
consistent with the training of
my parents and teachers, I
will, with the best of
intentions, convey to you my
feelings with high sense of
obedience to you as a 70
year old person, who has not
just paid his dues but who
has remained the only
surviving leadership model
for my generation. I say this
with every sense of
responsibility and conscious
of the fact that I am not a
member of your party and
did not vote for you in the
last general elections. In fact,
I am a member of the Action
Congress of Nigeria (ACN)
and contested the 2011
elections as the Senatorial
Candidate of the party for
Kaduna North.
I am sure with this disclosure
you may be tempted to
dismiss my views. However,
being the leader you are, I
also expect that you will at
least read the letter before
you pass your final
judgment. I will therefore
proceed to state why I
believe your declaration to
contest the 2015 Presidential
election will not lead us to
the desired changes we all
aspire to have for Nigeria.
First, as I inferred above,
your party, Congress for
Progressive Change (CPC) is
not different from the ruling
Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP). In fact, the truth is
that it has been taken over
by what I can call the PDP
virus based, on the fact that
the only serving Governor of
the party was a member of
the PDP and only decamped
to your party after being
denied the opportunity to
contest on the platform of
the PDP. As a result, his team
(Commissioners and
members of the State House
of Assembly) are
predominantly PDP.
In addition, the
representatives of the party
in the National Assembly
(Senators and House of
Representatives) have not
differentiated themselves
from the dominant conduct
of PDP members. They have
in fact joined the PDP club of
legislators to enjoy fat
salaries and benefits. They
are part and parcel of
unaccountable and corrupt
legislative order, whose
business today is
predominantly to resort to
blackmails and intimidations
with several reported
allegations of corrupt
practices. Arising from this,
we have a national assembly
that is unaccountable, whose
budget is known only to its
members. It is not only CPC
representatives that are
accomplices to this ugly
reality. Representatives of
ACN, Labour Party, All
Progressives Grand Alliance
(APGA) and all other
opposition parties are equally
guilty.
The second issue is the fact
that the result we have today
is a product of the way your
party recruited its candidates
for the 2011 elections. I am
one of those who sincerely
believed that you lost the
party at the point of its
formation, because you were
not able to control the
process that led to the
emergence of leaders of the
party. This gave rise to a
situation where those who
emerged as the leaders of
the party at national, state,
local government and ward
levels are people with the
same orientation of PDP,
orientation driven by the
greed and lust for money and
power that has dotted our
political landscape today.
On account of this, the party
leadership openly courted
and facilitated the emergence
of known PDP members as
candidates of the party for
the 2011, people whose core
value system is completely at
variance with what you stand
for and represented. There
are of course other situations
where people that may not
be PDP but are known to
have openly fought against
you between 2007 and 2011
in your former party, All
Nigeria People Party (ANPP),
people who have
undermined your leadership
and sabotaged your cause,
became the dominant players
in CPC based on the
opportunistic strategy of
winning elections. Many have
won the 2011 elections with
your endorsement and are
today as guilty as the PDP
people you are spearheading
the fight against.
The third issue relates to
your inability to convert your
mass followership into
electoral victory in states and
at other levels. I expect the
response that this is on
account of PDP rigging
machine. I believe there is
PDP rigging, but I also
believe that the PDP rigging
machine overpowered your
popularity because of
internal poor party
administration, which led to
cases of injustice. The case of
Katsina and Kano states are
good example. It is clear that
your party lost the
Governorship election in
Katsina State because of
mismanagement of the party
primary. Otherwise, how do
you account for a situation
where the CPC won majority
seats in the State House of
Assembly and National
Assembly but lost the
Governorship election? If the
party can defeat PDP at
those levels, why was it not
able to defeat the PDP at the
level of Governorship?
The case of Kano is worse.
Being a state where the CPC
was very popular, it was a
tragedy that the party only
contested the Governorship
and Presidential elections.
This is because all the
candidates for House of
Assembly, House of
Representatives and Senate
virtually withdrew from the
contest on account of
perceived injustice to Alh.
Mohammed Abacha who won
the party primary but was
asked by the party national
leadership to withdraw for
Col. Lawal Ja’afaru Isa.
Related to this, is the recent
case of Kebbi State. Citizens
of the state were shocked
when after winning a court
verdict from the electoral
tribunal nullifying the 2011
gubernatorial elections and
ordering re-run, the CPC
leadership in the state,
including the gubernatorial
candidate decamped and
withdraw from the re-run
election. The ACN
gubernatorial candidate also
did the same. This was
possible because the CPC
leaders are in the first place
PDP in content and substance
but finds their way into CPC
in order to pursue their
greed and lust for power and
money.
My fourth issue has to do
with the failed attempt for
the merger of opposition
parties under the National
Democratic Movement (NDM)
initiative in 2009 and the
alliance between the ACN and
CPC in 2011. Without going
into details, the accounts that
is open to the public was that
you opted out of the merger
negotiations having
succeeded in registering the
CPC. With respect to the
failed alliance of 2011, the
account was that while the
ACN was ready to withdraw
its Presidential candidate,
Mallam Nuhu Ribadu in
favour of your candidature,
the CPC refused to concede
the position of Vice President
to the ACN.
All these accounts have not
been refuted by either you or
the CPC leadership. If
anything, they were
rationalized. Now my worries
have turned to fear. This is
because I have so many
questions that are bothering
me. These are: now that you
have declared to contest for
the 2015 elections, will you
have a new approach in the
runoff to 2015 or it will be
another repeat of the 2003,
2007 and 2011 elections –
experience whereby ordinary
citizens have very high
expectations that you will be
able to provide leadership for
the electoral defeat of PDP?
Will your campaign be driven
by the same team of
administratively incompetent
and politically naïve and
deceptive people who have
failed to develop a national
outlook and expand your
support base to cover all
parts of the country?
This leads me to my fifth
point Sir. As a Northerner, to
that extent do you intend to
use your aspiration to first
throw up credible contestants
for political offices in the
North, contestants that upon
winning elections would
spearhead the socio-
economic, educational and
political development and
material transformation of
the region for the benefit of
the teeming Talakawas?
Remember, your political
presence alone is a
determinant of who win and
lose elections in most parts of
the 19 states of Northern
Nigeria. This will not be an
issue at all if your party
leadership, your campaign
team and other candidates
that would be fielded by your
party are to have the same
coloration or even minimal
resemblance to your values.
This way you will have a
team that sings from the
same page and are sensitive
to the interests of the masses
of the people of Nigeria at
home and abroad who are
hoping for a new day to
dawn for the betterment of
their country. Unfortunately,
this is most probably not
going to be the case. The
truth is that most of the
members of your party’s
leadership, your campaign
team and party candidates
are PDP in every respect –
they are masquerades
parading in borrowed garbs
as they care not a whit for
the people, but for their own
selfish interests. Some of
them are even worse than
PDP. They will not only
emerge as candidates of your
party but they will be
promoted by you and aided
to win elections.
I make this argument with
the benefit of experience. It
has happened in 2003, 2007
and 2011. You will recall that
in 2003, ANPP defeated PDP
in Kano with your blessing. It
is now history how the ANPP
government in Kano between
2003 and 2011 mismanaged
and squandered public
resources to the point where
the people had a sense of
missing the PDP government
of 1999 – 2003, which partly
accounted for the second
coming of Rabiu Musa
Kwankwaso, no thanks to the
mismanagement of internal
processes of your party, CPC.
Similarly, Alh. Isa Yuguda
won the 2007 governorship
elections in Bauchi with your
support. Again, it is now
history how Isa Yuguda
defected back to PDP shortly
after the 2007 elections.
Since the emergence of the
CPC government in Nasarawa
following the 2011 elections,
there have been speculations
around the Nasarawa
governor, Tanko Al-Makura
planning to go back to PDP.
Although there has been
constant denial by your party
leadership at both state and
national levels, this
speculation has remained
stubborn.
What this point out is your
inadvertent contribution to
the phenomenon of bad
governance in Nigeria. This
needs to be addressed. And
looking at the simplistic,
intellectually frail and
reflectively naive ways you
have announced announce
your declaration to contest
the 2011 elections, it is
important we draw your
attention to this fact. I call it
simplistic, intellectually frail
and reflectively naïve because
the announcement does not
come with critical evaluation
of your experiences and a
commitment to change the
ways you played politics in
2003, 2007 and 2011. If that
happens, the result is most
likely to be the same – the
PDP will again overpower all
opposition, including your
very humble self and our
tragedies and woes will
continue.
My sixth point, relates to the
fact you will be 73 when the
2015 elections will be
conducted. Looking at your
personal life, I believe you
are sincerely troubled by the
absence of alternative
leadership in the country and
this is what propels you to
continue, in good conscience
and with good reason, to
offer yourself. In evaluating
this issue, I think it is really
unfortunate that our national
situation is almost pushing
you to follow the inglorious
path of the Robert Mugabe’s
and Abdullai Wade’s of
Africa. With the
administratively incompetent
and politically naive team
that you have currently in
place, based on my analysis
above and if past experience
is a guide to future
possibilities, the probability
that your Presidential
candidature for 2015 will be
overpowered internally by
forces of reaction and
retrogression and externally
by the vampire PDP
machinery is very high.
What do we do therefore? Do
we simply just surrender to
PDP without a fight and to
that extent ask you to
withdraw your interest in
contesting for the 2015
Presidential elections? If we
ask you to withdraw, would
that not simply translate to
abdication of our
responsibility to our people?
What then are the options
before us?
Sir, these are not easy
questions to answer, yet we
must answer them
convincingly. First, we must
on no account surrender to
the pestilence that is PDP –
from 1999 to now, they have
constituted the worst
nightmare and disaster of
Nigerians. On no account
should we allow a situation
where we inadvertently
facilitate the continued rule
of PDP in anyway. To that
extent, therefore your
aspiration to contest the 2015
Presidential elections must be
discouraged because of two
fundamental reasons:
a) The first is that the same
altruistic reasons driving your
aspirations will not regulate
the structures of your
campaign and would not be
able to fight against the
emergence of greedy and
corrupt politicians who will
be embraced by you and
supported to win the
elections.
b) The second reason is
that your aspiration would
blur our peoples’ vision as
they will not be able to see
beyond you.
Sad as it may seem, and
probably unpalatable as it
may seem, I must therefore
submit that our society will
benefit more without your
aspirations for 2015. In the
circumstance, it is my hope
that you will consider
changing your role to that of
leading the negotiation
process towards
strengthening the capacity of
opposition parties in Nigeria.
Events in nearby Senegal
should serve as a source of
inspiration. To strengthen
opposition parties in Nigeria
would require a strategy that
would throw up completely
new candidates at all levels in
2015, including especially the
Presidential elections. Your
moral authority to serve as
the facilitator of this will
engrave your name in the
sands of Nigerian history as
one nationalist who sacrificed
everything, including his
personal aspirations and
ambition to ensure that the
monster called PDP is
defeated.
I am convinced that
members of CPC who are
pushing you to contest don’t
wish you well and you should
not listen to them. In the
event that you listen to them
and contest the 2015
elections, in the manner you
did in 2003, 2007 and 2011,
history and future
generations of Nigerians will
be justified if they turned out
not to be kind to you. In fact,
for those of us in the North,
we will be justified to be
aggrieved with your decision,
especially given the quality of
leadership your aspirations
has nurtured and imposed on
our people at other lower
levels.
My conclusion therefore is to
remain a member of the ACN
in spite of my respect for
you. In remaining a member
of the ACN, I am conscious of
the challenges facing all of us
in the North. Part of it
includes the fact that arising
from my inability to join your
party, I will remain a political
orphan in my constituency
with greater probability that
my candidature will not
attract your support no
matter his/her credential and
therefore may not win
election. Unfortunately, my
party (ACN) leadership at
national level appears to be
operating in a comfort zone
and as a result may only start
prioritizing the development
of my party structures in my
constituency when it is too
late.
Admittedly, I must recognize
that the problem of
administrative incompetence
and political naivety, which
define your party, CPC, also
gets manifested in different
ways in my party, the ACN.
One of the ways it gets
manifested is the inability to
recruit new membership in
other parts of the country
outside South West and Edo.
While it is a reflection of the
failings of many of us from
outside the South West and
Edo to encourage and
nurture positive disposition
towards the development of
party structures, it must be
recognized that the dominant
approach is to look in the
direction of aggrieved
politicians in PDP who may
have resources to expend in
the development of
structures of the party.
This is a fundamental
problem because what it
means is that our opposition
parties in Nigeria, inclusive of
your CPC and my ACN, share
the same political culture
with the PDP, culture which
you aptly describe in your
1983 coup speech as
resulting in problems of
indiscipline and
mismanagement of resources
thereby leading to loss of
confidence. Therefore, at this
stage, what should occupy
our attention is not individual
aspirations but that of doing
the hard introspective,
reflective and proactive work
of sanitizing our parties, such
that they are distinctively
different from the PDP and in
2015, without you contesting
for the Presidency, a credible
Nigerian can be thrown up.
In addition, with your
towering charisma, you are
the best person positioned by
history to facilitate the unity
of all opposition parties in
the contest for 2015.
The element requiring the
unity of opposition parties
must not be taken for
granted, especially with the
experience of 2011 where
information available to the
public was that CPC/ACN
failed because Pastor Tunde
Bakare, your running mate,
refused to accept to step
down. I am convinced that it
was your tacit prodding that
encouraged Pastor Tunde
Bakare to adopt a hard line
stance and refused to
consider making the much
needed sacrifice. I am also
tempted to argue that it was
your towering charisma that
gave Pastor Bakare the
courage and cover to be able
to undermine a patriotic
national calling of the time.
Many would also emphasize
the point that my ACN
national leadership also
undermined the patriotic
national calling of that time
by failing to forgo their
demand for the substitution
of Pastor Tunde Bakare with
their nominee. These are all
true but very convenient
arguments. My position is
that the alliance couldn’t
have worked out because of
two factors. I believe the
parties negotiating the
alliance (CPC/ACN) were not
deeply committed to the
negotiations and to that
extent hardly see the
negotiation in terms of
defining the kind of
government that would have
taken over from the PDP. In
other words, and this is the
second issue, if there were
discussions of governance
programmes, they were only
secondary. As a result, the
main focus was just the 2011
elections.
This leads me to a more
substantive issue, which
informs my objection to your
aspiration to contest for
President. To the ordinary
people, their belief is that if
you win the Presidency you
will be able to fight against
corruption and injustice in
the country. Given the
configuration of your party
CPC and all those directly
driving your campaigns and
aspirations, it is debatable if
you can be able to fight any
ill in the Nigerian society, not
least corruption as a
President. This is the crux of
the matter and all those who
are quick to cite your
performance as Head of
State between January 1984
and August 1985, should ask
themselves the following
questions: does your
campaign team and current
CPC leaders share your vision
and have any commitment to
fighting corruption? Do they
even have any difference
with the PDP you are
fighting? Can you be able to
replicate the same
governance policies and
approaches under the 1999
constitution as amended?
As my elder and leader, I will
urge you to sincerely answer
these questions. I am
convinced that given your
honestly will not allow your
personal aspiration to
influence your answer. I am
also convinced that your
aspiration is more challenging
for those of us in the North.
Therefore, I must admit that
your aspiration also means a
challenge for the political
survival of many of us in the
North. Without any doubt, it
also raises question about the
capacity of politicians in the
North to assert their
independence. Rather than
follow the bandwagon, I
draw inspiration from Mallam
Aminu Kano’s 1950 Memo
where he proclaimed that “I
have seen the light in the far
horizon and I intend to
march into full cycle, either
alone or with anybody.” The
task, therefore, for many of
us from the North who
genuinely want to move our
nation and society forward, is
to be able to follow the
direction of the far horizon
and march towards the full
cycle. Whether it is a journey
we will make alone or with
other fellow patriots, it is a
task that is necessary and
politically obligatory for our
survival. I do hope you will
reconsider your decision and
give us leadership in this
journey. Otherwise, as your
loyal children, we have
learned the appropriate
lesson – go against the
current in the service of
fatherland!

#CONSENSUS 2015