Fractured APC and in-house politics of smear campaign

BY IFEANYI IZEZE
Mischief, an attribute of the human mind, seems to have been perfected by those that play full-time in the game of politics in Nigeria. And this is because an average Nigerian politician always thinks he/she is smarter than every other person especially those that seemingly pose serious threats to his/her ambitions which most times are outrightly unrealistic and at worst inordinate.

Look for the creativity of an average Nigerian politician, you will always find it in the negative arena. Is it not unfortunate?

Those seeking to constitute themselves into an opposition within the All Progressives Congress (APC) should be reminded outrightly that the party is no longer in opposition but it is the ruling party. And that what President Buhari needs at this point in time is for all leaders of the party to rally round him in the arduous task of delivering on his and the APC’s mandate instead of some of them thinking erroneously that the shortest cut to get recognition by Buhari is to cut and slice Atiku.

To those who know, the obvious renewal of attacks on the former vice president and Turaki of Adamawa, Atiku Abubakar, in an attempt to pitch him against members of his new political family in the All Progressive Congress (APC), especially President Buhari, show every attribute of a focused mischief and a smear campaign, not from outside the ruling party as some people believed, but from within the family, by those who feel threatened by his present disposition in the scheme of things in the current dispensation.

Whether anybody wants to hear this or not, these deliberate falsehoods and sinister propaganda were obviously designed to draw a wedge between Atiku and President Muhammadu Buhari, in order to cause needless distrust and distractions in the President’s government.

First it was insinuations that he has been hosting political meetings at Burj Al-Arab, Dubai to plot whatever against Buhari. Then followed a series of sponsored news pieces on the online news sites with caption: “Atiku is a green snake-Obasanjo;” and then the Saturday January 2, 2016 piece by the Nation Newspaper captioned: “Poll 2019 and Atiku’s frantic denial.”

With the challenge of providing good governance for the country and creating job opportunities for the army of unemployed Nigerian young people, including reducing the impact of poverty, does it not occur to these self-serving political jobbers that the last thing President Buhari needs now is foolish distractions from those who should be supporting him with ideas to handle the enormous task of proving to Nigerians that he actually meant to do all that he vowed to when voted in as the number one citizen?

Without mincing words, the tones and expressed rhetorics in all the articles clearly show that they are coming from a single source- whether as an individual or a group of disgruntled and outsmarted apologists.

Curiously, an analysis of such weight by a national daily as prominent as the Nation against a prominent APC leader could be carried bearing no by- line. This simply means that the expressed views were either the view point of The Nation Newspaper or scripted by faceless cowards with commanding control in the paper. This is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth!

How could a prominent newspaper that could rightly be described as APC paper use such convulsive adjectives to describe President Buhari in saying he is: “an aphrodisiac power monger and Casanova?”

The election campaigns are gone; we have elected a new president who has taken over office since May 29 2015. Should private activities of individual citizens be the major preoccupations of APC leaders or rather in-house fighters especially now that all energies are needed to be channelled into helping the Buhari administration actualise the change agenda he and the APC promised Nigerians?

So with all the problems facing our nation and even the APC as a party, it is the activity of one private individual and his family that will be placed on the front burner of our political discuss? Does this not show how naïve or rather depraved Nigerian politicians are?

It is better to assume that the “Atiku is a green snake” story attributed to General Obasanjo was a hatchet job of mischief makers, if not, it is unimaginable that former Nigeria’s President, General Olusegun Obasanjo could still be carrying on as an ‘area council chief’ in his dealings with other prominent Nigerians some of whom are even more credible than himself.

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Those who know would agree that the best way to deal with General Obasanjo is to outrightly ignore him as this diminishes his self-assigned worth and ego both of which are already grossly diminished.

Without doubt, the battle Atiku had against Obasanjo was for the sustenance of democracy and only underscores the Turaki’s credentials as a truly tried and tested democrat.

Most people would actually believe this to be a recent interview granted by Chief Obasanjo but contrary to that, the supposed news story was an extract from the controversial and grossly misinforming book he published last year.

However, whether it was Obasanjo himself or some ‘third party’ political jobbers that are trying to knock Atiku’s head with members of his new found political family in the All Progressives Congress (APC) is something that only time would unravel.

Obasanjo has continued to delude himself not accepting that he belongs to the past – a yesterday man and that Nigeria has moved on. This was a man that almost scuttled Nigeria’s nascent democracy with his greedy appetite for power soon after he was re-elected for a second term in 2003.

Truth be told, the foundations of most of the dysfunctional socio-political and economic settings including disabled institutions we have in this country today and the present tribal and sectional divide were laid by Obasanjo as president of Nigeria between 1999 and 2007.

Nigerians should actually ask the Ota Chief: was it Atiku, his vice or Audu Ogbe, the then People’s Democratic Party Chairman that forced him to attempt a third term in office?
Is it not an absurdity that a reasonable elder statesman can come out to say such petty things as: “My assistants had moles within the Atiku group. Anything that they planned would be reported. That was the case after Ogbeh’s letter. They decided that Ogbeh should appear remorseful and come with the National Working Committee to apologise to me. It was not from their hearts, but to lure me to a ‘killing ground’.
“All pieces of information that were reported were verified because it would not come from only one informant.”

Does it surprise anybody that the very outspoken General Obasanjo up till now has not made a single comment on Sambo Dasuki, the former National Security Adviser’s allegation that he was among the former leaders that benefited lavishly from the arms purchase largess? In fact OBJ has gone mute ever since Dasuki threatened to name those he gave money including ex- presidents. Yeye country!

Our President without doubt needs all the support- in ideas, goodwill and even prayers to be able to steer the grounding ship of the Nigerian state to a comfort zone and should not be distracted by unnecessary distractions and evil schemes of those who are positioning to take over by 2019 of self-serving calculations without God in their plans.

You say you are going to take the country to Eldorado, we gave you our votes. You are yet to do a single thing towards achieving that and you are already fighting each other for 2019. Haba, Naija politician! There is God o!
•(IFEANYI IZEZE is a columnist with National Daily and lives in Abuja; email: [email protected]