Politics

Scuffle over Buhari’s successor begins

Published

7 years ago

February 13, 2017

Olu Emmanuel

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APC on red alert
Time to rally round the President – Tinubu

By SUNDAY ODIBASHI

The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has become a theatre of ‘dirty’ politics since the negative speculations on the health status of President Muhammadu Buhari whose 10 days of vacation in London, the United Kingdom (UK) elapsed on February 6, 2017, but was extended sine die.

Several of the party leaders who were engrossed in rash politicking for a new power equation in the polity when negative speculations on the President’s health status blew open, have deepened their power struggle in subtle ways since the indefinite extension of the President’s vacation overseas on medical excuses.

The initial 10 days’ vacation generated monumental controversies between the Presidency, the APC and other stakeholders. The indefinite extension generated suspicions of power game by a perceived cabal and a corresponding deepening internal skirmishes for the President’s successor in the APC. Our investigations revealed that the battle for the throne or the succession of President Buhari has begun in earnest within the ruling party.

Our investigation revealed that there are three categories of contenders for the presidential throne in the APC. These were indicated to include: – those who are lobbying the northern oligarchy to scheme against the Acting President, Professor Yemi Osibanjo, working on the palpable fear of the initial death rumour; those calculating the likely incapacitation of the President and probable inability to continue in office; then, those who have resolved to contest in the presidential race in 2019 without regard to whether the incumbent is contesting; probably, on a different political party platform.

The first category relates to the insinuations over plot to compel Acting President Osibanjo to resign in order to frustrate him from succeeding Buhari on the probability of death.

However, Professor Osibanjo has refuted the allegation. Our source, however, maintained that the plot to emasculate the acting president is still on the pipeline. Political actors involved in the said plot were revealed to be conscious of the constitutional prescriptions on the discontinuity of the president, and are, therefore, plotting on limiting or curtailing the powers of Osibanjo. All these, however, will be a nullity the day President Buhari comes back and resumes duty. Thus, the political actors were said to be playing with caution while trying to be proactive if the unexpected happens.

The second category were said to be drawing up their power calculus on the probable incapacitation of the president. They were said to have realised that there is nothing to do to stop Osibanjo but are already positioning for the vice president slot, using that as springboard for the substantive office at the end of the tenure in 2019.

There is nothing new about the third category that has resolved with finite to participate in the 2019 presidential election except that the current political configuration compels them to begin to consider new plans of taking over the APC structures and the party’s political machine to promote their determined ambition.

Invariably, the divergent power blocs in APC have condescend to negotiations, horse trading, political tradeoff for a new power equation in the polity.

Another succession project, which is, however, outside the bound of the APC, is the advocacy for the next President in 2019 to come from Igbo nation in the South East.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo was reported to have made this advocacy

penultimate week. Obasanjo remains a member of the oligarchy influencing the ‘flow’ of power at the centre in the country that no political actor can ignore his word. He made statements when former President Goodluck Jonathan was coming in and when he was also going out, and they happened, accordingly. He did the same when President Buhari was coming in in 2015 and the result proved his statement. Obasanjo seems to be on the march again.

It was gathered that the rage of power contention in the APC compelled the party’s national leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to move to Abuja on intervention mission. An Aide of the former Lagos State Governor disclosed that his principal has made passionate appeal to all party leaders and followers to remain calm and stand behind the President at this ‘trial’ moment. Tinubu was gathered to have appealed that “this is a crucial moment to rally round the President, pray for him and support him,” adding, “we cannot abandon the President at this point of our political development and the APC control of the federal government.” He was said to have appealed to all party members to consider the interest of the part most and support the President.

The covert power struggle in the party was disclosed to have put APC leaders on red alert.

There was the innuendo that a prominent APC leader purportedly lobbied the APC Governors to convene a meeting and raise a delegation to visit the president in London to confirm his health status. However, as reports of the purported meeting filtered the public space, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, debunked any arrangement of such meeting by the Governors Forum while the Presidency insisted that the President is hale and hearty.

The earlier controversies over the President’s health status was considered wholesomely unnecessary and mere symbol of desperation for power by the political actors. Having waited till the 10 days’ vacation expired, the controversies have become renewed with vigour as the vacation has been extended infinite. However, the Presidency and several APC leaders have given assurance that President Buhari will be back to the country any moment from now.

Historically, Politics of death often test of goodwill or legitimacy of the leader. President Olusegun Obasanjo used the death political tool to test his legitimacy among the Yoruba nation after the 1999 Presidential election in which the Yoruba electorates voted massively for Chief Olu Falae, joint presidential candidate of the All Peoples Party (APP) and the Alliance for Democracy (AD) but Obasanjo won on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with massive from other parts of the country. The former President was suspected to have gone into hiding while the news of his death was spreading across the country. To his consternation, it was the Yoruba leaders who stood and were spitting fire, warning that nothing must happen to their son. As the vehement outburst was gaining momentum from the South West, Obasanjo, on the third day came out to declare that he was alive.

Few years later, Orji Uzor Kalu, former Governor of Abia State, attempted the death politics but his game did not gain currency because he placed it on an individual, perhaps, thinking that will give him leverage. Kalu had accused Chief Tony Anenih of plotting to kill him. Indeed, somebody was paraded in Abuja who claimed he was paid by Anenih to kill Kalu. The game, however, died naturally because Anenih did not make any modicum of response, later, there were reports that Kalu went to apologise to Anenih.

In the far distant era of the struggle for Nigeria’s independence, late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe also played the death politics, claiming that the colonial rulers were plotting to assassinate him. Several African leaders stood against the plot, warned the British colonial rulers to refrain from the plot. Thereafter, Azikiwe gained more popularity across the African continent that some leaders since then started calling him Zik of Africa.

Meanwhile, an elder statesman, Dr. Moses Iloh, in an interview with this Reporter, was of the view that the common agenda of all the fraudulent politicians and business people, the corrupt people, is to kill Buhari. He decried that they will not stop until Buhari is dead, admonishing that they are not God and that God will not allow them succeed.

Dr. Iloh maintained that God that put Buhari there will allow him to do what He sent him to do. “In Nigeria, who has exposed the magnitude of corruption in the country as Buhari has done? Buhari exposed them and they will never forgive him. So, the general agendum for politicians and all the rich robbers is to kill Buhari so they can have their way,” he declared.

He remarked that Buhari may not be able to destroy corruption but he has shamed the corrupt in the country.