A lot of novelties or innovations appear to be playing out in this year’s general elections scheduled to commence on February 16. And they are going to make the exercise unique and remarkable.
First, Nigeria will be going into that election with an obsolete law, the 2011 Electoral Act, since our President has refused to append his signature to the 2018 Electoral Amendment Bill passed by the National Assembly. This leaves us with no option than to agree that the wisdom of one man is far superior to the collective wisdom of all the representatives of the people of Nigeria who worked on that bill.
Second, as an Igbo proverb would have it, “if one fails to lick his lips, he leaves the harmattan to lick it for him”. Since President Buhari is directly involved in this year’s election, it may be inappropriate for him to leave his destiny in the hands of any outsider. In that regard, our President sees it proper that his niece, Amina Zakari, will be in charge of the collation of the Presidential election results.
Thus, having firmly tied all loose ends and ensured that there were no leakages, President Buhari decided to appoint a surrogate to carry on with his electioneering campaigns, to crisscross across the length and breadth of the country selling his programmes to the electorate, while he himself comfortably sits back in Aso Rock doing whatever pleases him.
Inaugurating his Presidential Campaign Council, in Abuja on Monday, President Muhammadu Buhari categorically stated that he was handing over his Presidential election campaign to a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, Bola Ahmed Tinibu, while he (Buhari), faces governance. Very Interesting.
But this also appears to be strange and bizarre, a situation where the bereaved would not weep, but would hire some other person to do it for him.
How can a President who had stayed outside Nigeria for more than three months treating himself of undisclosed illness, not afford to use the less than forty days to the election to go round the country to tell the people he is aspiring to rule for the next four years, the packages he has for them?
All those months he was in London receiving treatment, was he doing any governance, or did Nigeria collapse? Even now that he is in the country, what has he been doing? Is it not just motion without movement, with Nigeria still priding herself as the headquarters of world poverty?
Electioneering campaigns are part of governance. That has been the trend all over the world. You meet the people, talk with them, feel their pulse and see how you can improve on their welfare. But just like Amechi had said, our “President does not listen. He does not read…”
What is Bola Tinibu going to tell us during the election campaign that we will hold on to him? Is he a candidate for the election?
Perhaps, President Buhari may be dodging the Presidential debate scheduled for January 19. Or is he indirectly conceding power to Bola Ahmed Tinibu, without waiting till 2023?
Our Igbo brothers in APC where una dey?
