My dear General, this is the second time I would have to write to a former general and former head of state. The last time I did, it was to one of your predecessors who suffered the indignation of having his own daughter tongue-lash him publicly for rubbishing President Goodluck Jonathan.
In recent times, I, like many wary supporters of yours, thought we had got in you a new and improved presidential aspirant who was now ready to be more mature and watchful in his politics, until you played true to type and issued a, well, not too well thought out statement, which I consider to be the handiwork of naive advisers.
When, together with my friends, we thought you were a changed man, we were foolishly wrong, because like a leopard and a retired general, formed habits are impossible to change.
Sir, with all due respect to your rank, and with the exception of the integrity you carry as a banner you are no different from General Olusegun Obasanjo, who, in his fading years, many expect to have dropped his tendency for mischief. He will also speak shortly.
Sir, are you aware that Bode George recently described the president as an introspective scorpion? I think, somehow, he is right about that bloody civilian. An introspective scorpion is one which will not attack, but actually run away from anything that seeks to trouble it, until it has the opportunity to strike.
I wish you did not join that Yoruba traitor to form that thing called the APC, because, as it is emerging, that boat is heading for the rocks, and many of those around you in that boat, who goad you to speak when you should keep a dignified silence, simply want to exploit your voice to score their own political points.
In the last few months, you were beginning to get it right, away from men like that Zaria-born politician, Nasir el-Rufai who thinks that the best way to get ahead is to be belligerent. That worked well for him under the General because he was protected, but now it is a disaster that is happening right under our nose. You play politics, like my Christian friends say, by being gentle as a dove and wise as a serpent.
Only in this case, the dove is a garment until elections are won, and the serpent part is for poisonous strikes at the appropriate time! Sir, in Nasarawa, what happened was not the people’s protest as you claim, but a manifestation of the gimmickry of civilian politicians we have no choice but to mix with. You are making foes suspect that you, or your advisers, are preparing for the kind of riots that led to the death of many persons when you lost the elections the last time.
Please, do not harbour such thoughts for they made the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) lose subsequent elections and forced it into this marriage with traitors. When you wrote, Sir, that never before had you seen a Nigerian leader deploy federal institutions in the service of partisanship as we are witnessing now and never before had you seen a Nigerian President utilise the common wealth to subvert the system and punish the opposition, all in the name of politics, you were economical with the truth. Shagari did; you did; Babangida did; Abacha did; Obasanjo did, and our brother, Yar’Adua did. So, please, do not travel that route in your arguments, or do I say the arguments prepared for you by political never-do-wells?
This is refreshing comment I read because, like I suspect, you think he is not behind all these political drama. “Whether or not President Goodluck Jonathan is behind the gale of impeachments or the utilization of desperate tactics to suffocate the opposition and turn Nigeria into a one-party state, what cannot be denied is that they are happening under his watch, and he cannot pretend not to know, since that will be akin to hiding behind one finger.”
One paragraph in your statement stood out to me. You wrote: “Let no one, whether the leader or the led, the high or the low, a member of the ruling or the opposition do anything to torpedo the system. Let no one, whether on the altar of personal ambition or pretension to higher patriotic tendencies, do anything that can detonate the keg of gunpowder on which the nation is sitting.”
I wonder whether you told those clowns in APC, and that Mango farmer in Adamawa when you were meeting with them, as it is clearly beginning to look like they are the kind of subversive elements you fought in times past. Your new friends are dangerous elements and should be curtailed by you if you do not want their smell to rub off on you.
I do not respect Reuben Abati a lot, because the treachery of his ethnic stock is his stock in trade, but I agree with him when he wrote: “Although he tries very hard to deny it…there can be no doubt that General Buhari has sadly moved away from the patriotic and statesmanlike position he recently adopted on national security, which President Jonathan publicly commended, and has now reverted to unbridled political partisanship.”
When he added that the root of the APC lay within its internal contradictions, he may be right, sir, and I strongly believe that it can be salvaged if you get a party to pursue your ambition before it is too late as the story doing the round, according to my Abuja friends, is that the man who openly insulted his traditional rulers and who wants you to run with him has sold out after eight months of negotiations. Ask that government mole in your midst from Imo State and he will tell you the truth because he is fully aware of the deal.
Written by Mustapha Abdullahi.
Mustaphabdullahi66@yahoo.com
