THIS IS MY CANDIDATE.

From time to time, I like to surf through cyberspace to gauge what Nigerians are talking about and measure the level of toxicity with respect to our politics.

Those who spent 2014 till now spreading hate messages about my candidate haven’t exactly stopped. One fellow today was preaching to me on Facebook to give myself over to anger and display my independent thought process by declaring radical support for Atiku to dislodge the incumbent. The guy found out that I passed through medical school and told me that I must remember the pain I went through to emerge from there. I don’t know where some people get this impression that medical school must always be about pain for all and sundry. It was about boredom for me, a lot of us had several activities we indulged in and the friendships surely weren’t painful. I digress.

Now back to those with the hate agenda. You read or hear stuff like APC=PDP, “Nigeria has never been this divided” and “Buhari is a tyrant destroying our democracy.” I wonder when Buhari divided Nigeria. I have and will never be of the school of thought that APC=PDP. If both parties were exactly similar, the APC would have been suitable habitat for the growth and development of the likes of Saraki. I am not sure that members can leave APC for say three years and return with about three months to party primaries to almost claim a presidential ticket.

It was Patience Jonathan who went to campaign towards the 2015 election and said derogatory things about certain impoverished northern ‘born throwey’ children. She is the one who asked her supporters to stone supporters of the other camp and called my candidate braindead. It was certain elements in the PDP who produced an almost one hour documentary full of fiction which encouraged supporters to imbibe distrust and hatred towards Buhari. They mentioned names like Ekwueme, Olabisi Onabanjo, Awolowo, Aper Aku, Ambrose Alli and many others just to get people angry at him. They said he never smiled and that he was a bigot with extremist leanings like modern day terrorist groups. The narrator and producers of the video couldn’t even attach their names to the video credits because they knew they lied.

They brought his family into the mix and accused him of all sorts. Buhari didn’t respond in all of these, he only kept his campaign going. He went to the South-South and Southeast first where he recorded 49,978 and 20,335 votes respectively in 2011. Folks said he had such low readings then because he hardly visited the states involved to campaign. He did all he could but still got awarded about 7% of votes cast in the 5 southeastern states in 2015. Some people somehow blamed him for the atrocities during the civil war while some just voted according to their religious and political convictions.

At a meeting in the United States of America after his inauguration, he attempted to answer a question about inclusive governance. That was where he mentioned that based on political realities; there were constituencies that gave 97% of their total cast votes to him while others gave him 5%. These figures are not exactly accurate but he was trying to explain to the largely foreign audience what the voting pattern of that election produced. He went further to say that he was obligated by the constitution he swore to; to ensure that every constituency got what was due to them. Even if he felt a need to reward those who voted massively for him at the expense of those who rejected him (again), he couldn’t because of what the constitution dictates. Although the question asked was related to the Niger Delta and the prevailing situation there at that time, he tried to answer as best as he could or understood it. There was clearly nothing wrong with his remark but some cerebral Nigerians decided to run with the less than two minutes portion where he mentioned those percentages to preach their gospel to their illiterate fan base and brethren that what Buhari meant was that the Southeast constituted 5% and hence would get 5% even when they knew that 97+5=102. It fit into their prejudices and they still run with this till now.

The ‘wicked, blood sucking’ man like some religious folks opt to call Buhari met a situation where more than a handful of State governors couldn’t pay salaries and pensions. Some hadn’t done so for months. The wicked man helped these governors with bailout funds. There was the Paris club refund which he gave then when they rushed to Abuja cap in hand for help but some did not settle these backlogs. I watched the military display from the Independence Day celebrations and the military had many things to be thankful to Buhari for. Despite these, I won’t say the Buhari administration has performed excellently but I’m not idealistic. The fact that the Lagos-Ibadan highway is still uncompleted is enough for me to withhold any accolades. However, it is clear that the man isn’t the devil many including supposed church leaders have painted him to be. Will a tyrant watch on and allow his wife freely tweet whatever she likes on social media? Perhaps we should ask Idi-Amin for his opinion.

It has not been perfect with respect to human rights issues, in fact there have been many lives lost but I won’t agree that security is worse and this is my opinion. We had bomb blasts, insurgency, ethnic clashes etc. before Buhari got in the saddle but some cerebral folks would have us believe these unfortunate events commenced in June 2015. Prior to that time, we had superstars like Boyloaf, Tompolo and the OPC crew who got juicy contracts from government to supply hardware and secure pipelines as the case may be. Some of them were speakers on campaign grounds and moved around with mobile police escorts. This was a time when they moved money out of the central bank when they liked to swing elections. A time when celebrity priests rolled with politicians like rims roll with tires. A time when soldiers seized printed newspapers meant for distribution and when Pastor Tunde Bakare’s 2015 New Year message got yanked off Channels TV after a few minutes because those concerned were uncomfortable with his content. A time when the First Lady trampled on a state governor, worked at a ministry in her state and operated bank accounts loaded with inheritance money via proxies. A time when a president selectively released refunded ecological money to only states with PDP governors but that heroic fellow was the best we ever had.

They were sure Buhari would spend his term hounding people but the man had said he was more concerned about recovery because of time constraint. These same people are the ones who ask where recovered money is or why certain people aren’t in court. The same people will sing redemption song if any of their (s)heroes gets touched. They want peace but don’t mind the ramblings of fraudulent secessionists. Someone promised his acolytes that he would burn our land and give them my president’s head and they clapped but when the beat changed for a serpentine dance; they remembered the rule of law. They’re always quick to alert developed countries to come and observe, perhaps they should go and read about what Pierre Trudeau did as Prime minister of Canada when a certain group from his own province wanted to break away from Canada.

I saw some people on social media attacking the president because new campaign photos were released. They were angry he wore their traditional outfit which he rarely wore but I wonder why they are angry. 

It’s politics, it’s what politicians do. They dress up, have photo sessions, shoot ads, and carry babies and all sorts. In 2014, some were angry that he attended an interdenominational service in Lagos wearing his hat. Some were angry that his wife didn’t attend that ceremony with him. He was in Ebonyi last year and got adorned in a similar outfit some are angry he took a photograph in for 2019. I’m not sure they knew about that. Atiku will have to wear it too but I suspect some people will not mind and won’t be bothered about the last time he did dress up.

Muhammadu Buhari is my candidate and he is far from perfect. Don’t continue with that silly point about his WAEC certificate like you don’t know he attended secondary school. We are talking about people who got sensible jobs with just primary school leaving certificate in their time. A man trained by the British and later by the American system is who you think is illiterate because you somehow have certificates now? Get serious.

Buhari is not perfect but I have seen this end game long before now. The fact that certain movements happened convinced me that he is doing things right, enough to destabilize the status quo. I like and respect those who boldly identify with their candidates even if we don’t agree like my namesake who is for Jimi Agbaje in Lagos. One group I don’t like is the elitists/ idealists on the streets of social media who think folks like them are the bulk of the voters. They understand politics more than others but they don’t chase their voters’ cards neither do they vote. The funniest group is made up of the pretenders and hypocrites; the ones who shout ‘yoots’ but secretly endorse ‘non-yoots.’ Come out of the closet and declare where you stand. It’s not war and no one will spank you for your choice.

Play the game right. No lies, no fabrications and no cursing. There is room for all to campaign so do so and we will see in February if ‘cifia’ pains will continue.

8-10-2018