Between the cabal and the crooked

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Fola Ojo

Who will win the February 16 presidential election in Nigeria? Do you know for certain? I’m not a man who plays God. The permissibility to act, talk, or express like the Creator is not granted any sentient being. God has no deputy. He does not have to consult with anyone to work what He works. But we have eyes to see; ears to hear, and fingers to count numbers. And if with some pounds of boldness, I declare that either sitting President Muhammadu Buhari standing in for the ruling All Progressives Congress, or his challenger, former Vice President Abubakar Atiku holding the banner for the Peoples Democratic Party will triumph; I may not be too far off mark. But if at the end of the process my computation becomes crippled, and my mathematics and prediction off-mark, I will be the first to scream aloud in a copious and galore apologia on February 17.

Aren’t you sickened by the mumbo-jumbo on radio talk-shows, and the logorrheic jabberwocky on television about politics? If you are not, I am. If you are, you are not alone. When you are done munching through the maddening media menu, sit back and ask yourself if we are sane when we believe that Nigerians are in surreptitious coercion to choose between Buhari and Atiku. Wait a minute; aren’t there other candidates running? Where are the Moghalus, Sowores, Ezekwesilis, and others? They are on the treadmill. Unfortunately, treadmills have no wheels. A man can run on the machine for as long as he can; but he’ll wake up on the same spot going nowhere. Money buys the wheels of politics. The political environment in Nigeria favours the moneybags and big spenders. Those running against Buhari and Atiku may have souls but have no dough. They have not enough money to splurge to win hearts of voters. What a shame!

But this treatise is about the choices before Nigerians. How succouring are they? Ask a Buharist and an Atikulated. They are sold out to their men. Their men can do no wrong. If the elections were held today, without looking back and while I acknowledge some of his weaknesses, I will vote for Buhari. That discussion is not for today. But my concerns are the insipid insinuations in a few quarters which portray Buhari as a Commander-In-Chief commanded by a cabal.  We now hear that a vote for Buhari is a vote for “an evil, greedy, corrupt, provincial, and reactionary cabal made up of Mamman Daura, Abba Kyari, Isa Funtua and their minions who are currently perpetrating a stratospheric theft of the nation’s resources in ways that would make an angel of Abacha”. These were the exact words of one Farooq Kperogi in an opinion now swirling around on the social media. Kperogi further said: “Every decision VP Osinbajo took when Buhari was away has been reversed or vitiated upon Buhari’s return…This would be worse in a Buhari second term when the cabal no longer needs to pretend in order to earn the goodwill of the South-West”. That Buhari is a raging-hot clannish man who sticks lovey-dovey only to his Fulani stock is not a rabbit-out-of-the-hat narrative. We have heard it before that his government is run in shrivelled caucuses and cabal assemblages. Mamman Daura, we heard, is the head of the cabal and ‘president’ by proxy. From the outset of the Buhari administration, the cabal has operated on the upwardly wayward swing. The nation’s first lady once in anger and disgust nagged about a few characters who have hijacked her husband. These men and their human agents control plum slots in government and are fully entrenched in the spine of Nigeria’s government. Before he was finally disgraced, one of them once asked Nigerians when he was asked a question; “Who is the Presidency?” That’s the cabal mentality. Granting members of the cabal freehand and freedom to operate in government is a political personality disorder.

The perception of politics of clannishness and cliquishness is Buhari’s Achilles heels! The fear of a more intense shoving-aside of other regions; and what will happen regarding appointments to top juicy positions in his second term is real. Cabals pursue no other agenda but their selfish own. The President obviously trusts these people. IF you trust cabals with your life and living, one day, they will thrust you into obfuscation and obliteration. IF you trust them with your business, one day, they will thrust you out of business and into begging-for-bread. IF you trust them too much as President, you may lose the trust of others who truly love you; and then lose a pivotal election. But we respect Mr. President’s prerogative. A man is free to choose who his friends are; even if we don’t like them.

If a vote for Buhari is a vote for the cabal around him; a vote for Atiku will be for who? Atiku is touted an avatar of corruption; a breathing statue of cronyism, a grand-dragon of purloining; and master of the art of dirty deals. You will easily find millions of Nigerians who will audaciously tell you that a vote for Atiku is a vote for his pillaging friends he confessed he cannot wait to enrich by selling Nigeria to them. Nigerians will tell you that lofty and grand campaign promises from the mouths of aggrandising and grandstanding thieves are mere words that will die in the wilderness of waste. They know that crooked ideas of five-star crooks cannot take any nation to the Promised Land.

It is an uphill task changing the minds of many people that an Atiku’s possible presidency will not be a toxic dump on Nigeria that the country will have to contend with for many years afterwards. And the fear is real among Nigerians that the cleansing of the toxicosis and fetid upload on our politics and polity will be like pushing a boulder up the hill.  Voters who already have their PVCs believe that by the time many of Atiku’s friends seize Nigeria’s economy by the jugular, the mop-up of the envenomated toxic tracks that will be left behind will be Herculean. Are these fears of Buhari and Atiku real; or they are just rambling rhetoric in an election year?

Although no man is God who has the final say on outcomes of elections; I still declare with pounds of boldness that Buhari or Atiku will be victorious in the February election. If I fall short in my predictions, my apologies will be unreserved to those who are reading this. Making a life-impacting electoral choice between a government that is feared will be driven by crippling cabals who were never voted for; and one that will be run by the crooked who will sell Joseph to slavery, is not a good position for a nation to be. It is not a pleasant spot for a country like Nigeria gasping for breath and skating on thin ice at such a time as this. So, what do Nigerians do on February 16? Vote your conscience, but don’t forget that elections have consequences you will have to live with for a long time.

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