Cracks in high political quarters are seldom reported and, when they emerge, hardly, or never, are acknowledged. That appears to be the situation this week when the Presidency said that there is no rift between President Muhammadu Buhari and his strong political ally, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
A statement issued by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity said the president and Asiwaju remain committed to building a very strong All Progressives Congress (APC) and bringing change to Nigeria.
The statement said that “recent reports of a rift between the two leaders of our party are false; the handiwork of some media mischief makers.”
The Presidency accused some sections of the media of feeding on lies and controversies, saying that it is aware of pessimists and cynics disseminating misinformation to create doubts in the minds of the people about the relationship between its leaders and question the survivability of the party before and or beyond 2023.
Yet, in spite of the denial from the Presidency, there exists a sign of widened cracks in the camps of the two political gladiators. And, apparently too, the crux of the cracks in the camps centres around 2023 politics.
Some people are of the opinion that the purported rift was the handiwork of some politicians, presumably on the side of Buhari, to push aside Tinubu from the political reckoning of the president and make way for another aspirant to get the party’s ticket for the presidency.
Until now, owing to the contributions made by Tinubu that greatly led to the emergence of Buhari as president in the two previous elections, it was generally assumed that the South-west zone and, Tinubu, in particular, will be the main beneficiaries after the Buhari-led Presidency.
Naturally, that assumption became solidified when, after the election in 2015, Tinubu assumed, though unofficially, the position of the ‘leader of the party.’
Though not a regular visitor to the Villa, the invisibility of Tinubu around the President and the Presidential Villa appears to give credence to the wide held opinion that there’s a crack between the duo. It is understood that the last time Tinubu visited Buhari was on January 7, 2019. During that visit, he described Buhari as a man of character and courage.
That visit came on the heels of another which took place on October 31, 2018, and it was at the height of the call for the then chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and close ally of the party leader, Adams Oshiomhole, to resign from his position. Expectedly, Tinubu dismissed the call for the resignation of Oshiomhole.
However, despite the spirited efforts made by Tinubu to save Oshiomhole, the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the APC sacked him. Oshiomhole, his enemies believed, was too close a chairman to Tinubu and would stop at nothing to hand the presidential ticket to Tinubu when the time came.
This is just as those in Buhari’s camp have always viewed Tinubu with suspicion, believing that Tinubu will not protect Buhari’s interest after his tenure.
Agreed, as the statement issued by the Presidency said, Buhari had no beef at a personal level with Tinubu. Some analysts believe, rightly or wrongly, that some of the President’s men are working hard to convince him to support someone that would protect his interest after his tenure.
Whether Buhari is convinced that Tinubu is the right person to succeed him or not is yet to be confirmed. But, it is claimed in some quarters the sacking of Oshiomhole had the blessing of Buhari in order to weaken the camp of Tinubu and allow the party to be controlled by key governors that are passionate about the continuity of the President’s policies and programmes.
After the sack of Oshiomhole, Governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe state was made the chairman of the caretaker committee of the APC. Twice, the tenure of the committee has been extended and there are reports that the national convention of the party scheduled for June this year, might be postponed to allow Buni to continue as head of the caretaker committee.
To some people, the claims recently made by the Governor of Jigawa state and chairman of the APC Strategy and Contact Committee, Mr Muhammad Badaru Abubakar, that the date of the convention would not be shifted again remain to be confirmed.
Yet, the greatest hint that Tinubu is, indeed, losing his hitherto firm grip of the party is the fact that the APC is apparently now being controlled by the governors, especially the trio of Buni, Badaru and their Kebbi state counterpart Mr Abubakar Atiku Bagudu.
Unfortunately, the #EndSARS protests that rocked many cities in the country did not help the case of the erstwhile governor of Lagos state as he was accused by some people of being one of the alleged sponsors of the protest.
Of course, this particular allegation was debunked by people sympathetic to him. How someone could set his TV station and other expensive property on fire during a national youth protests has yet to be explained by the traducers of Tinubu.
Until that is explained, it is safe to assume, as the Presidency said, that the President, Tinubu and the party faithful are focused on engendering development, peace and security in the country and restructuring of the economy. They are also interested in waging the war against the cankerworm of corruption in the country and will not be diverted from that noble path.
In any event, the crisis between the members of the camps of Buhari and Tinubu, whether real or imagined, should, ideally, not be the interests of the common people.
After all, the story of the alleged crisis and the denial of the purported rift could just have been by the elite to confuse the common people and whip up sentiments among them all with a view to achieving selfish political goals.
Truly, waging serious fight against corruption, diversification and restructuring of the economy, fighting the twin evils of poverty and illiteracy and ensuring majority political inclusion should be the real concerns of the ordinary people, who are in the majority, and not part of the conflict between or among members of the ruling class.
On federal government’s rejection of Transparency International’s rating…
This week, the federal government recently responded to the claim made by Transparency International (TI) that Nigeria is doing badly in its fight against corruption.
According to the Buhari-led administration, the position of TI on the issue does not reflect the current situation in the country.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Mr Lai Mohammed, said this at the end of the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting chaired by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The minister said that it would take time for some of the steps being taken by the current administration on the fight against corruption to yield fruits. He said the government has put in place reform measures to fight corruption. Though the minister said that some of these reforms will take time to yield the desired results because the matrix used by Transparency International is not just about grafts alone, the need for the government to concentrate its efforts on tackling corruption cannot be overemphasised.
Corruption poses serious developmental challenges and undermines democracy and governance. It weakens governmental institutions and retards economic growth as it undermines foreign investments and siphons available resources needed to provide public services.
Regrettably, corrupt practices in Nigeria have become so pervasive that Nigeria has, in recent times, oscillated between the world’s most corrupt and the fourth most corrupt nation with whom to do business.
The giving and accepting of bribes is inculcated into the everyday operation of the country to such an extent that Nigerians argue it is part of the nation’s culture.
Corruption has eroded the public’s confidence in the country’s political and economic institutions which, in turn, has promoted a culture of contempt for the rule of law and, ultimately, a societal tolerance for a myriad of conducts previously considered abominable.
Something, therefore, needs to be done to end corruption and restore Nigeria to its former glory. It is bad enough that Nigeria is known internationally as one of the most corrupt nations in the world and this is not due to its lack of laws proscribing corruption or its lack of anti-corruption initiatives.
Rather, Nigeria’s status is caused by the serious lack of accountability among government offices. This situation has allowed corruption to eat so deeply into the system of the country that considerable effort is now required to allow the country to escape the stronghold of corruption.
