By Imam Ghazali Umar
As a Nigerian who always wishes his country well and tries to discuss development issues with like minds, I have no option than to express my feelings and my perception about the two candidates of the biggest political parties in Nigeria.
Nobody doubts that the president shall emerge from these two political parties. These are indeed All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The duo fielded Muhammadu Buhari and Goodluck Jonathan, respectively, as their candidates in the rescheduled 26th March, 2015 election.
I personally set certain criteria, which to me every candidate for any office shall possess before being elected to that office. In the case of exalted office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, that man must meet the entire criteria.
My criteria are in order of importance. You may see it otherwise. However, as far as I am concerned, the criteria are as follows; honesty and truthfulness, detribalization, commitment, experience and tolerance.
On the issue of honesty and truthfulness, APC presidential candidate has more confidence of Nigerians than Jonathan. This requires no argument to convince any Nigerian no matter how ignorant the person is even the incumbent president Jonathan, who is Buhari’s rival, testifies to the latter’s honesty, integrity and truthfulness.
It is generally believed that confession is stronger than evidence or witness. Therefore, it is without doubt that APC presidential candidate is so honest and truthful that, all agrees with that. On the other hand, the PDP presidential candidate has suffered so many incidents that question his integrity. This started from Stella Oduah’s case to that of $20 billion NNPC missing money and many more.
Second in the list is detribalization, this involves non ethnocentric attitudes and an open mind that embraces all and sundry. In Nigeria we witnessed a situation whereby a sitting president out of his fanaticism, came out and defended a suspected terrorist. I refer you to the Henry Okah’s saga and the October 1, 2010 bombings in Abuja.
Furthermore, on political appointments, if you verify the appointments in government parastatals, directorates and other government subsidiary bodies, then you will see how jingoist President Jonathan is. Another area that exposes his bellicose and chauvinism, is military. This is an organisation that has nothing to do with politics.
But one may see how the man has politicised the profession, especially on the appointment service chiefs. General Buhari, on the other hand, is so unbiased that he has never supported his kinsmen, whenever they went wrong.
He always supports truth and nothing more. On his appointments while in office as head of state, you can flash back to history and see who were his governors, ministers and heads of government agencies. The man (Buhari) carries all along and never denies anyone based on tribalism or jingoism.
It is important to mention at this juncture that Buhari’s driver, chef and some domestic workers are not Hausas. They are mainly Igbos and other tribes. During his stay at Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), the man was the same detribalized Buhari. From the above discussion, we can easily deduct that Buhari is not chauvinistic as the opposition claimed.
Third in the list is commitment. To my understanding, the above discussion portrays a clear picture of who is more committed among the duo. For the purpose of shedding light, commitment has been defined to mean ‘willingness to give your time and energy to something that you believe in, or a promise or firm decision to do something’.
Therefore, commitment to nation is seen as a willingness to give your time and energy for the protection of unity and integrity of your nation and to the salvation of that nation from any set back. Therefore, I put it to you to critically identify the more committed among the two.
Fourth in our inventory is tolerance. This is seen, according to Cambridge Dictionary, as ‘the ability to deal with something unpleasant or annoying, or to continue existing despite bad or difficult conditions’. Considering the above definition, and compare same with our subjects, we can easily see the more tolerant among them, without a hectic work or analysis. Jonathan refused to fish out the Boko Haram members ab initio, because, according to him, he will not fight with an uncertain people. He argued at that time that, they were unknown and therefore his government will not enter into any deal with unknown persons.
When they became known, he did not show any commitment towards exonerating same. Nigeria as a nation requires a tolerant, accommodative and non-vindictive president and not otherwise.
The fifth and the last item is experience. Nobody doubts the experience of both Buhari and Jonathan. Both of them worked in several levels of government, including the apex office of the president or head of state. They all learned and mastered the art of leadership. But it seems that one is more intelligent, honest, committed, tolerant and unbiased than the other.
We all know that, no one is the same with the other. Every individual is really different from the other, the way our president to be General Buhari is distinguishably different from our respected, though incompetent President Jonathan.
Umar, Esq., wrote from 105, New Court Road, Kano. 08140990317