Since his victory at the polls, the President-elect Buhari’s residence has become a political, business, and diplomatic tourism destination. Last week, a delegation of the ‘APC’ from Plateau, led by the governor-elect, Simon Bako Lalong, took its turn in the fray. UKANDI ODEY in Jos reports the twists and curious dimension of the ‘delegation’ and ‘solidarity’ visit.
For Nigeria and, indeed, Africa, it is a familiar season bearing no less familiar times with uncommon attitudes and tendencies. A ruling party conceded defeat to the opposition party; with the presidential candidate of the former displaying a rare show of sportsmanship in this clime to his challenger and winner of the poll.
Ever since, this has catalysed and extirpated tends and tendencies across the latitudes of the national political landscape, with all forces gravitating towards Buhari and his APC as they will constitute the government at the centre come May 29, 2015.Expectedly, Buhari’s daily schedule of activities since the results were announced have been dominated by receiving both high and low profile guests, including envoys and representatives of the diplomatic community.
The background has been restive – vibrating and reverberating with talks of ethical renaissance and work ethos and discipline that are coming to bear on public life when Buhari assumes power. These expectations themselves have Buhari’s claims and pronouncements as their forebears.
The president-elect has used occasions of such solidarity visits and courtesy calls to provide insights into the policy thrust of his administration, which tweeter handle, he would repeat repetitively, is anti-corruption.
He has talked about assets declaration before and after coming into his administration; he has also talked of pedigree and public service antecedents which in particular has sparked agitations and rumours that those in the public offices with records of impending cross-border crimes and litigations may be extradited to such countries so as to salvage and remedy the
image of Nigeria in the perception and reckoning of the international community.
Led by the governor-elect, Simon Bako Lalong, the visit by the Plateau state APC to Buhari should have passed ordinarily as a matter in tune and tandem with the subsisting APC-suffused political hysteria. Several states, especially APC-controlled, and various socio-cultural and political lobby groups had paid same visit to Buhari before the arrival of the Plateau state APC. But the Lalong group made history by giving theirs a two-face; and squeezing it into something like what desperate attorneys resort to in the court room and refer to dubiously as ‘plea bargain’.
Anxious moments there are, and tongues are wagging in Plateau as to why Lalong and the state leadership of the APC included former governor and sitting Labour Party Senator, Joshua Chibi Dariye as part of its high-powered delegation to visit Buhari on the eve of his inauguration and ascension to power?
It is discernible that since the PDP lost both the state assembly and gubernatorial elections in Dariye’s Bokkos home local government, he likely played anti-party to facilitate victory for the APC in the area. Nevertheless, it is common knowledge that Dariye is not a card-carrying member of the APC or its registered consultant who can function for the party at such a critical assignment as forming a delegation to fraternise with Buhari.
Analysts also point out that currently, Dariye is holding a disputed senatorial mandate of Plateau Central on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. Invariably, he participated in the recent general elections as a candidate and ‘member’ of the PDP. That is why his new romance with the APC has angered the leadership of the PDP, and this may worsen his fortunes as he is already embattled and sitting precariously on the Party’s fence.
The PDP has since ditched him in relation to the Buhari visit. Sources at the state PDP secretariat said the party was not contacted by the APC to be part of its delegation to the president-elect; and that were its nomination or representation to be sought, Dariye who is just ‘returning’ to the party and whose membership status is being challenged in court would have been the most unlikely choice or
representative of the party on that delegation.
Those sympathetic to Simon Lalong said he may have been misled and tricked into accepting the folly of making Dariye part of that historic visit.
This group argue further that Lalong should have known the implication of such intimacy and company would have on the outlook and perception of the government he is about to form. Secondly, the group said Buhari may have well read the ulterior motive of the delegation, felt disappointed in Lalong and the state APC leadership, and, like a shrewd soldier, kept his cards close to his chest about what will be his disposition to Dariye and his unfinished business with the London Metropolitan Police. To that extent, this group opposes the idea by some that if Buhari is going to be holistic in his anti-corruption stance, he should have snubbed Dariye or the entire delegation, noting that “celebration of victory is still in the air, and it is still good time to play politics”.
Before this visit, rumours have been rife in Plateau that apart from Dariye’s unending battles with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, the incoming government of Buhari is set to work and cooperate with the British government to get Dariye to go face trial on money laundering offences from which he escaped in 2006.
Friends of Lalong also pointed at the deliberate effort of the governor-elect to distance himself from the Dariye administration of 1999-2007. Asked by journalists to assess his role in that government, Lalong unable to put up with the memory, only managed to say “the executive arm was different from the legislature” where he belonged as speaker.
This group also said Lalong may not be the person to save Dariye now, pointing out that after their travails with the EFFC and the courts, Dariye exhibited a woeful sense of human capital management and abandoned Lalong and co. to the frailties and horrors of out-of-office weather, and they parted ways until this return of good times.
A source at the PDP secretariat said at press time that “with this visit to Buhari, Dariye is finished politically”. With multiple partisanship and a disputed mandate, if finished he is, then Dariye’s is a story of one who has smarted himself to a terminal kerfuffle.