Who is afraid of Buhari?

By Aminu Mohammed

In the last three decades, never has any election heated the polity like the much awaited February 14, 2015 presidential election. In fact, despite the assurance by the two major political parties that their campaigns would be based on issues, the contrary is what we are witnessing.
Why is the 2015 presidential election so important to Nigerians and why are Nigerians expressing pessimism about this election? The answer is not farfetched, we are tired of misrule and we want to have a new dawn of positive change. But how sure are we that the All Progressives Congress (APC) is the alternative?
Perhaps the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has ruled for 15 years and the only national achievement the party can boast of is economic slavery, social unrest, political instability and mental bondage. To cap it all, the party either by commission or omission has been side by side conniving with a monster called Boko Haram to unleash terror against the same people whose mandate the PDP is riding on.
In the last 15 years, Nigerians have been under what late Fela termed as “suffering and smiling” but with the former taking the greater part. Shall we continue to suffer and smile under an administration and a party that have no respect for other people’s opinion and feelings? The PDP and those misruling us are aware of the tension in the country and has already captured the mood that the time has come for it to go and so it is doing everything unethical to turn Nigeria against the instrument of change, the APC Presidential candidate General Muhammudu Buhari (Rtd). Having weigh its options and came to the conclusion that the red card is near, it began image slandering of the APC candidate and as if hypothesized, it started with his PTF record and when that failed, the PDP and the Jonathan campaign team told Nigerians that Buhari has no WAEC certificate and before you know it became a national issue with critics hammering on Buhari to withdraw from the race. To further make matters worse for the officer and gentleman, his own constituency which is the Nigerian army joined the ruling party to ridicule him. But then, having realized that the issue was getting out of hand, Gen. Buhari silenced his critics by getting a new copy of his WAEC result from the secondary school he attended and finished in 1961. Now that the certificate saga is over or appears to be over, what should we expect from the Fani-Kayode led media campaign team for Jonathan?
The study of history is the study of the past to enable people to organize the present and plan for the future. In 2003, Gen. Buhari contested the presidential election on the platform of the defunct All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) and he did so against another retired general, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. I believe the media team that handled OBJ’s campaign in 2003 was more mature than the Fani-Kayode team that lacks issues to address on rather dwelling on trivial issues. In 2003, it was a battle of two generals and both men had served this country as heads of state before becoming politicians and if anything, Obasanjo knows Buhari more than any other presidential candidate in this decade.
Again, in 2007, Buhari took on the PDP when Umaru Musa Yar’Adua from the same state with Buhari raised the PDP flag and he too (Yar’Adua) should be in the position to know whether Buhari sat for WAEC or not. Then came 2011 when the same candidate Fani-Kayode is trying hard to market to Nigerians but finding it difficult contested against Buhari and was declared winner by INEC under controversial circumstances. In all, the three previous elections Buhari contested the issue of whether he has his original certificate or not was not raised, so why now? Here too, the simple answer is panic the PDP and its presidential candidate Jonathan are afraid of losing to Buhari because they have seen the hand writing on the wall and for them to put up a last minute fight anything goes as far as it touches on Buhari’s credibility.
I want Fani-Kayode and his co-travelers to understand that there is no stopping an idea whose time has come and Nigerians have already decided that the PDP and Jonathan are badluck to the nation.
So fellow Nigerians we have our destinies in our hands either to redefine Nigeria or continue to be under bondage. The change every Nigerian has been yearning for might not be easy to come by but if we all believe that this so-called sleeping giant of Africa needs a new direction, we should ensure our votes count and unless we stand by that, I weep for this country because Boko-Haram will continue to terrorise every part of Nigeria and PDP and its agents will continue to suck our blood. Buhari might not be the messiah but there is always a new dawn and hope whenever there is change.
For those in Chibok, Baga, Mubi and even Zamfara, the 15 years of terror are enough for a life time. Jonathan as a Nigerian might not afterall be a bad person but Jonathan as a politician is a bad luck for this nation. In fact, he is not the kind of president this country deserves, he is a weak politician who lacks the political will to act decisively. The only legacy he is leaving behind is that of insecurity and distrust amongst Nigerians of different ethnic affiliation.
As for Buhari, going by his past military records, he has the interest of this country at heart. The alternative we have is either we vote for extension of Boko Haram terror or we use the ballot to defeat Boko Haram. The PDP knows it is losing that is why the NSA is calling for postponement of elections. Why is the PDP panicky?

Mohammed wrote from Sokoto.