Group Politics Editor, Taiwo Adisa, X-rays the famed anti-corruption stance of former Head of State, General Muhammadu Buhari(rtd.), the standard bearer of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in the April 9 presidential election.Show me your friends and I will tell the type of person that you are is a popular saying. That saying clearly is further reinforced by another which goes thus: Birds of a feather flock together. In all these, the elders are reminding all that the company a man keeps tells a lot about his focus in life, especially his innermost character.Presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), General Muhammadu Buhari, is one man who is famed for living Spartan life since he was forced out of office in 1985. Many have said that Buhari remains incorruptible and that he was untainted by corruption all his public life. In recent years, Buhari has been practically elevated to the status of a demigod, especially among the downtrodden, who see some other leaders as incapable of treating the corruption cankerworm in the polity.Basking in that messianic posture, Buhari has been dazzling through the political terrain like the proverbial one man riot squad. He sees his challengers as the bad elements of the society and does not hide that feeling from his supporters, most of whom are barely literate.But the vocal northern politician, who currently heads the Movement for Justice in Nigeria, Alhaji Abdukarim Daiyabu, punctured the Buhari ego in a rare interview he granted Lagos-based magazine, The News. He stated that Buharis claim to being incorruptible amounts to a mirage in view of the type of friends he keeps.While Buhari carries about the image of a corrupt-free leader, he has as his close friends, persons with huge corruption charges on their heads. He said that with such persons around him, Buhari cannot make a good president.The northern maverick politician said of Buhari and his followers: Actually, there is nothing wrong with General Muhammadu Buhari, but there is everything wrong with his surroundings. It is very unfortunate that Buhari is surrounded by only unscrupulous people, some of them are the people he detained in Kirikiri when he was the military head of state because they had looted their states treasury.But still, you find them around him. They have pinned him down like a prisoner. He only does what they plan for him. So, where do we go from here You can imagine somebody like his lawyer, Mike Ahamba, who has been with him for the past eight years has now opted out completely, he said there is no internal democracy in house.You can imagine there are complaints in the ward congresses and primary elections of CPC even in states where General Buhari is popular There are complaints everywhere that somebody got the highest votes, but the name was changed at the head office of the party. And so many cases are now in court. So, it is only innocent masses in certain strategic locations that like Buhari, but not those who surround him who are after themselves, what they will get or after what they will become.So, if today, you forget about the election and just take Buhari and put him in Aso Rock and say you are president, with these people around him, he cannot do anything. After all, Buhari is a trained officer, not a politician; he is still in the learning process of politics. But tell me if there is anybody around him now who is a politician to the core Secondly, there is nobody that is honest around him, even, their own people are complaining about them.While comparing the situation around Buhari with that of the presidential candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, Daiyabu said that Buharis situation is worse because he now surrounds himself with those he jailed for corruption as Head of State in 1984.He said: If you are talking about that, what about Buhari who had imprisoned some people before and it is those people that are even controlling whatever he is doing now. As the Head of State, and during his regime, some people were found guilty of looting the treasuries of their states; the people were imprisoned in the Kirikiri prison. I know at least one of them- Sule Hamman, the Director of the Campaign for General Muhammadu Buhari. So, the issue of Ribadu is a minor one.Daiyabus submissions paints Buhari in the mould of The Man, a character in the famous Ayikwei Armahs prose The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born. The Man was the clean, anti-corruption hero, who harbours the most corrupt of the society. In the end, the verdict is clear, like minds always think alike. A peep at Buharis friends will provide further insights.Alhaji Sule Hamman: He is the Director General of the Buhari Campaign Organisation, a close ally of Buhari since the General stepped into the political fold in 2002. Though Hamman has been more of a political technocrat around Buhari, he wields a huge influence on his politics. Recently, he was the head of a negotiating team with some groups in the North including Unity Forum (UF) and the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), in their bid to make Buhari the new consensus candidate of the North.Hear Daiyabu on Hamman: As the Head of State, and during his regime, some people were found guilty of looting the treasuries of their states; the people were imprisoned in the Kirikiri prison. I know at least one of them- Sule Hamman, the Director of the Campaign for General Muhammadu Buhari.Muhammed Abacha: He is the gubernatorial candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in Kano State. He was earlier rejected by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on the basis of the allegations that he had been tainted by corruption stains which trailed his late father, General Sani Abacha, to the grave. The late Head of State is on record to have looted about $5billion from the coffers of the Federal Government. Some of the allegedly looted funds are still subject of litigation as at now. Though his decision to join the CPC was said to have been resisted by Buhari initially, the General soft pedalled, allowing him to hijack the party machinery in the state.While Buhari expressed likeness for the candidature of Colonel Lawal Jarafu Isah as the gubernatorial candidate of the party in Kano, Mohammed met little or no resistance as the game was reduced to money power. He won convincingly and at a stage, the opposition to his victory was said to have threatened Buharis leadership of the CPC. Today, Mohammed Abacha is one of the top financiers of the CPC.Dr. Hassan Lawan: He joined the PDP since 1999. Having served in the government of former President Obasanjo as Labour Minister, he also retained the position briefly under the late President Umaru YarAdua and was later moved to the Ministry of Works, which he combined at a time with supervision of the Ministry of Health. Today, he is one of the arrowheads of Buhari in Nasarawa State and one of the main financiers. He is under investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for allegedly mismanaging billions of appropriated funds.Senator Yakubu Lado The senator, who is the gubernatorial candidate of the CPC in Katsina State, lost out of the calculation in the PDP following his virulent opposition to the invocation of the Doctrine of Necessity by the National Assembly in February 2010. Notwithstanding that the nation was at tenterhooks following the controversy that trailed the foreign trip of the late President YarAdua without transferring power to the vice-president, Lado and his cohorts tried all they could to keep the nation in the state of uncertainty.While most of his colleagues had imbibed the invocation of the Doctrine, which recognised the then Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan as Acting President, Lado remained on the sidelines, perfecting strategies that could derail the train of democracy. He knew that his game was up in the PDP and that he could only find space outside of that party. General Buharis CPC was quick in providing him the room to foster his gubernatorial ambition.Dr. Sayyadi Aba Ruma and Dr. Tanimu Yakubu The duo of Dr Ruma and Dr. Tanimu played active roles in the ugly incident that characterised the end time of the late President Umaru YarAdua. They were actually fingered as the arrowheads of the manipulations that threatened to derail the countrys of democracy. Ruma was Minister of Agriculture and Water Resources and Tanimu was the National Economic Adviser. The powerful duo, who have been working closely with Senator Lado, were said to have immediately contacted Buhari once they lost out in the PDP setting. They were said to have offered to assist his campaign through the goodwill they made while in office. Buhari opened the floor to these men apparently because of the immediate desire to capture Katsina, his home state and the need to benefit from the financial assistance they could offer.Senator Adamu Aliero The Kebbi-born senator who was Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) under President YarAdua had also participated actively in the bid to stop the emergence of President Goodluck Jonathan, as acting President in February 2010. He has since opened up his deep purse to Buharis CPC. The former governor of Kebbi State is currently being tried for alleged corruption by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).Mallam Nasiru el-Rufai Former Minister of FCT, Mallam Nasiru el-Rufai, recently became one of the Buhari allies. He had insinuated to that effect in some of his postings on the social networking site, Facebook. Recently he was said to have begun a finance drive for the General.Incidentally, el-Rufai is also not free from the corruption allegation bug. He has been charged to court by the EFCC over alleged mismanagement of some funds including the N32 billion proceeds of the sale of government houses in the FCT.
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