Abiodun Awolaja writes on the pre and post-election utterances of Muhammadu Buhari, the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) candidate in the presidential election, and the implications for the polity.THE candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in the recently concluded presidential election, General Muhammadu Buhari is, together with his running mate, Pastor Tunde Bakare, on a hot seat at the moment. The duo have both been under intense fire since last Sunday when mindless violence greeted the announcement of Dr Goodluck Jonathan, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), as the winner of the April 16 presidential election, in the North, but it appears that Buhari has been receiving more fire.On social networking websites, particularly facebook, pictures of slain and mutilated bodies are being pasted by angry Nigerian youths, who are asking why Bakare, a fiery Pentecostal preacher and die-hard critic of government, chose to associate with a man like Buhari in the first place. The implicit assumption is made by these youths that Buhari deserves blame for his perceived role(s) in the post-election mass slaughter that continues to haunt the nation. This claim is made particularly in the context of the overwhelming agreement by foreign and local observers and the generality of Nigerians that the election was free and fair. But Buhari has refused to accept the advice handed down to him by Senator Adolphus Wabara, former Senate President and other eminent Nigerians that he should accept defeat and congratulate President Jonathan.Already, state governments like Oyo, Ogun, Ondo and Lagos in the South-West and Rivers State have evacuated their indigenes who are on national service from Bauchi State and other states in the North with the approval of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) authorities. Indeed, the Ogun State Commissioner for Environment, Dr Olukoya Adeleke-Adedoyin, while receiving 150 corps members from Bauchi State at the MKO Abiola Stadium on Monday, had gone as far as urging the Federal Government to have a re-think about the NYSC programme, pointing out that the Ogun-born corps members, who had tales of woes to tell, had vowed never to return to the North to complete their mandatory one-year service to their fatherland.To say the least, this decision by the corps members would have telling consequences for the nation, particularly as these corps members were engaged in various developmental projects in the North before they were conscripted as election officers by the INEC.Again, strong indications reportedly emerged in Kano on Sunday that the recent post-election violence which erupted in the North was carefully scripted with a view to causing unrest across the country and forcing the Armed Forces to take over. Sources told the Nigerian Tribune that those who allegedly sponsored the violence were not happy at the lack of reprisal attacks in the South, which would have led to a kind of civil war between the North and South, ultimately cutting short the electoral victory of Dr Jonathan by forcing a military intervention to curtail the projected chaos.This is, of course, coming against the backdrop of the recent discovery of a bomb-manufacturing company in Kaduna, Kaduna State, by security operatives.But how does Buhari fit into the foregoing The context for the current verbal missiles fired at Buhari is acknowledged to have been provided by Buhari himself through his utterances during his presidential campaigns in the North. At one of such campaigns, Buhari is quoted as telling his supporters to lynch anyone who rigged the election.That statement, which would seem to have cohered perfectly with Buharis utterances in previous presidential campaigns, where he reportedly asked the northern Muslims not to vote for non-Muslims, was criticised across the nation as a potentially inflammatory one from which the nation stood to receive colossal damage. Indeed, in a veiled criticism of Buharis pre-election utterances, the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Prof Rufai Ahmed Alkali, told the Nigerian Tribune: Nobody went out to go and rig for Mr. President because there were states we lost. He also said dont die for me. Dont go and kill yourself because of my ambition or that of my vice president. Again, that was a serious message to Nigerians. If other political parties had said the same thing, I am sure this violence wouldnt have taken place.Appalled by the magnitude of destruction of lives and properties executed by Buharis supporters, former Minister of Aviation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, urged the former military strongman to call his foot soldiers in the North to order. Fani-Kayode urged Buhari to toe the path of honour by intervening in the post-election violence by his supporters in the North. I urge General Muhammadu Buhari to tread the path of decency and honour by calling on his supporters to stop killing people and to stop committing all these barbaric and outrageous atrocities in the North.Too much blood has been shed and too many lives have been taken in his name over this election.The truth is that as the mass murders were going on, it was his name and his posters that the perpetrators were calling and carrying. They were indeed his foot soldiers and the blame for these atrocities lie squarely with him alone.The fact that he didnt win the election proves that his efforts at ruling Nigeria were not sufficient to see him through, and no amount of violence, murder, arson, intimidation, court cases or litigation can change that.Indeed, in the opinion of Ebenezer Babatope, former Minister of Transport and member of the Presidential Campaign Committee of the PDP during the presidential election, it was absurd for Buhari to have expected any votes from the South in the first place. According to him, Buhari cannot win election in the South because at one particular time in the history of this country, he perpetrated oppression. He oppressed the leaders of the people here (in the South).For example, only one National Party of Nigeria (NPN) man was jailed after the Second Republic but all the other people from the South were jailed. Thus, his handlers needed to have done much more than they did in packaging him in the South.Babatope, who said people like him would have run to the nearest borders in the country if Buhari had won the election, opined that he was not persuaded by Buharis statement that he was not in support of the violence which erupted in the North. What he said before the election amounted to incitement and he needs to do more to convince everybody in Nigeria and the outside world that he is not involved in the attempt to burn down the country that he had wanted to govern.However, the CPC presidential candidates conduct since the election has put him on the spotlight. First, in spite of his earlier declaration that he would not contest the result of the election in court, he made a complete turn around last week, declaring that he would go to court to contest what he termed the rigged presidential election. He said he would challenge the presidential election result in court, even as he appealed to his supporters to remain calm.In a statement issued on his behalf by his spokesperson, Yinka Odumakin, the CPC candidate said his legal team was already putting their paper work together to begin his case against the PDP and the INEC. He also asked his supporters not to destroy their voter cards.We have commenced consultations at the highest levels to recover your stolen mandate. I would, therefore, urge you to continue to be patient.Information has reached me that, out of frustration, some of you have been destroying your voter cards. This is a very grievous mistake, which is not going to solve any of your problems. As I pointed out in my earlier address to you, it is wrong for you to allow miscreants to infiltrate your ranks and perpetrate such dastardly acts as the mindless destruction of worship places. Needless to say, this act is worse than the rigging of elections, he said.However, while reacting to the statement that Buhari be arrested over the northern violence, General Buhari, speaking through Yinka Odumakin, his spokesman, dared the president to arrest him. In an apparent display of utter contempt for the office and person of the president, Odumakin said on Monday: General Buhari is in Daura. So, let Jonathan go and arrest him. One of his contractors has asked him to arrest Buhari. He is in Daura now, so let him go and arrest him.Odumakin also berated Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) president , saying that we have no issue with the body of Christ in Nigeria, but the PDP contractors like him who have taken over the leadership of that respected organisation and are using the body of Christ to further their personal interest.However, contrary to Odumakins statement, many Nigerians have continued to hold Buhari responsible for the carnage in the North, particularly as the security agencies are said to have established the linkage of members of the CPC with the carnage unleashed on the nation. In the context of President Jonathans promise to ensure the prosecution of the masterminds and perpetrators of the violence, Nigerians are eagerly waiting to see whether Buhari and others will, indeed, be prosecuted once hard evidence has been compiled against them. Needless to say, evidence that Buhari sincerely regrets the carnage in the North, as Babatope pointed out, has been lacking.
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