Today the PDP has nationwide support and we are yet to ascertain how strong the APC is throughout the Federation or how successfully Mr. Buhari can tour the East and the South in his electioneering and resonate with the folks there with "God bless Nigeria" as it looks like the APC are not so strong in the East, but only their showing in the presidential election will end all the guess work and media speculation.
I just thought about it, strange, but I've never heard a Swedish politician say "God bless Sweden!"
No doubt about it, in this day and age of information technology , the handling of Mr Buhari's PR could be considerably improved – and even if he personally prefers to retain the title of General - a good patriotic background to be sure, but still the sort of title that I can't imagine Colin Powell or indeed Wesley Clark or Dwight Eisenhower before them, retaining as the most sellable self-promotion - since in the US when you are elected president you automatically assume the title of " commander-in-chief" of all the force there is anyway - and since Brother Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, I don't imagine that the US electorate is in a hurry to get a war-monger or an ex-military man as their next potus even though a military or ex-military man might be in a better position to know what he's doing and what can be done about e.g. Islamic state, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya etc.
Nor do we know whether it's more likely that the US nation would much prefer a woman like Grandma Hilary Clinton as their next commander-in-chief when the sparks really start flying over the Golan Heights, for example ( I'm reminded of the Russian ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky saying the following words - at a time when Finland's minister of defence was Elisabeth Rehn . " I cannot respect a country that has a country that has a woman as its defence minister – up to the last election Sweden also had Karin Enström as minister of defence)
But the US is unlike Nigeria in this and several other respects , at least the US in the past fifty years or so the US has not experienced any of military coups or those kinds of trials and tribulations that Nigeria has experienced since that fateful night of 15th January, 1966 and any proposal of a female president of Nigeria as " mother of the nation" ( of which tribe?) is a little premature...
Having said all of the above let's look at the Boko Haram people who are bedevilling what would have otherwise been a peaceful Naija nation and here embellishing or enhancing the image of the corruption-free General Buhari is wholly relevant and there are many who believe that in the saddle he would or could bring the situation more quickly under control than Nigeria's current commander-in-chief...
About Mr. Buhari's marketability and the levelling of the playing field a little, what is needed is a US style presidential debate between the leading contenders for the Naija presidency , this would give both candidates equal time and equal exposure to the people who are eligible to do the deciding and the voting. ( I almost wrote "naira" instead of naija)
When will such a debate take place in Africa's most populous and ethnically diverse democracy?
Best wishes.
Was only asking.
Sincerely,
CH
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