Friends: Here is what a friend has penned to the presidential candidate of the PDP. The writer is Dr. Pita Agbese, Professor of Political Science at the University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls. Blessings.
Bitrus Gwamna.
An Unsolicited Advice to Vice-President Atiku Abubakar
Congratulations, Sir. No, Sir, this is not a mockery of your recent loss in the presidential poll. It is a sincere greeting informed by the fact that out of 180 million people in Nigeria, only 73 of you offered yourselves to serve as our president. President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Some of the 73 could not even finish the race, dropping out amidst charges and counter-charges of sell-out and betrayal. I suspect that some of them knew that they had no snowball in hell chance of getting elected president of Nigeria, but it does not hurt to be referred to as an ex-presidential candidate of Nigeria. Moreover, they helped INEC to help some lucky folks who printed the longish presidential ballot papers to become instant millionaires. Those new or reinforced millionaires may not be your friends, but they helped to actualize one of the cardinal objectives behind your candidacy, to wit, to create more millionaires in Nigeria. On behalf of those millionaires, even those of them whose shiny new automobiles would splash water and mud on me, I thank you. Some of the also-rans got as many votes as my fingers which still function despite the ravages of old age and arthritis. In your case, not only did you finish the race, you came second. Moreover, nobody in this country can mock you. You successfully ran for the governorship of Adamawa State. You made a mark as a customs officer before establishing yourself at the zenith of Nigerian business. Who can forget that you served for eight years as the vice-president of Nigeria and despite President Olusegun Obasanjo’s determined effort to strip you of your office, you successfully showed him that a senior customs officer cannot wilt before a mere army general. Generals, including ex-generals, have swagger but customs officers have money. In Nigeria, money trumps swagger.
For you to have gotten over 11 million votes in a country in which those of us with multiple wives cannot even count on some of our wives to vote for us for any elective post is a major feat worth acknowledging and celebrating. If all those who voted for you were to give you five Naira each, you would end up richer than 99.99% of all Nigerians. Sorry, I forgot that you are already richer than everybody except Alhaji Dangote. I know you are an ardent Moslem and would never drink alcohol but just imagine if all 11 million people who voted for you were to donate one bottle of your running mate’s Hero beer to you, it would take 30,137 years to finish all that beer at the rate of one bottle of beer per day. No, sir. I cannot mock you and nobody in his right senses can mock a man who can garner so many votes.
Even without running again for the presidency, you were already among a pantheon of famous Nigerians known only by a single name: Fela, Gani, Davido, and Atiku. I know Charly Boy would desperately want to join your league of single name Nigerians, but just Charly or just Boy has a very hollow and inauthentic ring to it. If you say, Boy, every boy in the neighborhood would think you were calling them. And if you say, Charly, even spelt in Charly Boy’s unique style, nobody would know who you are talking about. 2Face was in your exalted league but he foolishly took himself out of it with a new name, 2 Baba, after his wife gave birth. Nonsense. So, each time his wife gives birth, he will change his name to X Baba? He is not in that respected league of yours: exalted Nigerians with single names. My favorite musician, M.I., does not belong in your circle, either. He has too many full stops in his name. Moreover, it is not a single name. If he was just Mister or Incredible, it would have been fine. As for Charly Boy, Charly Boy does not have the timbre, the poetry, the magnificence of an Atiku. Just Atiku. Its simplicity is its magnificence. Its authority. Its magical lyricism. Mesmerizing. The name evokes awe, a stupefying awe. Just Atiku and the ground shakes. People crane their necks. Hands stretch out to touch a total stranger whose single name makes him a household word. A member of the family, even. Sir, you are blessed. They say a name is better than gold. In your case, you have both gold, money and a revered name, Atiku. There are many Atikus in this country, but you are the only Atiku, the original, the real deal, the follow-come, as my camera customers describe batteries manufactured by Nikon or Canon. The Atiku everybody knows. I used to have a friend named Atiku, but each time I make reference to him, and say, my friend, Atiku, all eyes would be on me, thinking that I was referring to you as my man, my friend. I have found a way to take advantage of that. Recently, I said, my friend, Atiku… I left the possibility dangling in the air. A very beautiful lady slipped her phone number into my palm and a man sitting at the next table paid for a bottle of beer for me. Atiku. A name like no other. One of these days, I will go to a bank and drop that name, Atiku. I am sure it will fetch me the loan to build my library. As a teacher, I live in perpetual fear that when I am teaching, and someone says, Atiku is here, all my students will bolt out of the classroom to see you. To breathe the same air that you breathe. To shake your hand and be transported, in their imagination, into a world of wealth and influence. I can even imagine some of them not washing their hands for days on end. Selfies posted on their Facebook walls would announce their happy encounter. Atiku. Even those of us who did not vote for you, respect the name. Atiku.
Please, Sir, allow me confess that I don’t like the way Yoruba people pronounce your name, Ati-ku. One would have thought that being their son in-law, they would have learned to say your name properly. The way I understand it, Ati-ku in Yoruba means we are all dead. Not a good way to refer to one’s illustrious son-in-law, but please forgive them. Maybe they resent the fact that you married the tall and gorgeous Titi. Another way that Allah has blessed you, Sir. Many of us make do with the wives we have but, in your case, your wife is a true beauty queen. Tall, elegant and soft-spoken. Some of us dread introducing our wives to people who would, in a contempt-laden voice, say, is this your wife? We would swallow hard knowing that the answer they are seeking is already embedded in their question. It is not even a question as much as it is an accusation that one has married someone beneath one’s status. Your in-laws are known to murder perfectly good names. Even easy names like Sokoto, they cannot pronounce, instead, they call it, Soko-to. If you were an Igbo, I would have said that the Yorubas deliberately mis-pronounce your name that way in vengeance for the Igbo calling Obasanjo, Obusanjo, meaning, none of it is not good. Fortunately, you are a full-blooded and an honorable Fulani man, despite Obasanjo’s mischievous attempt to question your paternity.
Sir, I admire you for one other reason. If, in an examination, I ask my students to name a vice-president of Nigeria, I will get the following names, Alex Ekwueme, Admiral Aikhomu, Atiku, Goodluck Jonathan, Namadi Sambo and Prof. Osinbajo. But if I ask them to name the only person who has ever made Obasanjo to eat his own words, it is only your name that will be the correct answer. Atiku. Making Obasanjo eat his own words is itself, a very big achievement, Sir. On top of that, Obasanjo pleaded with God never to forgive him if he supported your candidacy. He did support your candidacy. He campaigned for you. He announced that he had forgiven you for your sins against Nigeria. He did not even give us to judge the sins ourselves to determine whether we too, should forgive you. No, Obasanjo arrogated all that privilege to himself. Now I have to plead with the Adeboyes, the Enenches, the Oyedepos, the Suleimans, the Ashimolowos and the young men of God with their Holy Haircuts and million Naira suits to help me plead with God to forgive our ex-president. I will ask them to tell God that Obasanjo does not know how to keep his mouth shut but that he did not mean to disrespect you. Even if he meant to disrespect you, you have shown him pepper. The Obasanjo who is never wrong has publicly admitted that he was wrong and that you would make a fantastic president. See, customs officers trump army ex-generals. AK-47 in the hands of an ex-customs officer is mightier than APC (Sorry, not the political party but Armored Personnel Carrier).
Sorry, your Excellency. It is taking too long for me to reveal why I am taking away your precious time to write this letter to you. I developed this nasty habit of beating about the bush from my role when I was a youngster as the official letter writer and reader of Ikpeba village in Benue State. My clients were unsophisticated yam farmers and they would ramble on and on before asking me to tell the recipients to send them money. Almost everyone of them could not distinguish between a verbal message and a written message. They would ask me to tell the recipients to let them know if the letters did not get to them. I would then dutifully write, If you do not receive this letter, please let me know. I am writing this to offer you my sincere advice to drop your plan to challenge the results of the presidential election. I know the sycophants around you are telling you that President Buhari and the INEC stole your mandate. It is not true. A political mandate is given by voters, and in the Nigerian case, the conferment of that mandate can be affirmed only by INEC. Neither thing has happened. You did not get a mandate and INEC cannot make a pronouncement that you were given a mandate. And neither thing is going to happen. The foolish ones among your supporters and those who want to continue to feed from your large heart may even advice you to adopt the Epetedo Option, that is to declare yourself president. That would be the height of irresponsibility and political rascality. Banish the thought even if it was merely whispered rather than seriously proposed. You would be alone if you take such a drastic and illegal step. Some of the members of your Atikulator crowd would be offended and ditch you. Please disregard the so-called Venezuela Option. The international community cannot choose a president for us. The international community saw the results of the election. It knows that Buhari won fair and square.
It is a bad idea to reject the results. The battery of lawyers telling you that you have a good case to make to the effect that Nigerian voters chose you over President Buhari are not being sincere with you. As we say in our dear country, Oga, they just wan chop your money. I know that you have billions of Naira in liquid cash and assets but as an astute businessman, you would loathe to make bad investments. Spending money litigating the election is a very bad investment. One can win by losing, as President Jonathan did in 2015. In your case, refusing to concede defeat will make you a sore loser. It will make you lose by losing.
You got no mandate because you stood no chance of winning despite all the social media noise about Atikulating. Many of those noisy Atikulators had no PVC. They were busy announcing results on social media while diligent voters were voting for Buhari. If you take time to study the electoral map carefully, it would be obvious to you that nobody gave you any mandate. You won where you were expected and predicted to win. You lost where you were expected and predicted to lose. The PDP has been stripped of its rigging techniques. It is no longer the Masters of the Rigging Universe. This time, it had no capacity to manufacture votes for you as it did for you and Chief Obasanjo in 2003 or for Yar’Adua in 2007 or for Jonathan in 2011. You can see that Nigeria does not have twenty-something million votes to donate to the PDP anymore. Your political support was very shallow. Yes, those who vehemently hated Buhari voted for you but your electoral problem was that those for whom Buhari remained a cultic figure or those troubled by the impression that you are a corrupt man or those who have been economically uplifted by the Buhari administration far outnumbered your supporters. You should have sensed that from the political rallies. Buhari’s supporters were loud, jubilant and enthusiastic. It was like attending a religious revival crusade. They were effusive in their adoration of the president and were determined to give him a second term. On the other hand, many voters read you correctly. They saw you as a transactional politician. A money for hand, back na ground mentality colored the approach of many who voted for you. Many of those who supported you were expecting immediate quid pro quo. Your rallies were like funerals. No enthusiasm. Your rally attendees were largely actuated by a peevish anger. Buhari’s were happy and proud of their candidate.
Anger can sometimes lead to political apathy and not a determined effort to vote out the hated person. Sometimes, deliberately whipping up anger and hatred can produce a counter reaction on the part of those who support the hated candidate. I think that was the case in Benue State. Ortom, lacking any concrete achievement on which to anchor a re-election bid, made President Buhari the centerpiece of his campaign. He waged a campaign of calumny and vilification against Buhari condemning him as a Fulani man out to seize land from Benue. Your shared Fulani identity with President Buhari ironically made Ortom’s anti-Buhari/anti-Fulani campaign platform rather opaque. You won Benue State with fewer than 10,000 votes despite all the hatred whipped up against Buhari. Therein lies your problem. Where you won, you did not win with a formidable margin, except in the South East and some parts of the South South. Rivers State could not deliver its humungous votes to the PDP not because the votes were suppressed but because the card reader inhibited the outright manufacturing of votes, characteristic of the PDP. On the other hand, you could not make a dent in Buhari’s strongholds and his margin of victory nullified all your advantages in the South East and South South.
You anchored your campaign on the anger generated by the economic recession. The height of the economic recession was about two years ago. The economy is recovery. New millionaires are emerging from the booming agricultural sector. Social investment programs initiated by the Buhari administration had cultivated voters willing and eager to vote for continuity. You could have embraced those programs. For instance, the $1.1 million you lavished on the unproductive short visit to the United States could have been donated to shore up the N-Power program. Instead, you wasted it on a meaningless trip to prove that you could travel to the US without being arrested. You forgot that it was Obasanjo who claimed that you would not dare going to the US. You should have simply asked him to eat those words, too.
One of the problems with your stance that the election was rigged in Buhari’s favor is how to deal with the huge votes you got in the South East and some parts of the South South. In Anambra, for instance, you beat Buhari by more than 500,000 votes. Were those votes rigged in your favor? Is Buhari the only presidential candidate in history who rigs votes in favor of his challenger? Those telling you that your votes were suppressed are lying to you. The overall turnout was low, but nobody suppressed your votes. You just did not have enough votes to win the election. Period.
My sincere advice, Sir, is to accept the results, congratulate President Buhari on his victory and defect back to the APC. If you help President Buhari to succeed, in four years, you will still be just 76 years old. You will inherit the mantle of leadership from Buhari. The PDP was your original home, but you were not really welcomed back to the PDP. Those opportunistic PDP bigwigs mere wanted someone with deep pockets. You had very deep pockets. They were lukewarm on your candidacy. Trying to mollify them such as making Bukola Saraki the director-general of your campaign was a fatal mistake. Saraki was fighting his own biggest political battle. As the good Christian book says, you cannot serve God and Mammon simultaneously.
If you return to the APC, you will become the most formidable presidential candidate in 2023. Peter Obi can be persuaded to remain your running-mate. The two of you will give Nigeria the benefit of being governed by two astute businessmen. The combination of your slogan and Buhari’s slogan of Next Level to Getting Nigeria Working Again will be awesome. Who knows, we may all become Atikulators in Cultivating a New Nigeria to the Next Level. Add that to your single name, Atiku, and even the angels in heaven will dance sekelewu.
Thank you, Sir.
Dr. Bitrus Paul Gwamna
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