By Dansu Peter
Though unknown to many Nigerians, there was a verbal agreement between President Muhammadu Buhari, who represented the leader of the defunct Congress for Progressives Change, CPC, in one part and Chief Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN of the other part, that both major political parties who formed alliance to become the Ruling All Progressives Congress, APC will serve a term of four years each, News Punch understands
Making the disclosure of this top secret is Alhaji Mohammed Abdulrahman in an interview with the Sun Newspaper.
Mohammed Abdulrahman is a member of the National Executive Committee, NEC and political secretary of the Northern socio-cultural group, Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF. An international security surveillance consultant since the time of Shehu Musa Yar’Adua’s tenure as Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters, Mohammed who prides himself as a Nigerian with a thorough grasp of Nigeria’s political and economic history has been in government employment as a cover until lately.
In the interview, Mohammed is angry with those calling on President Muhammadu Buhari to re-contest in 2019. “We must not lose sight of the fact that it was an alliance that brought him in. The North and Buhari must get serious and behave themselves. Nigeria does not belong to the North because if you maintain the position, grandstanding that the North is powerful in Nigeria, you are wasting your time and Nigeria would collapse and crash,” he cautioned and added: “Why is the North asking for eight years? It is because of incapability to put in a leader. After Buhari, the best is Buhari. I am telling you now; go and write it down. The best the North can ever offer is Buhari. He failed three times woefully until the south west came and they had an alliance. Why are they trying to abuse that alliance? Four years is enough for the North. Let us respect each other.” He said 2019 is not for Buhari and CPC but for the south west and ACN.
Speaking on former vice president Atiku Abubakar’s ambition, a visibly angry Mohammad submitted that Atiku was not in calculation. Hear him: “He is a member of the wasted generation. He is an impossible leader for Nigeria.”
Below is an excerpt from the Interview in relation to Buhari and Tinubu Agreement
How would you react to the call on Buhari to re-contest in 2019? What are his chances?
Well, I think the illness must have taken a stronger part of him and confused him and the whole North. It was an alliance that brought Buhari to the government. Without the alliance, Buhari would never have been president. Is it not Tinubu’s ACN and CPC alliance that brought Buhari to government? If they did not follow the allianc,e Buhari would not have been relevant to governance. The criterion for the alliance is that every party to the alliance will have four years. That is what alliance all over the world is about. Are you not aware of that?
In this particular case of the ACN, CPC and other parties’ alliance, was there such an agreement?
It is an unwritten agreement. If you go into an alliance and you have a party like the ACN it is expected that you will support the other party in the alliance either with appointment that justifies their closeness, operations and participation in that government or you do your four years and give them their four years. But from what has happened in the current four years, the ACN and all the people in the South-west have not benefitted in the running of this government. The vice president was a necessary appointment that has to show North and South participation in running the government of Nigeria. It is not the participation handle of the South-west in their having produced the alliance that brought CPC to power. If they have never allowed ACN to have part of the government and participation in the government, then they should give them their own four years in the alliance which is from 2019. And as God would have it, He gave them a good vice president, intelligent, God fearing and a man who may not know much about governance and who may mistakenly think he can just bring South-west technocrats into government. They will just kill his government. He is supposed to now use the Awolowo sense and fairness to bring about development in Nigeria. Let the economy be buoyant. Let them wake up the economy and the civil service.
From what you can observe, is the alliance still intact?
God wants Buhari and Osinbajo to work together and Buhari should not look at the fact that he has been ill to say that he has not sat there long enough as president and therefore wants a second term. He should forget it and allow Osinbajo to run the second term. Buhari should not look for second term at all because the things that have kept Buhari alive today and made him well enough to survive is to get him well and retire to his family and his grandchildren. It is not to get him well again and start all over again all the challenges that he has had in the past two and a half years. So let him allow Osinbajo who has been acting well for him to do his part which is the ACN part of the alliance. Let them now have their own four years.
But Northern politicians might argue that the region is entitled to a second term like Jonathan…
(Cuts in) There is nothing like entitlement my brother. Who says there is an entitlement? There is nothing like entitlement in Nigerian politics. If it is peaceful and the people want you, they will keep on saying take and go ahead. But if you just sit down there and tell everybody it is your entitlement, your entitlement is good governance, good economy, peace and tranquility. That’s your entitlement. If you deliver that they will want you back and you continue. But if you don’t have that and there is no peace, no good economy, no tranquility, then you don’t have entitlement. Nobody has entitlement for second term. It’s just political rhetoric. It is not written anywhere.
Are you saying Buhari would lose if he re-contests in 2019? Is that what you mean?
He would lose because the people who made him will now descend on him and if any northerner wants to go in…you see the mistake we made is not a mistake. It was this age issue we wanted to deal with when we put Jonathan there as president. We wanted to get rid of all the old, recurring men of Nigeria’s politics, the people who have been cheating us of democracy. We put Jonathan there; we didn’t know that was the kind of mess that we were going to put ourselves in.
But then, we should be mindful that we cannot continue to have old people there. When they were in the military they were all 29, 30, 35. Why should they sentence us to seventy something and we sit down there and we say it is okay? Is Nigeria cursed? We are not cursed please. Young men can do it. Responsible men can do it. Osinbajo is not as old as that. It will give us ample opportunity to think of the predicament we are faced with in governing Nigeria. So why should they not allow Osinbajo be and they are crying about second term. What second term? Has second term moved Nigeria anywhere?
In other words, the North should forget about second term?
They should forget second term. They are having first term of four years. That is all. They should live to the grace of the alliance that brought Buhari in after three failed attempts with the CPC. So northerners cannot win any election standing on their own. Even Atiku can’t win an election. I am sure and I am telling you now. I am telling you in dire strait now with God’s permission to say no northerner can win an election standing straight in Nigeria. Population can go to hell; population that has no common sense and intelligence, where is it going to take you; population that you are relying on oil and feeding on oil, where is it going to take you?
Read the fuller interview from The Sun Newspaper
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