You see, Baba is an expert at scoring own goals. The latest one he scored was when he announced that more people had died in Taraba (Mambila) than had died in Zamfara and Benue combined. No one asked Baba for that information. To the person whose singular loved one was butchered in Zamfara or Benue, or indeed in the other ‘peaceful’ parts of Nigeria, such statistics are not only useless, but annoying. Is Nigeria meant to be a killing field where we play primary school games of ‘my own is plentier than yours’? I know that the man was probably trying to patronize the Tarabans, but in that singular statement, he diminishes the agony of those in Benue, Zamfara, and other parts of Nigeria. He told us with that statement that he would rather think in the negative than the positive; that he sees nothing overly wrong with the fact that a single soul in the country over which he superintends would be killed. It is a sad commentary indeed.
But before I continue, my readers will recall that I was crazy about Baba before he became president. Oh, if I could turn back the hands of time! I believed in him. I felt he could do no wrong. I could swear by him. I reminisced about 1984, and 1985 when I was in an Army Secondary School, and how I wanted him to bring back those days. I thought he was honest and was on the side of the people. I felt he could reach into the minds of Nigerians and get us to do the needful. I thought he had a vision for what he wanted Nigeria to be. In the event that he had none, I was ready to provide some. Even during the campaigns I struggled to give him my ideas. I didn’t assume that he will see them here or elsewhere. I presented him my books – all of them – through several people who claimed to be compatriots with him. I left nothing to chance. My support was great, to the level of being ridiculous. A few people who know him better warned me about him; I ignored them. Many others became my enemies. I unfriended a great many on social media and drew lines in the sand.
The first sign for me that something fake was going on was the rigmarole and long stories surrounding his declaration of assets. I could swear that this Baba was much better than another person whom I started to love in his dying days; Umaru Yar’Adua. As it has panned out, in my books Umaru is light years ahead in terms of integrity. Even people I interact with in Abuja’s ministries tell me that Umaru was the closest we have had so far, to a honest leader. Baba hemmed and hawed, his handlers fiddled and fidgeted, over the issue of open asset declaration. The APC governors gathered together somewhere and fired the first salvo; they will not declare their assets openly to anybody, and nobody should ask them please, they thundered. Baba said nothing. Nigeria was heading into another pitch darkness. The corruption war was lost before we started. When he would declare the assets, he gave an amorphous list that could pass for a joke. His handlers rushed forward to defend the heart breaking move of his. Garba Shehu dismissed us all and sent us on a slave’s errand to Code of Conduct Bureau. We should go with our FoI (Freedom of Information request), in hand. Some who know him better pointed to properties in Abuja and elsewhere, that the Baba owned. Silence. More silence. It became obvious that we should expect nothing from Baba. He had stated his agenda.
It took me over a year to try and do something about this disappointment. I had seen some of Baba’s media chats, and felt depressed how he answered questions about the suffering of Nigerians with disdain. His mouth will turn down at the sites as if Nigerians were stinking. He will answer in monosyllables and dismiss some outright. He wondered why we would ask him to perform. He answered questions with questions. He was aggressive and unfriendly. Ha! This wasn’t the Baba I campaigned and voted for. And so on the 16th of December of 2016, I and a few friends went to INEC and informed them of our intention to have a party. We felt – and still do – that there was no one to trust among this old group of militicians. They had their agenda and the betterment of Nigerians is not part of it. ANRP – Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party, or Abundant Nigeria for short – was born. Today we are Nigeria’s most-organized and most Futuristic party. Away with the time wasters and cheaters of the past. Nigerian youths are building their own thing in every corner of the country.
And so it was very interesting during the course of the past weekend, to see many of Baba’s hard core supporters express surprise and disgust at his attendance of another society wedding when he chose to play politics rather than lead the people. Perhaps his understanding of leadership is to fraternize with his own ‘class’ of people and watch the people pine away. Ganduje, the man who promised him 5 million (fraudulent) votes was marrying off his daughter to Ajimobi’s son. Ajimobi happens to be one of the most self-deluded, and profligate governors in Nigeria. A friend walked into a shop in Zurich the other day, and was asked if he knew Ajimobi, Nigeria’s ‘best -dressed’ governor – in their words – who had bought lace worth an equivalent of N50million from them. I’m sure if Boda Isiaka, as he is known in Ibadan should read this, he will know that shop. Only that it will not be the only shop where he has bought his many garments of waste, profligacy and shame. It may even be Ajimobi’s money, the one he made in Conoil working for Adenuga, but where are the eyes and the conscience of our so-called leaders? What is the point – in the name of God – of hosting a multi-billion high octane party in a country that is teetering on the edge of collapse?
And the president was there; fully – he and his coterie of party hangers-on and those who tell him the constant untruths he wants them to tell; those who whisper constantly into Nero’s ears and tell him he is the best thing since kunu and zobo; those who are always on hand to say the same sweet nothings to any government in power. He was there cheering on, laughing away, backslapping his friends – including “Shege Bulldozer” El-Rufai – and partaking in a feast of mockery alongside those whose so-called riches are the proceeds of the sucking to death of a poor country called Nigeria. He was there.
For me, I can no longer be surprised. We have a president who prefers the company of looters, riggers, and evil conspirators against the will and common good of Nigeria and Nigerians. Once he leaves such companies he cannot wait to jump into the next flight and travel abroad, where he is infinitely more comfortable. Someone should help with an answer; what happened to Buhari?
