The

Calculations of Muhammadu Buhari

and

APC for the 2015 Nigerian Presidential Elections

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

Muhammadu Buhari

Buhari has momentum which other Northern Muslim candidates do not have,
momentum gained from the visibility gained through his former roles as head
of various ministries under the auspices of the military, climaxing in becoming
military head of state through a coup, and from his repeated running for
Presidency, reinforced by his carefully cultivated image over the years to his
fellow Northern Muslims as a totalistic Northern Muslim-as shown by his
declaration of fellow former Northern Muslim military head of state Sani Abacha,
under whom Buhari worked, as not stealing public funds at the Kano Abacha
memorial in 2008, even as part of Abacha's massive loot was being returned to
Nigeria by Switzerland, his sympathies with Boko Haram Islamic terrorism up
till 2013, in describing the Nigerian fed govt's war agst Boko Haram as a war
agst the North, urging the fed govt to treat Boko Haram like the Niger Delta
militants who were given amnesty, ignoring the huge differences between both
groups as underscored by Boko Haram's senseless Islamisation of Nigeria vision
pursued through huge loss of life and destruction in Northern Nigeria, in contrast
to the struggle for justice for environmental and social degradation in the Niger
Delta by the Niger Delta militants, and, in another context, describing the fed
govt as Boko Haram.

He has thereby tapped into multiple constituencies- the ambivalence about Boko
Haram demonstrated by Northern elite and earlier on by a broader group of
Northerners, the see-no-evil mentality of what might be a significant group of
Northerners about Northern leaders- can you see that none of them, except
Sheilkh Gumi, is challenging Buhari, and Nigerian's yearning for a strongman
who will make things right by magic, deriving from his dictatorial rule as head of
state, now packaged as a no nonsense discipline.


Buhari was chosen by the APC coalition to win Northern Muslim votes,
particularly as the Muslim North may be described as deeply influenced by the
demand, since the 2011 elections, for power shift at the centre of government
back to their region and the belief that Boko Haram is the fault of President
Jonathan, and to seduce Southern votes through yearnings for an anti-
corruption, pro-discipline messiah and anti-terrorism military strongman.


So, Buhari, with all his inadequacies, is the strongest APC candidate at this time,
as Rauf Obembe rightly observes in the Facebook comments thread that inspires
this summation.


If APC really was pursuing transparency and creative change, as they claim, they
might not field Buhari, whom Lai Muhammed, on behalf of ACN, now at the
centre of the APC coalition with Buhari's former CPC, castigated in 2008 for his
'Abacha did not steal' declaration.

But not fielding Buhari might mean they have less chance of winning the election
and would need to build up to 2019.



Buhari has never been known to groom anyone to advance a political vision.

Its always him and him alone.

He has no political school or proteges.

So, the idea of building a party and candidates that would represent a vision
beyond the present struggle for power at the centre are not on the table for him,
as far as I can see.