MY FEARS FOR NIGERIA IF THE APC PRESIDENTIAL TICKET TRIUMPHS— I Shudder, I am afraid.

by GODSON O. MONEKE

The future of Nigeria should be central to all we do at all times. I have always written on the need to forge nationhood out of the geographical expression called Nigeria. Eternal vigilance is the price we pay for liberty meaning that we cannot afford to get laidback and take certain things for granted. My fear for the APC victory at the presidential level is not borne out of their infamous Muslim-Muslim ticket because I personally do not believe that religiosity connotes spirituality. Although I am a Christian, I detest the current practice of using religion as an instrument of statecraft and politics or creating a hegemony which is everything but spiritual. Religion is fast becoming a means of carnality and its commercialization has not given comfort to anybody except some businessmen turned pastors and Imams. Although religious is a notorious fault line in this country, I have come to realize that it is being weaponized by the our political elites for their political ends and selfish aggrandizement. The patriotic role being played by JAIZ BANK in making the new Naira notes available to Nigerians when the other banks are busy hoarding them and sabotaging government efforts only confirms my position that what matters in all these is SPIRITUALITY and not RELIGIOSITY. My main worry and concern about the APC is their choice of Shettima as their vice presidential candidate despite being aware of the many controversies around him which he has not bothered to refute. Equally worrisome is the attitude of some governors elected under the party which shows fierce hostility towards the new MONETARY POLICY OF THE CBN using all sorts of strange SHENANIGANS. Their behavior is nothing but sheer indiscipline and arrogance of power. Talking of security, we cannot claim to be bothered about the insecurity and happenstances in our ecosystem and yet turn a deaf ear to possible clues as to the source of such insecurity and undesirables. Such duplicitous tendencies are not expected of any patriotic political leader in Nigeria. When in 2004, the then US President , George W. Bush was asked to comment on the fact that the Democratic Party challenger in his reelection bid, Mr John Kerry had just chosen Mr John Edwards as his running mate for the then coming presidential election , he retorted ‘CHENEY CAN BE PRESIDENT’ ( Dick Cheney was his Vice President). In this instance, I am particular about Shettima, the Vice Presidential Candidate of the APC.

The implication of what the then President Bush said was that voters should bear in mind that whoever is on the ballot as the Vice Presidential candidate of a political party is a potential president of that country. When we are considering the presidential candidate, we should be considering his running mate at the same time. A bad running mate can demarket a candidate just as a good running mate can make a ticket more appealing. A controversial and haughty person cannot be a dependable deputy to any person. A person with an unknown political history should be approached with circumspection for political leadership because you do not want to be led blindfolded in making weighty decisions. What this means is that we should always be wary of FLY BY NIGHT POLITICIANS in making important political decisions. Tinubu may have his own shortcomings as a human being but his choice of Shettima as his running mate despite the many controversies dogging him and his general disposition is inexplicable and a RED LINE. Even if Tinubu had a political reason for going for a northern Muslim as running mate, why must he go for an alleged extremist and fatalist like Shettima who has not even bothered to explain away the many controversies he is deeply enmeshed in? May be Tinubu knows more than we know by going for Shettima but we deserve to know everything because democracy is government of the people. Is it possible that Shettima has something on him which we may not know? Time will tell!!!!

Recently, a recorded AUDIO which must have been about seven years old went viral. In that shocking audio, Mr Shettima was heard discussing with a man he repeatedly called Kunle (suspected to be the then governor of Ogun state, Ibikunle Amosun) in which he showed undisguised hatred for the Igbos and all that were associated with them. The reason Mr Shettima should harbor such hatred for an ethnic group which did him or his ancestors no harm cannot be fathomed. Shivers ran down my spine as I listened to what came out of the mouth of the person who now wants to be the country’s Vice President. That is the way of terrorists because they kill and maim people who have not wronged them in any way. The hatred which Shettima exhibited for the Igbos could only be compared to what Adolf Hitler had for the Jews and which led to the holocaust. Anti semitism is HATRED FOR THE JEWS but what do you call Shettima’s hatred for the Igbos? IGBO PHOBISM? Shettima has been unapologetic about these unfortunate utterances and has this attitude of YOU CAN GO TO HELL. He was overheard giving suggestions on what should be done to socially and economically strangulate and emasculate the Igbos for no just cause except that they are hardworking and have unflinching faith in one Nigeria. Why should an any ethnic group be the target of Shettima’s undisguised hatred? If the vituperations of Shettima against the Igbos do not qualify as HATE SPEECH, then something doesn’t add up.

This is the person Tinubu chose as a potential president of Nigeria and expects the Igbos and the people of the old eastern region to vote for. Have you seen where a sane person empowers or arms his unapologetic and declared enemy to kill him? The tell tale signs are there for everybody to see and those who blindly and carelessly walk into their own destruction have nobody to blame for the fate which befalls them as a result. If Tinubu must choose a northern Muslim as an imperative, must he be Shettima? Are there no better Muslims in the north? Why must it be somebody as arrogant and fatalistic as Shettima? May be there is something that Tinubu knows that we don’t know. But we deserve to know everything about the potential president of Nigeria. Tinubu should not get carried away by how much EYE-SERVICE he shows to him because the affairs of this country is bigger than Tinubu and his inner circle. Besides , STOOPING TO CONQUER IS AN AGE-LONG ART OF WARFARE , so we are not carried away because LIP SERVICE is the opium of HYPOCRITES. Shettima may be one. There are many brilliant northern Muslims that Tinubu should have chosen but he went for an alleged Boko Haram apologist. He should be rejected on this score because the ticket is a poisoned chalice which drips of the blood of the murdered victims of the Boko Haram terrorism. Tinubu and his orbit in the manner of revisionists have in a bid to rewrite history presented Shettima as an innocent victim of horrendous allegations just to justify why he chose him as his running mate. Facts are sacred and truths are immutable. A first step is for Shettima to deny the allegations against him and denounce Boko Haram terrorists which he has not done to this day and this is curious.

The 1999 constitution of Nigeria (as amended) made the president the commander – in-chief of the armed forces and the chief security officer of the federation while the Vice President is in charge of the economy as the chairman of National Economic Council of the country. But we heard Mr Shettima tell us that he would be in charge of security, a function solely vested in the president by constitution while the president would be in charge of the economy, a function vested in the Vice President by the constitution. Isn’t the proposed role reversal curious and unconstitutional? The president is the Chief Executive of the federation and the buck stops on his table. We all know that the primary purpose of government is the security of lives and property, it therefore sounds bizarre for the vice presidential candidate of a party to have his eyes on the number one responsibility and function of the president. It is worrisome that Tinubu never corrected that statement (even if it was a FREUDIAN SLIP) by his running mate who equally never withdrew it himself. What really is happening? Shettima was never a member of the armed forces, so why is he enamored with the issue of security? Shettima is a former governor of Borno state, the unofficial headquarters of the Boko Haram terrorist group. Is Shettima suggesting that insecurity would cease in Nigeria once Shettima becomes in charge of security as the de facto president of Nigeria. We want a president who will be in charge and not one who will invent excuses as that statement suggests. It is common knowledge how Shettima became the governor of Borno state and the role played by the Boko Haram in making that possible by murdering those who won his political party primaries ahead of him. It is common knowledge that one Kabiru Sokoto who was alleged to be the mastermind of the Easter Day bombing of St. Theresa’s Catholic Church in Niger state was arrested by security agents in the Borno state liaison office in Abuja during the tenure of Shettima as governor of Borno state. When Borno state house became a sanctuary for the terrorist Boko Haram in Nigeria, people should be worried of the state governor that made it possible. The bigger worry is that Shettima has never deemed it fit to denounce Boko Haram terrorists and their activities in Nigeria all these years. He has neither denied membership of the group nor dissociated himself from their actions at any time. If he has done this at anytime, I am not aware. He believes that he can bully his way to power in spite of his many unanswered questions.A person who is naturally mean, arrogant and autocratic in his dispositions is not a good advertisement for any presidential ticket. The prospect of Shettima becoming the president of Nigeria by any chance is frightening , very frightening indeed. This man, Shettima is too uncouth, vulgar, acerbic and unguarded in his utterances for a person who aspires to be the Vice President of Nigeria. He said that our sitting Vice President is a nice man and that nice people should be selling ICE CREAMS and not aspiring to be president of any country. He confirmed that he was a sadist and I hold that Nigerians do not need a sadist for a Vice President. Nigerians actually need a nice man with a heart of gold. He called Peter Obi, GIRINGORI in sarcastic reference to his name, GREGORY. It is important to remind Mr Shettima that the owner of the character called GIRINGORI was the ORIGINATOR/CREATOR of the Soap Opera, the MASQUERADE which was arguably the most watched Drama Series from the 1970s up to early 2010s. Such a person must be a LITERARY GENIUS. The Igbos need equal opportunities for every Nigerian as well as justice under the rule of law. They do not need pity, special favors and indulgence.

Shettima was the governor of Borno state when Chibok girls were kidnapped and we have not been told of what he did to mitigate the incident. Rather, all evidence pointed to his complicity in the whole saga. I blame the lily-livered federal government of GEJ for not identifying the loopholes and responding appropriately. It allowed itself to be the whipping boy in a catastrophe in which it was evident there were local collaborations . People must not just want to occupy an office because of associated perks but must have both the capability and capacity to discharge the responsibilities of such offices. This attribute is what made OBJ stand out from the pack. The kidnapping of the Chibok girls was enough justification to declare a STATE OF EMERGENCY IN THE STATE and remove the governor. I am sure if that was done, subsequent actions by the Boko Haram terrorists would not have been as wild as they became and violent criminals across the country would have been deterred. We were told that the then supervising minister of education had warned governor Shettima of the impending danger of exposing the Chibok girls to terrorists attacks like abduction etc but he rebuffed the security advice of the then federal government. Even when the kidnap happened, he did nothing to rescue the girls and instead was busy blaming the federal government which was far away in Abuja for an incident that happened under his very nose. This was in spite of rebuffing security advice from the same federal government to prevent the kidnap from happening in the first place. Now, it is more than eight years since the girls were abducted, WHERE ARE THEY NOW? The culprit governor now wants to be our VICE PRESIDENT such an IMPUDENCE!!!!

We run a democracy in Nigeria and this connotes using the positive effects of dialogue and free speech to maximize citizens welfare. A person who is averse to dialogue and who believes in giving orders and expects them to be obeyed should not enter the leadership matrix of this country. Shettima comes out as a cold , mean and unfeeling human being with a condescending outlook. People should worry about such a person because we do not want another AFGHANISTAN on our hands. Tinubu is inordinately ambitious and can do anything to become president of Nigeria even if means acting against the people and forming alliance with the devil. Somebody who harbors an entitlement mentality such that he is not ashamed to voice it out can pursue desperation to no end. It is the first time in history that somebody is openly declaring that it is his turn to be president of Nigeria. In the history of Nigeria, nobody has ever had the audacity to utter the word, EMI LO KAN in the presidential contestation in this country. Nigeria is not an article of trade, yo-yo or ludo game to be tossed about. Nigeria is bigger than the ambition of any man or group of men. I suggest APC takes a SABBATICAL LEAVE from power to reflect on their unflattering performance and RECALIBRATE. The FLAG BEARER, TINUBU has refused to debate his opponents either at TV/RADIO STAGED EVENT OR TOWN HALL, thereby seriously undermining the culture of PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES WHICH ARE JUST EMERGING IN NIGERIA. How can you vote for someone who feels too big to talk to or discuss with other contestants?. It does not make sense.

There has been no campaign rally addressed by Tinubu at which he has not riled against his real and imagined opponents in this election. Character Assassination is not a virtue but defines somebody who is frivolous. I FIND IT DISTURBING THAT TINUBU HAS NOT PUBLISHED AND SPOKEN TO ANY AGENDA IN HIS QUEST TO BE PRESIDENT OF NIGERIA. This is very surprising and frightening as we have a candidate who feels too big to tell Nigerians what he will do for them if voted in as the president of Nigeria. POLITICIANS SHOULD BE EXORCISED OF THE MENTALITY OF USING STATE POWERS TO POLITICAL ADVANTAGE. THAT IS DISHONESTY. Democratic government is all about SOCIAL CONTRACT WITH THE PEOPLE ANCHORED IN THE POLITICAL MANIFESTO PUT IN WRITING AND SPOKEN TO AT RALLIES. All we hear from Tinubu are conspiracy theories and unfounded allegations against his real and imagined enemies. We cannot afford to make ourselves willing victims of somebody’s megalomania. Tinubu has become fond of using rallies to escalate disagreements within his political party and making incendiary rhetorics against perceived opponents both within and outside his political party. Those within his orbit have taken a cue from him to fantasize on all sorts of conspiracy theories and inveigh outlandish invectives on whoever crosses their ways. He is fond of constructing a WE versus THEY kind of scenario which is very divisive. Knowing fully well that ETHNICITY and RELIGION are sensitive fault lines and impediments to nationhood, this behavior is not expected from someone who wants to be the president of the country. You can criticize and disagree with an opponent on purely policy issues and policy differences but heaping personal attacks and insults as Tinubu has become accustomed to, is off the mark. Talking about people so condescendingly is a mark of arrogance bereft of statesmanship. Therefore to have two emperors as president and vice president is hazardous and politically suicidal.

A sober critique of some frontline presidential candidates would reveal that the presidential candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar has a clear roadmap of how a new trajectory of leadership and development of Nigeria can be forged. He is the only one that addresses and focuses on issues. Unlike other presidential candidates, he does not abuse opponents or inveigh unsubstantiated allegations against them. . That to me is an index of maturity. Others believe in emotional massaging of problems and pontificating on solutions. Tinubu’s style, is to talk about himself as a super human being and emperor who cannot be questioned. He abuses opponents for having the audacity to contest against him as if he is God and levies all manners of spurious accusations against them. The question to ask is; Is insulting people a cardinal point in Tinubu’s manifesto? With a running mate like Shettima, a tragedy awaits us if we make the mistake of electing the duo. Putting our fate in the hands of TWO EXTREMISTS IS VERY RISKY. We need to put all hands on deck to avert the looming disaster. For those who campaign on ethnicity, let it be known that the federal government is so far away from the ordinary Nigerian family to make a direct impact. What are required of the federal government are; Macroeconomic Stability, Constitutional Reforms,Massive Decoupling , Security, Institutional Reforms, Ethical Reforms, Equity , Justice and Regulations.

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Godson O. Moneke, a quantity surveyor, economist, sociologist, administrator and sociopolitical advocate wrote from Abuja.