Buhari: Quitters Don’T Win…

After losing the last Presidential election in 2011, Muhammadu Buhari, a retired General and generally regarded as an uncompromising strongman, surprisingly shed tears, regretting that it was a shame that Nigerians failed to elect him into office in order to change the country.

It was his third time of contesting the presidency and loosing. The tears he shed was like he had lost hopes of ever contesting again, not to even talk of winning as he hinted that he may not venture into the race again.

But that was not his first time of trying. In 2003, he contested under the platform of the defunct All Nigerian Peoples Party, (ANPP), losing to General Olusegun Obasanjo, in his first attempt.

Feeling cheated at the polls, he approached the courts, and for several years, was at the presidential tribunal and later at the appeal court, which eventually restated Obasanjo’s victory.

During the court sessions, he was virtually left alone to continue the fight as the party chairman, Chief Don Etiebet, often would not come to court nor send the legal representations. In spite of all these seeming neglect, he fought on doggedly, not allowing the disappointments to discourage him and came out again and again.

It was the same scenario that played out in 2007 when he faced Umaru Yar’Adua in the presidential election and lost. Again, he went to court to contest the result, and again he lost in the courts to his contender.

Yet, he came out again in 2011 against Goodluck Jonathan, losing again in what was believed to be daylight robbery, which resulted in widespread bloodshed across the north for which a lot of people still hold him responsible.

But in the countdown to the 2015 polls, the new rebranded, vibrant opposition restrategised, refocused and queued behind Nigeria’s reticent former Military head of state, literarily having to drag him from a proposed retirement.

And it was not a difficult proposition for him to accept as it became obvious that the 71-year old retiree was not a quitter either, despite having lost three times in a row.

He accepted to lead the opposition in what looked like an impossible but determined war to rescue the country from the overlord ship of the ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) which had held the country by the jugular since the return to democracy in 1999. In the history of Nigeria, no incumbent government had ever been defeated.

And in what appeared like the repeat of the Abraham Lincoln phenomenon in the United States of America, Buhari championed the struggle, backed by a new opposition that has been envisioned to redeem the country.

As a result of his antecedents as a maximum ruler between 1984 and 1985 when he shook up the country with his war against indiscipline and corruption, it was not difficult for people of like minds across the country to join the opposition groups in order to rout what was generally believed to be an inept, corrupt and lackluster administration which many even described as clueless.

Besides, Buhari has a way with the “talakawa” who loved him while many felt that his military background and his clout as a disciplinarian are just characteristics that the country needed at the moment.

But he had issues as he is seen as fiercely pro-north and has often been accused as an Islamic fundamentalist which has placed him against the largely Christian South.

Perhaps the major albatross which had been standing in his way was his anti-democratic tendencies which was as a result of his overturning a democratically elected government of President Shehu Shagari in 1984. His poor human rights records also added to his negative image amongst Nigerians especially his tight fisted rule when many were killed or sent to jail unceremoniously.

Though he had claimed to be a born again democrat, but that tag still hangs on his neck like an axe of Damocles. Also closely related to this is the allegation of being against the south. This was due to the nature of his crusade against corruption which was seen largely as targeted against the south with many of the southern leaders jailed for embarrassing huge years by the tribunals he set up.

But all these were to pale into insignificance with the notion held by many that he is a sympathiser of the dreaded Boko Haram which had wreaked so much havoc in the north eastern part of the country.

He has endured all kinds of insults, disappointments, neglect and intrigues in his 12 years of struggle and at a stage, last year in Kaduna, his convoy was bombed by agents suspected to be the dreaded Boko Haram insurgents. He escaped death by the whiskers.