Two Wanted Men for Aso Rock in April 2011!

April 2011 must be a mandate that is informed and result-oriented. And in this regard we only have two credible candidates in the race today. They may not be as credible as Obafemi Awolowo or, better still, as we would have wanted them to be, but they are the best given the candidates that the parties have finally brought forward. So, who are these two? Who are these that the people across Nigeria are waiting for: the two wanted men?

Some think that Pat Utomi has something to give the nation. And I was almost deceived! Then, I remembered that he was Shehu Shagari’s political adviser. If you know what political adviser is then you may not only want Utomi to share in Shagari’s woeful outing, but actually say Utomi should have the lion share of that blame. Then, I also remembered that I did a piece, 1994: A Horrible Year on February 14, 1995 in the now defunct Sunray paper of Port-Harcourt. There I catalogued and dwelt on the horrible things that happened that year and among them was Volkswagen of Nigeria. That great outfit under the watch of Utomi had a steep dive to rock bottom; down, down below. A great summersault indeed. Remember the ad: There is no killing the beetles! At last, it was Utomi who killed it! He killed Volkswagen! How else would you explain it? And now you are talking of Nigeria? Haba! This thing is more than academics and grammar. So, Utomi is not one of the wanted men.

Muhammadu Buhari is not in the equation either. Buhari once murdered democracy, though a very bad democracy it was. And I refer here to national politics under Shagari with Utomi as adviser. Buhari has not come to say openly and profusely so that he is sorry. We have not noticed any remorse yet. Again, he has not told us that he is sorry for introducing the IBBs and Abachas to our politics. He has not said we should forgive him for the havoc the IBBs and Abachas wrought on us, the way they beat us silly, damaged our psyche and thoroughly abuse our sensibilities. If Buhari knew that by overthrowing democracy and consequently introducing these sorts of people to the polity he fathered all that they did, he would have since asked for forgiveness. And, then, the way and manner he handled the Petroleum Trust Fund under Abacha his boy writes him off completely from the presidency. And by the way: how do you explain the odyssey of romance between Buhari and Utomi in recent times to govern us together? Can Utomi now be said to have properly advised Shagari? I am lost.

And then Atiku Abubarkar, for some obvious reasons, though he has crashed from the race to Aso Rock, even soothingly so. He has never been in our mind before day one. He belongs with OBJ. He may be good in the farm like OBJ, but not politics, and surely not governance. We read that he may be considering some action based on that defeat at Eagle Square. Can a man fight from the nadir, especially when he is also in the nadir of despair? Well, Atiku has no sensible battle to fight with Jonathan. We also read that he has some festering grudge with IBB for congratulating Jonathan. May he not dare an ex-general! That is an advice. Anyway, nothing takes Atiku again to Aso Rock after the Augean stable he and OBJ created from 1999-2007. Atiku is very far from being in our mind.

And we are not thinking at all of Ibrahim Shekarau or Dele Momodu. Like Atiku, they have not found a place in the scale. Not that they belong to the politics of OBJ! There is no one in ANPP in the three regions in the south of the country to deliver ten percent of the votes in any of those states to ANPP, not even Onu, Akande or Oyegun. The middle-belt presents almost the same picture. And Shekarau is almost completely unknown in the south. Dele Momodu is just nowhere. The mountain leading to Aso Rock reads him already as nonstarter. So, who are the two men?

We have dangled this twosome even before the various primaries. And it will be instructive therefore to visit a recent piece I did: Atiku’s desperation to resume misrule, to help us zero in on them presently even though your guess may be damned right by now. In this widely published eleven page document I concluded thus:

“We really want to see an electoral combat between Ribadu of Action Congress of Nigeria and Jonathan of People’s Democratic Party. We see the vision to fix Nigeria in Ribadu. We see the sincerity to fix Nigeria in Jonathan. Atiku has neither. Atiku lacks the informed drive of Ribadu just as he is bereft of the purposefulness of Jonathan. We really have not discovered any glowing leadership attribute in Atiku. Rather, we see a very questionable integrity; we see profligacy, intolerance, dangerous desperation, military postures and blithering comments, divide and rule and sectional, nay, cliquish consensus candidacy, and the list runs ad infinitum. A stream of negatives! … We are now looking for men with hearts and know-how to engage in a salvaging work for the benefit of the living and posterity. Not that Jonathan or Ribadu come close to Awolowo, but they are the best among all that have stepped forward so far. Atiku is distantly in the rear of them all.”

Sometimes the writer can speak of the future. That is one goal of writing. With Jonathan and Ribadu I’ve been damned right. Now, April 2011 beckons. But then, between the two who is my man? Who will I cast my vote for? Really, I don’t know yet. For now, barring some unknown skewed deeds surfacing in the campaigns between now and April 2011, either can carry go!