2015 And Chido’s Hornet’sNest By Godwin Onyeacholem

By Godwin Onyeacholem
No matter where they reside, whether in Nigeria or outside, critical
chroniclers of this country's roller-coaster existence have always
been the butt of disparaging comments from jaundiced participants who
find themselves in the maddening struggle towards building a befitting
functional country. Perhaps discomfited by the certainty of truth,
these characters often do not hesitateto hit out at anyone whose
viewpoint they consider incongruent. Like the practiced cobra, they
lie in wait for their quarry, waiting for it to cross their path. And
soon as it does, they strike with the same natural impulse of the
deadly reptile.
My friend Chido Onumah found himself in this situation when he dared
to pose a question that seems to have rattled the opposition. Just
when three major opposition parties and some smaller ones had
consummated a merger that fostered a grander party called All
ProgressivesCongress, APC, primed to dislodge thelargely despised PDP
in the next elections, Chido stirred the hornet's nest. In the piece
published in his column in The Punch on June 21whichwent viral almost
immediately, Chido coined an unequivocal headline the opposition must
have deemed audacious – 2015: Who will defeat Jonathan?
What a cheek! Joe Igbokwe, the frequently excitable, typically devoted
Lagos state publicity secretary of the leading merging party, ACN,
won't dignify the question with what could turn out to be potentially
damaging silence. Yet, instead of taking his time to properly reflect
on the gist of the piece, Igbokwe promptly seized upon the mischievous
author in a rejoinder, implying the futility of the exercise and
indicting him for working hard to insinuate himself to the Presidency.
Interpreted correctly, Igbokwe's mindis that the author is assailed by
poverty and hungry and, therefore, did the piece to book a passage to
rehabilitation by either Aso rock or the ruling party.
Laughable as it is, this far-fetched deduction does nothing to flatter
the political acumen of Igbokwe, not to mention his rational mind.
Much as hetried in his rejoinder, he failed to answer a simple
question that is obviously intended to rouse the opposition to the
reality of what they lack. The question is, besides General Muhammadu
Buhari, who again can the opposition, now circumscribed in APC,
present as their presidential candidate to face President Goodluck
Jonathan in 2015?
There is no point mentioning Adams Oshiomhole, Raji Fashola, Kayode
Fayemi or Rochas Okorocha. These aregood materials quite alright, but
given the sentiments and mood that have produced a permutation that
favours a president of northern extraction, there is no way this APC
would present any of the aforementioned personalities or anyone for
that matter who is not from the north as presidential candidate in
2015. If the party does that, it would pave the way for Jonathan to
coast to victory without breaking sweat.
Certainly in the future the position is bound to go to a candidate
from the south, but for this moment the opposition would have to go
for a northern candidate as a strategy for garnering the significantly
huge northern vote which, barring any underhand dealings, will be
leveraged by an also large southwest vote that will effectively
checkmate PDP at the polls. They will neglect to do so at their own
peril. And the pointis – and Igbokwe would do well to take this as a
matter of fact – the only candidate from the north who has what it
takes to beat Jonathan in a free and fair election is Buhari.
This is the point that Chido made that upsets our friend Igbokwe so
much. Take it or leave it, the opposition as it is constituted today
does not parade anybody from the north that possesses anything close
to Buhari's integrity, credibility and mass appeal capable of
galvanizing the northern electorate for victory. Certainly neither the
prickly Nasir El- Rufai, nor the enthusiastic Nuhu Ribadu, to name
just two visible northern politicians whose names are sometimes thrown
up as likely presidential candidates.
Igbokwe should not delude himself into believing that the average
Nigerian voter is refined enough to vote on the basis of performance.
If his party does not this moment begin the positioning of a
well-prepared, well-managed, better-packaged Buhari for the next
election Jonathan will win again hands down. He won in,of all places,
south west – opposition ACN stronghold – in the April 2011 election in
spite of the perpetual non-performance of the PDP and the intense
campaign against PDP mounted by Igbokwe's party. It is easily recalled
the many instances the ACN leader Asiwaju Bola Tinubu appeared on
rostrums denouncing the PDP, describing it as Poverty Development
Party.But to the utter consternation of many an observer, the party
which was labelled as the dispenser of poverty won the election "fair
and square" in Tinubu's ward barely one month after. The ACN abandoned
its presidential candidate and voted the candidate of a party it had
pilloried and castigated in the days leading up to the election. How
did that happen?
The ACN has maintained loud, embarrassing silence all along. Neither
Igbokwe nor the highly effective Lai Mohammed has been bold enough to
offer any convincing explanation since that disastrous showing. The
question is asked again:What happened? And who says it can'thappen
again? Igbokwe should ratheraddress that instead of looking to
denigrate anyone that tries to stimulate reasoned – even if
uncomfortable – debate around the preparedness of the opposition as
2015 beckons.
Godwin Onyeacholem is a journalist; can be reached on gonyeacholem@ gmail.com