Buhari: Beyond the crowds
In the last days of electioneering campaigns, desperate politicians are displaying desperate efforts to project a populous perception of their electability by literally packing crowds into limited spaces and putting the images on live television as forecast of election outcomes. To some extent of course, megarallies indicate political prowess but not necessarily acceptability which only election results can definitively declare.
The truth behind the crowd-pulling craze is that virtually any cause or creed can gather crowds of any size as long as it has the wherewithal to attract and transport. From political parties to urban agitators, the strategy feeds on the huge population of idle people roaming the streets of towns and cities in search of livelihood. A parked empty bus with an offer of “lunch money” is enough to trigger a stampede of local folks eager for a free sight-seeing trip to the city. In their multiples from numerous rural areas they emerge a few hours later as mammoth crowds of party supporters thronging a city stadium.
The most difficult challenge of next Saturday’s election is to supersede President Muhammadu Buhari as the single most popular, long-standing winner of the hearts and minds of the majority of the masses of Nigeria, in or out of office. In the last thirty years there has been no personality with President Buhari’s magnetic pull on the common people, breaking boundaries of tribe and religion that limited the appeal of most politicians.
Certainly, there is no one on the list of presidential candidates that can claim anything near this unprecedented legendary mass followership which was resoundingly revamped in the world-record making unseating of a 16 year old party domination in 2015. It can also be confidently asserted that since his momentous return to power as an elected President, Muhammadu Buhari has equally revived and replenished his revolutionary support base among the talakawa of Nigeria by demonstrating his principled commitment to fight bigtime corruption at every opportunity in power.
Indeed it is President Buhari’s unmatched determination to stand out as the sole-tormentor of Nigeria’s notoriously rapacious clique of corrupt ex-this and ex-that which has won him a permanent reserved place in the heart and minds of the majority of masses who share the same belief with “if Nigeria does not kill corruption, corruption will kill Nigeria”.
It is a matter of conviction and faith in the singular capacity of President Buhari to subject the corrupt cabal of businessmen, civil servants, military and associated collaborators to relentless probes and pursuit by anticorruption agencies emboldened by the marching orders of the President to bring to book those who were previously labeled “owners of Nigeria” because they came, they looted and they held the country hostage with their loot. Since President Buhari was forced out of office as military Head of State by such people, no Nigerian leader has had the guts to challenge the corrupt owners of Nigeria until his return by the grace of God and the massive support of the masses who are the true owners of Nigeria.
So it is not a matter of televised hired crowds. It is not a matter of parading notorious politicians who Nigerians have not forgotten or forgiven for 16 years of raping the country’s resources. It is not a matter of shouting criticism of the emerging corrective outcome of the Buhari Revolution within only three years by those responsible for the collapse of the economy.
It is simply a matter of the Nigerian masses rising in solidarity across tribal and religious divides and rallying round their adopted messiah, the only source of their hope and confidence that there is one alternative to the looter-leaders who keep the masses in poverty while they enrich themselves and their families with public resources. That alternative is President Muhammadu Buhari, no more, no less. All the stadia in Nigeria cannot contain the masses of Nigeria who are solidly behind the Next Level of the Buhari Presidency.
Daniel Hankula, Kaduna State
Kafanchan,