ABUJA – Former Governor of Kano State and a former staunch ally of President Muhmmadu Buhari, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau gave an insider’s view on Tuesday, regarding the problem currently besetting the country. He said Nigerians are to blame for making the President believe that he is the best the country could offer, without recognising his personal capacities.
Shekerau, a two-time governor in the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP), where Buhari also cut his political teeth, cited how every known political rule was broken in order to make him President without realising the danger that could result from such improper behaviour.
The former governor and former Minister of Education, while speaking on African Independent Television (AIT), prime programme, Focus Nigeria, gave example of how this unholy phenomenon practically ruined everything the President had touched in his political career, starting from the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), which had nine governors at the time Buhari joined and was left with only three by the time he left the party.
Insisting that people should not be surprised at the turnout of events in the country with Buhari as President and the current ruination the country, Shekerau, said that most of those claiming to be his loyalists, were not only aware of his (Buhari’s) limitations, but would not relent because they either rode on his back in the past or needed it now to ride on for their own selfish gains.
Hear him: “I think the system in the urge to find a solution, Buhari was very lucky and over-pampered. In 2003, in the ANPP (convention), all aspirants were pushed down; the Okorochas had to walk out of the venue in anger, because the party leadership thought this is a winning person and nobody should challenge him. He was literally imposed in 2003.
“He was given that impression, right from 2003 that it was either him or no other person. In 2007, it was the same. There were aspirants again in 2007, but again, they were clamped down on, pushed down and told, this is the person that can make it, and so on. That got into his head in 2007.
“After the 2007 election, some of the people around him told him, you’re so outstanding, you’re a personality, you can have a party of your own. Don’t allow these ANPP, forgetting that in 2003 when Buhari contested, ANPP reduced from nine governors to seven, when he contested in 2007, from seven we became five and by the time he left, we became only three – Kano, Yobe and Borno.
“So, what value did he have in real political analysis? You came and saw and left with nothing. You came into ANPP and left ANPP worse than you met it. So, that over-pampering in 2003, 2007 gave him and his people and those around him the impression that he could stand on his own, that he didn’t need any political party. They went and pushed him to CPC (defunct Congress for Progressive Change).
“But in CPC is where he cried, wondering, why am I losing? Why are they denying me upon the fact that I’m the best of all? That was what he was literally saying – crying that Nigeria is missing me, Nigeria is missing the best President ever. He even said he would never, ever contest again. It is there on record that he tried to serve and serve and people are not willing.
“Now, those people who felt they have turned him to an industry, riding on him, producing A, producing B, and riding on his back, riding on the street perception, rightly or wrongly, ganged up again in 2015 and made him renege on his pledge, which was a very serious moral burden – he had told the nation he was not coming on board.
“So, that thing was brought back to him – the over-pampering. Look, you’re the best of all. In 2003, they denied you, 2007 and 2011, come again and in 2015 – I pitied Kwankwaso and Atiku that tried to challenge him – with that perception, he ended being the President and Nigeria ended up being in this situation.
*Source: Whirlwind News