Imo APC Rally: Day Owerri Collapsed Under Gen. Muhammadu Buhari’s Crowd
As the opposition political propaganda machineries led by the ruling PDP aggressively throw up their bards from right, left and center to blackmail the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, as a Northerner who hates Igbos, a religious extremist and a supporter of Boko Haram insurgency that ravages the North East, political and social analysts are insisting that the message seems not to be sinking in in the East. Rather, it is becoming counterproductive, and the PDP might be shooting itself in the leg at a time when Buhari's image as the solution to Nigeria's myriad of problems is getting clearer in the East.
In fact, for close watchers of Nigerian politics and the usual intrigues that come with it, Buhari has never had it so good in the Eastern side of the country in his three time bid to Aso Rock Villa as he is having it right now in the 2015 electioneering campaigns. And for the first time, the ruling PDP and its presidential candidate, President Goodluck Jonathan, are feeling the presence of a credible threat to their chances to retain Aso Rock. But if the PDP has had any reason to panic, the APC's general rally in Imo state is very crystal evidence that as we approach the threshold of the 2015 elections, there is need for the PDP and their strategists to accept that the dynamics of the Nigerian politics is radically changing and, hence need to rethink all its political and propaganda strategies, and give Nigerians a better message.
Within the past few days, the APC campaign trail is passing through the South Eastern side of the country with a very simple and straightforward message to its supporters and the general electorates; “Here is Muhammadu Buhari! He represents something better, and is a more credible alternative to a failed Goodluck Jonathan!” The campaign team and the party are also telling the electorates in unmistakable terms; “With Buhari, we will fix the damages caused by Jonathan's era of impunity and end corruption. We will fix the crumbling economy, restore security, rebuild our dilapidated roads and invest massively on infrastructure. Jonathan's government of PDP spent 50 billion dollars on NEPA with just little or no justifiable improvement, but with Buhari we will get the power sector running and running good. If you vote APC under Buhari, you will usher in an era of industrialization of all the six geopolitical zones, an era of job creation and empowerment.” In a nutshell, the APC's single promise to the electorates in the South East is that with its presidential candidate, an APC government will bring sweeping changes that will guarantee economic prosperity for every Nigerian household and put Nigeria on the road to greatness. But one promise that is eliciting rhapsodic enthusiasm among the Igbos is Buhari's promise to encourage businesses and particular remove bottlenecks placed on the path of Igbo business men and women at the Nigerian ports and borders by those they portray as the agents of Jonathan's administration.
There is also the singular most important promise of political inclusiveness that will not have the Igbos left behind or marginalized as experienced in President Jonathan's administration on the platform of the PDP. In general assessment, APC's message seems to be sinking in very well. The governor of Imo state and the Chairman of APC governor's forum, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, is capitalizing on his popularity and his wide acceptance among the Igbos, especially the electorates in Imo state, to sway the Eastern electorates towards Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, and this seems to be working. The crowd of supporters that gathered at the Dan Anyiam Stadium, Owerri Imo state, to listen to Buhari's message of change is unprecedented in history, and it is a sign that the tone of the discussion is changing very fast on the streets of the East.
It was as if the city of Owerri would collapse under the weight of the mammoth crowd of supporters and admirers of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari who thronged the metropolitan city as the All Progressives Congress Party held its rally in Imo state on Monday, the 11th of January, 2015, to inform the Imo electorates that Gen. Buhari is its presidential candidate, and Gov. Rochas Okorocha is its candidate in the gubernatorial elections. Early in the morning enthusiastic supporters began to stream in from all corners of the state, and within a moment an aerial view of Wederal Road and Dan Anyian Stadium showed great sea of heads. By midday, the crowd had filled the venue to the brim and overflowed into the streets and roads, bringing vehicular movements to a near-halt, but for the massive road networks of the APC government under Gov. Rochas Okorocha. As the governor drove to the stadium to inform the crowd that their long awaited guest, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, was on his way to Owerri from Sam Mbakwe International Cargo Airport, it was impossible to drive the governor's convoy into the stadium. The deputy governor of Imo, Prince Eze Madumere, was in Abuja to lead Gen. Buhari and his running mate, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, the party leaders and the APC presidential campaign entourage to Imo state. The most interesting side of the rally story is that Gen. Buhari arrived late because he had to inaugurate the APC campaign council in Abuja earlier in the day, yet the crowd waited patiently.
I got the first call by 8 am in the morning of the APC Rally day alerting me that Owerri was coming under breathtaking traffic lockdown and that motorists were finding it hard to reach their destinations. APC supporters and ordinary Nigerians from the hinterlands and rural corners were streaming into Owerri to catch a glimpse of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari of the APC and to listen to his message of corruption-free, safe, prosperous and inclusive new Nigeria under his administration if he is voted into power come February 14th, 2015.
Earlier in the week, the governor of Imo State and the gubernatorial candidate of the All Progressive Congress in the 2015 elections, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, and his running mate, Prince Eze Madumere, embarked on an aggressive tour of the state to convince Imo people that Buhari has something better for Nigeria, and Igbos in particular, and that his promise of change and political inclusiveness is sincere. At Mbaitoli council headquarters, Nworieubi, in particular, the governor told a mammoth crowd of thousands that the propaganda to link Gen. Buhari to insurgency is a fabrication of a few clique of renegades and corrupt leaders who want to hold Nigerian eternally to ransom. “President Jonathan is my personal friend more than even those that move around him. But it is about the welfare of the Igbos and the people of the South East. If you have trusted me as your governor, trust me when I tell you that Buhari represents the best for the Igbos if voted into power” the governor told a cheering crowd. “PDP tells you that Buhari hates Igbos and is an extremist that will Islamize Nigeria, yet his last daughter is married to a Christian, his cook for over 20 years is a Christian Igbo and his driver for over 30 years is an Igbo man and a Christian. Buhari was head of state and ruled with no constitution, yet he didn't Islamize Nigeria. If Buhari could not Islamize his cook and driver, including his Christian son-in-law, how come they tell you that he will Islamize us when he becomes the president of a democratic Nigeria? the governor continued. At this point, the governor got the crowd thinking loud and trying to ask if the PDP has been honest in their propaganda against Buhari.
As Buhari arrived the venue of the rally on Monday afternoon with his running mate, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, the crowd went into wild wild frenzy. The shout of “Our President, Our President, filled the air. There are reasons why Buhari's candidature should resonate with a special chord in the South East in the 2015 elections beyond the crowd at Dan Anyiam Stadium; Generally, Muhammadu Buhari's selling point in the East and among the wider spectrum of the Nigerian electorates is his iconic anti-corruption record when he was Nigeria's military head of state. Buhari's name strikes symbolic note among the electorates as the man whose regime as military head of state fought corruption to a standstill, and greater majority of the Nigerian electorates believe that endemic corruption is the bane of Nigeria's woes. Millions of Nigerians are of the candid view that former President Obasanjo may not be a saint after all, but they accept that his historic controversial letter to President Goodluck Jonathan represents the reality. In an acerbic letter, an angry Obasanjo frustrated by President Jonathan's alleged inaction told the president ““Nigeria is bleeding and the hemorrhage must be stopped.” He told him that Nigeria under his leadership Nigeria smells with corruption, and that the President has polarized Nigeria along the faultlines of ethnicity and clan due to his selfish ambition to contest the 2015 elections. So for millions of electorates from the East, North, West to South, Nigeria needs someone like Buhari or Buhari himself to pull the nation back from the brink of Collapse.
Beyond Buhari's anticorruption record, his scorecard as a GOC during the Shagari regime also stands him out as the man who has the requisite political will to extinguish the raging fire of insurgency ravaging the North Eastern part of the country. Buhari made radical military incursions into Chad Republic when the nation's military dared Nigeria's territorial integrity and killed Nigerian soldiers during the regime of Hissene Habré of Chad. Buhari was already heading into the heart of Chad when America telephoned then president Shagari to call him to pull back.
Boko Haram is not the first terror group to visit the people of the Northern Nigeria; Maitatsine was even more blood-sucking and radical in its approach. As head of state, Buhari stamped his feet against the Maitatsine crisis in the 1980s in the North and sent the insurgent group parking. This side of the man called Major General Muhammadu Yassim Yinusa Buhari is eliciting the support of millions of electorates from North to South. Someone needs to bypass the absurd rhetoric of blame games and stop this senseless massacre in the North no matter whose axe is gored. Since President Jonathan couldn't do it, electorates are seeking for a proactive alternative to save their nation from a cataclysmic destruction. They are nervously asking Buhari if he can offer something better than Jonathan. And Buhari's record in that regard seems to have enough answers.
President Jonathan's perceived blunders in his administration's relationship with the Igbos are giving Buhari's candidature an edge. The people of the South East are disgruntled for lack of Federal presence in the South East in terms of development under President Jonathan. They accuse the president of running a government that excluded the Igbos of the South East in everything after giving their massive block vote to him in solidarity as a fellow Southerner in the 2011 elections. If the president is not clannish as former president Obasanjo accused him, then he is either frozen to disturbing state of inaction due an acute paralysis of will, or something. The president is insisting that his promise of the second Niger Bridge is enough to assuage the anger of the South Easterners and earn him the Eastern votes like before, but the people of the East are telling the president in blunt terms that the second Niger Bridge promise is a campaign ritual employed by even his predecessors to woo the electorates across the Niger. They ask how come he never remembered the Bridge for six years he has been the president of Nigeria. After all, APC's Muhammadu Buhari of the Northern extraction is making same promise, and might even be more sincere than the Southern Goodluck Jonathan. After all, almost all Federal projects in the South came during the regime of Northerners.
In his tours with his party men and women, and the campaign team, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari is asking the electorates to flip through the record of his stewardship at the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) where his administration constructed stretches of kilometers of roads among other development projects like the Iju Water Works. His promise to run an inclusive government, ensure rule of law and order, guarantee peace and stability, stabilize the Naira and restore the crumbling economy seems to be gaining the ears of the South Eastern people, and the crowd that graced the Owerri rally is a loud testimony. He repeated the same promises when he spoke to the crowd at Dan Anyiam and when he paid a courtesy call to Imo's supreme monarch and Chairman, council of traditional rulers, Imo state, His Royal Majesty, Eze Samuel Agunwa Ohiri( Eze Imo).
Whether it is the crowd that locked down the metropolitan city of Owerri on Monday, the mammoth beehive of supporters that kept the city of Port Harcourt to a standstill days earlier, there are genuine reasons to believe that the opposition momentum being generated by the All Progressive Congress represents a credible threat to the ruling PDP's chances to Aso Rock for the first time in the history of Nigeria's democracy, and that Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari of the APC might after all be a president-in-waiting as Nigerians go to the poll for the 2015 general elections come the 14th day of February.