In what appears a public outcry over some steps being taken by government as the country nears the 2019 general election, some retired generals of the Nigerian army and their civilian collaborators are said to be planning a political ‘blitzkrieg’ in their final push to unseat President Muhammadu Buhari during the Presidential election.
The political bloc of the retired generals, a source told BDSUNDAY, gave this indication through the recent outburst of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who again sent a damning message last Sunday to President Buhari in which he derided the president for his incompetence, plots to rig elections and a massive attempt to cause electoral violence to perpetrate himself in power.
Obasanjo had alleged that the president and his party are recruiting collation officers who are already awarding election results, stressing that “it is the sole reason he has blatantly refused to sign the revised electoral bill into law. His henchmen are working round the clock in cahoots with security and election officials to perfect their plan by computing results right from the ward to local government, state and national levels to allot him what will look like a landslide victory irrespective of the true situation for a candidate who might have carried out by proxy presidential debate and campaigns.”
He said the current plan is to dress the pre-determined results with credibility and also unleash massive violence in high voting population areas across the country to precipitate re-run elections.
“We are monitoring them and we call on all democrats across the world to keep an eye on the unfolding anti-democratic agenda of President Muhammadu Buhari. This is the time for preventive measures to be taken otherwise Nigeria may be presented with a fait accompli with impunity and total disregard of all pleas,” Obasanjo warned.
Obasanjo also called on the international community to impose travel bans and other repercussions on any person or group of persons found to have rigged the election and caused violence.
Days later, former Minister of Defence and former Chief of Army Staff, Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma, fired his own warning shots in Taraba alleging plots by the security agencies to cause mayhem in the state in order to rig the elections in the state.
The source said that the retired generals and their civilian counterparts’ particularly in the main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) have also mapped out elaborate strategies to counter the alleged plots of Buhari.
“This political bloc of the retired generals has put in place an anti-rigging mechanism in place. Remember that they are very influential and wealthy, and they have their men in almost all institutions of government who furnish them with security information on the plots of the presidency and the ruling party. They also have international connections,” the source said.
On why the generals are so determined to oust Buhari, the source said that the generals are statesmen who do not want Nigeria to descend into chaos and want to avoid the risk of having Buhari for another four years, which they insist will be a threat to the unity of the country judging by Buhari’s alleged incompetence, clannishness and divisiveness.
On Thursday, the United Kingdom and United states appeared to have heeded Obasanjo’s call, when the two countries announced travel restrictions and other repercussions on any person or group found to have perpetrated violence during the 2019 elections.
Obasanjo, Danjuma, former military President Ibrahim Babangida all of them retired generals have remained critical of the Buhari administration and are said to be implacably opposed to the second term ambition of President Buhari.
Recall that in January 2018, Obasanjo had written a letter to Buhari, exposing his alleged failures and advised him to quit the stage. Barely a month later Babangida wrote his own letter to Buhari also urging him to quit. Then Danjuma in an inexplicable fit of anger directed at the Buhari government following the herdsmen/farmers clashes, accused the security agencies of colluding with the herdsmen to kill indigenous Nigerians to appropriate their land forcefully. He also advised the people not to depend on the security agencies but to defend themselves.
The opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) have also threatened a total showdown with President Buhari if he tries to rig the election. The PDP National Chairman, Uche Secondus during a recent campaign rally in Lafia, Nasarawa State, threatened that if the APC and the Buhari government rig the 2019 election, “there will be war”.
Reacting to the allegation against Buhari, public affairs analyst, Majeed Dahiru said: “The allegation raised about the plot by the current administration to rig itself back to power is an open secret because this is a government that has failed woefully to deliver even minimally on its three key campaign promises of fixing the economy, fighting corruption and tackling insecurity. If this election is going to be a referendum on its performance it does not stand a chance of being returned by a popular vote.
“With this palpable fear of imminent defeat, agents of the government clearly have resorted to outright rigging of the election just to return to power because they have nothing tangible to show in almost four years of governance or mis-governance. And you only need to interact with the APC governors and close associates of the president to know that they do not rely on another thing to win this election than rigging.”
Majeed said that the current travail of the Chief Justice of the Federation, Walter Onnoghen is directly related to the issue of election rigging, adding that the APC and the Presidency do not trust him because he has proven to be independent-minded, and proven not to be willing to compromise the independence of the judiciary as well as his impartiality on the altar of regime’s partisan interests.
“So Obasanjo was absolutely right in pointing out and sounding the alarm bell that there is a grand plot to rig the election in favour of the incumbent APC government,” he said.
On the threat by the international community to impose sanctions on electoral offenders, Majeed said the world today is a global village of brother nations and Nigeria is a signatory to lots of international treaties on human rights, good governance and democracy. He added that Nigeria must at all times abide by the terms of those treaties.
“Any attempt to compromise the election is a violation of those treaties. Therefore, Obasanjo was right to call on the international community to come to the aid of Nigeria by applying the necessary sanctions against the agents of the regime who may be involved in any act overtly or covertly to compromise the forth-coming election with the aim of undermining the popular wishes of the Nigerian people,” he said.
Also reacting to the accusation and counter-accusation by the APC and the opposition of plots to recruit terrorists and thugs to disrupt the election, Second Republic lawmaker, Junaid Muhammad, posited that both sides of the political argument, the so-called opposition and the so-called government essentially are playing the same game but unfortunately with the destiny of this country. He blamed the desperation of the political class and warned that “it is an imminent threat to the corporate existence of the country”.
He added that the supposed intervention of Obasanjo and TY Danjuma does not necessarily connote any national interest but their parochial interests.
“What Obasanjo and Danjuma said are their own perceptions about the state of the nation and we have to be very careful because what they are doing is not necessarily in the interest of the nation. They are pursuing their own economic and sometimes personal interest. It is not entirely in the service of national interest,” he said.
However, the Media Aide to President Buhari, Lauretta Onochie, dispelled any fears about the allegation of rigging leveled against the President.
In a text message she sent to BDSUNDAY on Friday, Onochie said: “Those who have held power and used it to their personal advantage and the advantage of a few elite in our military, polity, religious and corporate circles are bound to throw a fit, seeing that power is now in the hands of the ordinary people of Nigeria.
“The same people they abandoned for years now have a leader who has given them a voice and they will speak, loud and clear on the 16th of February 2019.”
According to her, “By 1pm on that day, the world would have seen and read the handwriting on the wall. It will be, ‘The People of Nigeria have spoken’.
“They are not listening to Obasanjo; except what he said between 2003 and early 2018.”
Some perceived govt’s indiscretions
The suspension of the Chief Justice of the Federation, Justice Walter Onnoghen, against an order from the Court of Appeal, clearly stating that the CCT lacked the powers to prosecute him.
President Muhammadu Buhari refused to sign the amended Electoral Act into law even when the document had been presented to him for the third time, and after nominating some officials to be involved in the final drafting of the bill to remove some perceived “no-go-areas”.
The appointment of Amina Zakari, as the head of INEC coalition centre, she is believed to be a blood relation of President Muhammadu Buhari. However, in spite of public outcry, she is still in office.
The anti-graft war of the current administration is perceived to be one-sided, tailored to destabilise the opposition and prosecute some key officials of opposition party, the PDP ahead of the general elections.
The perception of the EFCC and ICPC as instruments to witch-hunt members of the opposition. Account details of key opposition politicians are being monitored and are at risk of being frozen by the anti-graft agencies.
The trader-moni is being adjudged by the opposition and foreign institutions as an instrument of vote-buying.
Innocent Odoh, Abuja
