Fellow Nigerians, despite the open and brazen braggadocious posturings of the ruling party, things seem to be fast falling apart within the All People’s Congress (APC). The arrogance of power probably must have misled some of the powerful gladiators in the party that they are invincible and infallible. But unwarranted arrogance and pride go forth before a calamitous fall. There seems no doubt that the APC also underrates the extensive networks and connections of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar who has been in this race for 25 solid years. Speak to most of them, they will boastfully tell you that Buhari owns the North of Nigeria, as if the North is one State or monolithic or homogenous region. Except for those too lazy to analyse the ethnic, religious and political configuration of Nigeria, there has never been a single place called the North. It was merely one of the cunningly systematic way some politicians inferiorised and brainwashed Southern Nigeria into thinking “Oh we can’t win the election because the North will not agree.”

Except for military interventions that gave some parts of the Northern region some edge and predominance over other parts of Nigeria, particularly in the South, only three Northerners and three Southerners have ever won Presidential elections at the highest levels, namely, Shehu Shagari, Moshood Abiola (though conspired against and could not assume office), Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari. We had pre-Independence leaders who presided as our first and only Prime Minister ever, Tafawa Balewa, 1957-1966, who shared a bit of his power with Nnamdi Azikiwe, who was our first and only ceremonial Governor General of Nigeria, from 1960-1963, before emerging as the first President of Nigeria, from 1963-1966, when our country became a Republic. In reality, Nigeria is too diverse, and too intertwined to be claimed by any one group.

What has happened is that the politicians, from both sides of the divide, have managed to manipulate our brains and hoodwink us in such a way that most people begin to doubt their own existence, like the French philosopher, Rene Descartes. Nigerians have also been kept down through the greatest forms of hypnotism, mass illiteracy and abject poverty, a very lethal combination. No Nigerian politician has benefitted from this political cocktail than President Muhammadu Buhari, who the poor masses see as their friend and Messiah who will free them from their wicked oppressors and fiendish looters. Prior to 2015, Buhari could do no wrong, as far as this class of people were concerned. But the burble is beginning to burst. I will explain how it happened in a jiffy.

Buhari would have preserved his image as a poor man, friend of the poor, the incorruptible avenger, the Messiah without a blemish, if he had not gone in to politics or if he did not win the 2015 Presidential election. Many of us would have been screaming our heads off, that he was cheated a fourth time, that unscrupulous Nigerians wickedly robbed us of yet another good leader, like Obafemi Awolowo, Moshood Abiola, Gani Fawehinmi, and a few other icons who contested at one time or the other. To win that election, Buhari needed to go through some rituals, or rites of passage, which were totally controlled by those he once regarded as bad guys. And of course, he needed what James Hadley Chase called The Whiff of Money to sustain and fulfil his ambition. And no individual could possibly have matched the PDP, cash for cash since they were getting their cash by dipping their hands, indeed their whole beings, into the most secure and productive vaults in the country – the Central Bank and the NNPC. So, Sai Baba got practical and sought the kind benevolence of his erstwhile sworn enemies. He had to crisscross the country, cap in hand, pleading for help and support. He knew he had to visit and beg the big dons, the acclaimed owners of the land who have the keys to unlock the doors of power and fortune.

Buhari navigated his way to former President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida in Minna, Niger State, the same military General who sacked him unceremoniously from power in September 1985, and from there meandered his way to former President Olusegun Aremu Okikiolakan Obasanjo in Abeokuta. He also travelled to see General Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma in various places. He must have had to swallow his pride in all this sallying to and fro.

Having engaged the powerbrokers, Buhari went for the financiers. He knew that one of the major problems of his previous failed bid was the inability to sustain campaign as he did not have the financial resources to maintain the same. He  needed billions and billions to pay polling agents or risks his votes being diminished or outrightly stolen. He turned to Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi who was a Director General of a Presidential campaign, like no other, from 2014-2015. He went all out to seek funds and made available a gleaming private jet owned by the Rivers State Government which more than eased the campaign itinerary and logistics of the Buhari Campaign Organisation. Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the capo di tutti capi of Lagos, was eventually beckoned and coaxed to come on board and persuaded to be on hand to arrange this and that. Bukola Saraki was also heavily involved in mobilising funds from his wealthy friends many of whom he managed to get to drop some heavy sums out of their billions. Aliko Dangote, Femi Otedola, Wale Tinubu, Muyiwa Bakare and many others were some of the faces who were regularly at Saraki’s Ikoyi home in Lagos to make contributions. Meetings were also sometimes held in Femi Otedola’s iconic apartment in Knightsbridge, London., where Dodi Fayed and  Princess Diana once lived. Buhari was very much in the know of the powerful military, political and financial coalition that were behind him.

These personages were united in one mission, to arrest the perceived perfidious drift of the nation towards perdition. They were all close to President Goodluck Jonathan but felt that he had allowed too much laxity and excess and was allowing some of his aides to get away with murder. They did not expect freebies from Buhari, but they felt he was going to reorder the nation and provide a level playing field and opportunities for every Nigerian, without fear or favour. Let’s again postpone the full story.