By Jide Ajani

Last week, when  Sunday Vanguard  published the first in  this series about  the  crisis rocking the All Progressives Congress, APC, the likely sphere of mention of the First Lady, Aisha Buhari, in this piece would have been minimal; because she had not entered the fray then. However, as if speaking to validate this second part, Madam Aisha, last week, granted an interview to the British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC,

Hausa Service, where she lampooned some APC leaders while, at the same time, questioned the propriety of some of the appointments made by her husband, President Muhammadu Buhari. Her caustic remarks regarding the hijacking of her husband’s presidency, as well as a threat not to be part of any mobilisation effort to get the latter re-elected, is expected to rock the tectonic plates of the power structures in the APC. With the First Lady’s sudden intervention, an intervention which has generated serious controversy and is already being subjected to rigorous analysis in terms of the backroom scheming, every other permutation is bound to be altered. Yet, the leaders of the party are giving different interpretations to the Aisha outburst.

Just imagine!
The prognosis is scary. Even if the leaders of the All Progressives Congress, APC, were at peace with one another, Nigeria may not be at peace with itself in 2019 when election season happens upon the nation.

The ethno-regional sentiments, based on the North/South dichotomy, will again become a major talking point in the event that President Muhammadu Buhari does not seek re-election. What is constitutional is that a president has a right to seek re-election. What is expected is that after each two-term presidency by an individual from the North or South of Nigeria, the next shot would be taken by a politician from the other region.

It is also conventional. So, should Buhari not seek re-election, and his party presents a candidate of northern extraction, the likely argument, from political leaders in the South, would centre on the disturbing probability of another eight years (a constitutionally guaranteed two terms of four years each) for such a northern candidate. Conversely, should any of the two parties present a southern candidate, the likely argument to be made from the North would bother on the gloomy spectre of not being able to do the expected eight years.
Therefore, Buhari, with good health, should seek re-election.

The question that readily comes on the heels of this is: What are Buhari’s chances of first, seeking re-election, or even winning?
How does Muhammadu Buhari hope to get out of his current perceived captivity within the context of the realism of presidential power play inside his party; but more specifically, Aso Rock Presidential Villa?

Enter Aisha Buhari
While Sunday  Vanguard was still conducting interviews and carrying out its investigation on the power calculus in the APC, Aisha Buhari came on the scene.  In an interview with the BBC Hausa Service, she said: “I am not a government official, but in my opinion as a woman, a mother, what I think is it is well known that the first four years are not going to be easy. Firstly, it was people that brought the government into power.

More than half of those people are not appointed into government. Some people that are not politicians, not professionals were brought into government. They don’t even know what we said we want and what we don’t during the campaign.  They even come out and say to people ‘we are not politicians’, but they are occupying the offices meant for politicians. Some have parted with their wives, some lost their children, some women too have parted with their husbands because of politics; a lot happened during the time.

The way things are going, I too I am not happy. We are just starting, we have not finished. Some people that worked for government have been appointed. But those heading government agencies, you can find one fighting his state governor; they contested together during election, one in APC while in PDP. Everybody knows them. Those people should know that people voted singly. Even Buhari too had one vote. Nobody voted five times. 15.429 million people.

That one that people are thinking too, he had only some two or three people. I am pleading with them to have the people at heart and embrace everybody so that we can all move together. Not even now in 2016 or 17, a lot of people are creating divisions within the APC, which is our source of concern.

They think they have worked for the government while those appointed, some of them had no voter cards. What I fear is uprising of 15.4 million people”.

Turning out to be more like a validation of the chasm that is beginning to widen within the ranks of the APC leadership, Madam Buhari’s comments have poured cold water on those who continue to insist that all is cool within the party.

Issues in mismanagement of success?
Indeed, while the damage done by the preceding administration’s shambling of the governance processes is going to take a long time to be remedied, it is quite important to point out that working as a team would go a long way in helping the ruling party engage a sustainability paradigm which should see it delivering the much promised dividends to, in the words of Aisha Buhari, “15.429 million people”.

A recent betting advert reads, ‘If you don’t play, somebody else would win’.

What this means, in political currency, is that President Buhari and his APC are in danger of infuriating the 15.429 million people (and many more) who voted for the party.

Unfortunately, however, the funny politics of transition committees, fierceness of the National Assembly leadership election; the dirty, bitter squabbles over ministerial nomination and appointment process, as well as the seeming inertia in the executive leadership of the party, have all conspired to present the APC as a shambolic entity.

Worse still, the chasm that appears to have been created continues to widen.

Today, whereas there are flashes of good governance, there is a plethora of issues that can be pointed to by Nigerians as typifying the vestiges of the badness of the last administration, especially in matters politics – which was the point Aisha sought to make.

It is that perception challenge, made worse by the dwindling fortunes of the nation, and compounded by what appears to be a lack of traction in the activities of the Federal Government, that continues to accentuate the crisis rocking the APC.

Next week
The power blocs within APC within the context of Aisha Buhari’s outcry that her husband’s administration has been hijacked.

What Aisha Buhari told BBC

This version was conducted in Hausa, and was translated by Premium Times’ Sani Tukur.

Almost two years after President Muhammadu Buhari was elected into this government, it appears as if things are not going well, the people are complaining. Where do you think the problem is?

From my own observation, being a housewife, I think security wise; we have relatively achieved more than 100 percent. Being someone that comes from the North-East, I knew when almost no one slept in his or her house. But now, people sleep with their two eyes closed.

The hardship that people are going through now was anticipated, knowing what we inherited. It is not going to be a smooth journey; but I think so far so good. The only thing that almost everybody is not happy with, including myself, is about those that really suffered for this journey and now people who do not even have registration cards are guiding us, which is so unfair and unfortunate for the journey that we started more than 13 years ago.

But some people will say whenever you are elected into government, you have to bring in professionals, experts who know how to do the job and not just politicians?

Yes, but if you look at the journey that we had, after the merger, we didn’t call it merger or APC again. We called it a movement because it was a collective effort of millions of people, only for us to find out that the government is being operated by a few people. Very few people, in the sense that we have, maybe, four to six people, that really started the journey with us. Unfortunately, the people that are occupying the seats, I don’t think they have any expertise that our supporters in APC do not have. We have supporters all over the world. Those who really supported APC and felt that enough was enough, ‘let us have sanity in the society’, it was a collective effort. No one can say, ‘it was as a result of my hard work that I brought this government’, it was a real team work and we wish that the team work should continue. Everybody knows what my husband wants to achieve  in four years. But having this new set of people on board that were not part of us, they don’t really know what we promised Nigerians and that is the thing we are facing now.

Who are these four to five people you are talking about?

People like Ogbonnaya Onu, Rotimi Amaechi, Babatunde Raji Fashola, after the merger, it was a huge group that came together and started the struggle again. It is sad that very few are in the system now.

Though I heard that they are about to announce like 3,000 names as Board members; we feel that those who started the struggle should not be limited to Board members; they should be in positions of heading agencies that will impact positively on the lives of Nigerians. Knowing what we have campaigned for, only for us to bring people that are busy telling people that they are not politicians but they are occupying seats that were brought in by politicians, this is a huge disrespect for politicians. Knowing that we are just starting, we have not got to 2017, talk less of 2018 and then 2019 for us to go back to the polls?

Who are the very few people, as you said, surrounding Mr. President, and have you spoken to him about them?

Not only me in person, because after receiving complaints upon complaints, I decided to tell him. But then, a lot of people have been coming on their own and also collectively, to tell the President that things are not going the way it should when it comes to putting people in certain positions. Because most of those that are occupying positions in agencies, nobody knows them and they themselves don’t know our party manifesto; what we campaigned for. They were not part of us from the start. People were sitting down in their houses, folding their arms only for them to be called to come and head an agency or a ministerial position. They don’t have a mission or vision of the APC.

Whose fault is this?

It’s the fault of 15,429 million people because they are the ones that brought us into government. It’s their fault!

But theirs is just to elect APC and the President, and he is the one that is supposed to be in charge; is he not?

Because they elected him, that’s why he is here. If they can stand firm and strengthen the party and tell everybody that, ‘No! We can’t take this, we can’t take you because you are not a card carrying member, you do not know what we want to achieve within so and so time frame’. Fifteen point something million people is a huge number that can control a country.

Somebody listening to this will feel that President Buhari is not in charge of this government?

It is left for the people to decide whether he is in charge or he is not in charge. People actually accepted his ideology and decided to follow him for the past 13 years. That is what brought him to this current position.

As his wife, what will be your advice to him going forward?

My advice is to all the people who voted for him. They should strengthen the party and whoever is not part of the party should not have control over fifteen point something million people. We are in a democracy and not military era, so we have to play it well and leave a legacy.

What you are saying is that if things continue like this, he will not leave any legacy?

As a person, I have my right to say how I feel about something. If it continues like this, speaking for myself, I am not going to be part of any movement again, because I need to work with the people that we started the journey with collectively so that we can achieve what we want to achieve, so that he would leave a legacy.

Have you told your husband all these?

Yeah! He knows! At my own level, I have done it personally. I have also listened to people’s complaints and I tried to tell him what they are coming to tell me, so that if there is anything to be corrected, it should be corrected.