By Clifford Ndujihe
Debatably, Governor Bukola Saraki of Kwara State and former National Security Adviser, NSA, Alhaji Aliyu Mohammed Gusau are among the front-runners in the on-going race for the nation’s topmost seat in Aso Rock, Abuja. They are both aspiring on the plank of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

They are both Northerners. They are also among the quartet of Northern presidential hopefuls, who want to join forces and a pick a consensus northern presidential flagbearer, to contest the PDP ticket with President Goodluck Jonathan.

These seem to be where the similarities end. Saraki and Gusau are indeed different. They are not from the same geo-political zone. Saraki hails from North-Central while Gusau is from North-West. Separately, they are prosecuting their electoral war games in unique manners. They don’t also belong to the same age group and do not share the same governance and administrative experience.

Gusau and Bukola Saraki

Saturday Vanguard took a peep into how the duo have been running their campaigns in the last two weeks, their strength, their weaknesses and their chances and what was observed was quite revealing.

Can Saraki get it done?

Since he joined the presidential race on September 20, Saraki has electrified the political atmosphere with his rapid campaigns. He has set his foot soldiers loose in the tight race to woo PDP delegates across the country. He has taken about 50 pages of colour adverts in national newspapers to sell himself. He is not averse to using all legal means and avenues to convince the electorate.

Like President Jonathan, who announced his intention to run on Facebook, Saraki is also exploiting the unlimited opportunities offered by e-campaigns. His campaign is on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube.

With “Let’s Get It Done,” as campaign slogan, the two-time Kwara State Governor, wants the 2011 presidential polls to be hinged on track record, economy, fresh thinking, generational change and need for vision, ideas and a new direction.

Without these, he fears that Nigeria might not realise her potentials. At 50 years after independence, he said: “Our great nation has not fulfilled its potentials and our realities are far from our ideals. It is time for a new generation to build a modern Nigeria.”

Saraki’s agenda

The aspirant said he was disturbed that five decades after independence, “we have failed to realise the dreams and aspirations of our founding fathers. We are the sixth largest oil producer in the world, yet we import fuel and have no electricity. We have some of the most intelligent and resourceful people on earth, yet we cannot make Nigeria work for you.”

According to him, Nigerians are not expecting too much from their leaders. “If truth be told, you are not asking for much from your government. You just want the custodians of our common wealth to give you good roads, good hospitals, good schools and a constant supply of electricity.

You want potable water, food to eat and a roof over your head. You want sensible policies that create opportunities; to profit from your labour, to use your God-given abilities to improve your lot and to take care of your aged and loved ones.

You want to give back to your community and you want a political system that encourages people to contribute to the development of our fatherland.

You want to be safe, to take a stroll in the night without fear. These are the yearnings in our hearts.”

“We can only attain these with effective, capable, caring, courageous and visionary leadership. We require fresh ideas and new thinking. This is the kind of leadership I have offered as Governor of Kwara State,” he declared.

If given the mandate, Saraki promised among others to:

*Build bridges of understanding across the nation
*Get the economy moving
*Educate our children

* Provide security, housing and boost agricultural production
* Enforce laws of the land and check crimes
* Create jobs

* Revamp healthcare
* Empower women and the youths

His strength, chances  Saraki believes he can deliver on  these promises and wants the electorate to judge him based on his track record as Kwara State governor.  He claims that in seven years he had transformed Kwara State and given Kwarans reasons to be proud of their state.

“Under my leadership, Kwara State became a reference point for new ideas, determination, dynamism and possibilities. An agro-allied economy was developed, jobs were created and power generation became a reality.

I can do the same for Nigeria. Nigeria is a bigger undertaking, but the challenge of leadership is the same.”

Sired by Second Republic Senate Leader and acclaimed father of Kwara politics, Dr. Olusola Saraki, the first-time presidential aspirant has, in his father, a political pedigree to lean on. It is therefore not a surprise that he broke the jinx of being re-elected as governor in Kwara State. Olusola Saraki is the leader of Northern Union, NU and is expected to deploy his political network in the aid of his biological and political son.

Shortly after his re-election in 2007, Saraki became the chairman of the Governors’ Forum, a gathering of the 36 states helmsmen of the country. He wielded much influence among the governors and was a major power broker under the administration of the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.

He was instrumental to the appointment of a host of ministers, presidential aides and heads of agencies under Yar’Adua.

Saraki was born on December 19, 1962. So, his supporters said he has age on his side as he will be 48 years in two months time. According to them, leaders of most leading countries of the world are within Saraki’s age bracket and Nigeria could ill-afford not to be blown by the generational wind of change.

They include Barrack Obama, USA, 48; David Cameron, UK, 43; Dimitri Medvedev, Russia, 45; Stephen Harper, Canada, 51; Julia Gillard, Australia, 49; Nicolas Sarkozy, France, 55; Luis Zapatero, Spain, 49; and Jose Socrates, Portugal, 53.

Before venturing into politics, Saraki was educated in both Nigeria and the UK and qualified and practiced as a Doctor in London before returning to Nigeria in 1989. He later became  Director of the Societe Generale Bank. He joined the public sector as special adviser to President Olusegun Obasanjo on Budget in 2000. He served on the Economic Policy Co-ordination Committee and later as the Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Non-Oil Revenue Generation.

To realise his presidential ambition, Saraki is expected to maximally utilise his strengths and mobilise support across the country.

Saraki’s weaknesses
He is unarguably among the newest presidential aspirants in Nigeria’s political firmament. Although he is from the North, pundits say his being Yoruba might count against him, less than four years after another Yoruba man, Obasanjo, quit power.

He is also from North-Central geo-political zone, which has held power longer than any other zone in the country. Since independence, the zone, through military dictators, had ruled Nigeria for 18 years.

He is also expected to build political structures across the 36 states and this is not yet on ground.

Currently, he is considered to have political anchor in Kwara, Kebbi and Gombe states.

Olusola Saraki’s decision to endorse his daughter Senator Gbemi Saraki, to succeed Bukola Saraki has been criticized and considered as being insensitive to the notion of equity and balance in the sharing of political offices at a time the presidential aspirant is mouthing ‘zoning’ at the federal level.

His campaign promises notwithstanding, some critics said Saraki is in the race primarily to ensure that power remains in the North. And that this accounts for his working accord with Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Gusua to produce a consensus northern candidate.

He also has to handle the perception that he was bent on going all the way if the consensus option did not favour him. Sources said he expects the older politicians to give him the nod to proceed.

Besides, his campaign team is considered unrepresentative with only Dr. Udenta O. Udenta, former secretary of the Alliance for Democracy, AD as the only Igbo in the top echelon. He is expected to get the backing of political heavyweights across all zones to sail through and this is not easy to come by.

Gusau’s long thirst for presidency
Among the crowd of presidential aspirants, Gusau has stayed longest in the corridors of power. Publicly he has been nursing the ambition of occupying the most powerful seat since 2006. And privately, as long as anyone can imagine. The retired general has been deeply involved in the nation’s public life for nearly 30 years starting from the military regime of Maj. Gen Muhammadu Buhari in January 1, 1984.

He was at various times head of Defence Intelligence Agency, National Intelligence Agency, Chief of Army Staff, and under the Chief Olusegun Obasanjo presidency, the security adviser. He was also a key player in the governments of Generals Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida, Sani Abacha and Obasanjo.

Gusau contested for the PDP’s ticket in December 2006, but he was beaten to the second position by the late Yar’Adua, who was largely backed by the party big guns, including former President Obasanjo.

Thereafter, Gusau went into retirement hoping to make another bid for the Presidency. He was still knocking together his political team when he was called upon by President Jonathan, then acting President, to serve as the NSA, at a time the nation’s ship of state faced some turbulence and instability as President Yar’Adua’s illness turned the latter into a lame duck.

The job, the fifth time he would be so appointed, temporarily demobilized his political footwork, but not his interest, his aides had said.

Gusau’s agenda
Speaking through the Director General of his campaign organisation, Sen. Ben Obi, the former NSA said if elected into office in 2011, he would focus on such critical areas as power, energy, security, justice and evenly distributed prosperity.

He said that Gusau’s entrance into the race does not negate the desire of the Northern elders to produce a consensus candidate for the North. He wants the election to be anchored on issues, experience and ability to deliver.

His chances
Gusau’s aides told Vanguard that one factor that would favour him, in the pursuit of the Presidency, is his network of powerful friends, outside Nigeria and all over the country, with a lot of them within the ruling PDP.

Aliyu Gusau is said to have wielded enormous influence across the country and beyond, and has been deeply involved in the nation’s public life for about 26 years.

He is considered as the power-behind-the-throne in most of the administrations since President Ibrahim Babangida took power in ‘a palace coup’ in August of 1985. But for Babangida’s coup, accounts had it that Buhari would have sacked Gusau from the army because of his influence on the rank and file of the military.

Gusau spearheaded the re-organisation of the security and intelligence apparatuses of the Nigeria Security Organisation , NSO during the Buhari regime. The intelligence and security operations of the nation was broken up into three organizations: State Security Services (SSS), National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI).

The Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar regime also enlisted Gusau’s services for the recovery of huge sums looted by the Abacha regime from foreign banks.

According to reports, Gusau was one of those who were consulted by the Nigerian military establishment and international intelligence and diplomatic agencies on the way to picking the president in 1999. His favourable reports were said to have aided Obasanjo’s emergence.

A quiet and smooth operator, he is said to have been building his network for sometime now.

Born in 1943 in Gusau, Zamfara State, Aliyu’s career in the army dated back to 1967, when he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant on March 18. He attained the peak of his career when he was made the NSA during the Babangida regime and when IBB’s regime ended; Gusau became the Chief of Army Staff to the infamous Ernest Shonekan-led Interim National Government.

His supporters said he was one person who could not be over looked in the politics of Nigeria, as his intelligence and military connections allegedly caused the rise or fall of over five civilian and military regimes.

His expertise, his local and international reach which is believed to be second to none and his credibility among the northern circles may work to his advantage.

Gusau’s weaknesses
So far, his campaigns have been devoid of media glitz. He is considered strong in only three states – Jigawa, Sokoto and Zamfara. In spite of his wide consultations, he appears not have got the support of principal stakeholders across the country, especially in the South.

At 68 years, the clamour of generational change is against his aspiration. He also has a tough nut to crack to emerge as the Northern consensus aspirant.

Besides, Gusau is from the North-West zone that had held power for about 14 years through military and civilian regimes.

Critics said his major credential – security advisory experience, had not rubbed off positively on the country. According to them, if his advice had jelled, the country would not be caught in the web of kidnapping (Sooth-East), militancy (Niger-Delta), religious and ethnic violence (North) and armed robbery and assassination, etc, all over the country.

His hope seems to hang on the outcome of the consensus arrangement. And if it did not in his favour, he publicly declared last week that he would throw in the towel

It was alleged yesterday that he was ready to drop his ambition to back one of the three northern aspirants in the consensus option.

Contacted, his campaign director, Senator Obi, said it was not true. “I don’t know about that. At least I should know.”

Obi said the 17 wise men, were still working on the consensus candidate and would come out with their choice very soon.