Attahiru Bafarawa, former
governor of Sokoto state, says he manipulated the presidential primary of the
All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) in favour of Muhammadu Buhari in 2003.
Buhari got the party’s nomination
but lost to President Olusegun Obasanjo in the presidential election.
Bafarawa, who was doubling as the
party’s chairman then, said Rochas Okorocha was set to pick the ANPP
presidential ticket following a mock primary conducted before the nomination
convention.
According to him, Okorocha came
first, winning 27 of the 36 states and the FCT, while Buhari could only win
five.
These revelations are contained
in a new book, ‘Politics as Dashed Hopes in Nigeria’, written by Auwala Anwar,
PhD, and former special assistant to the president on FCTA from 2004-2007.
The preview copy of the book,
published by Safari Books, was exclusively made available to TheCable and will
be launched in Abuja on Thursday, January 31.
The book offers an account into
the inner workings of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), the party
founded by Buhari to run in the 2011 presidential election after he had fallen
out with the ANPP having failed to win in 2003 and 2007.
‘HE DOESN’T EVEN KNOW OUR NAMES’
Anwar narrated how Bafarawa
cajoled the state chairmen of the party to support Buhari after they had said
they would not vote for him in the primary.
He wrote: “Buhari was not even
able to secure all the 7 votes from his geo-political zone (north-west). When
Bafarawa saw how dismally Buhari’s performance had been, he not only suspended
the meeting for a break but also requested the state chairmen to stay behind
for some announcements. He later cajoled the chairmen and explained to them
that his preference was for Buhari to emerge the winner. In response, they all
assured him that, although they were ready to do whatever he requested, as
their leader, they were still not inclined to vote for Buhari.
“On enquiry, the chairmen
explained that it would be foolish for them to vote for someone who did not
even know their names. They charged that whenever he came across them, the best
he could do to address them was to use generic terms of “Mister” or “Alhaji,”
depending on whether a chairman came from the South or the North, respectively.
They sensed the futility of supporting someone who did not bother to know them
while he was seeking for their support.”
Okorocha, they said, had drawn
close to everyone of them, even giving them N250,000 each to supplement their
travel expenses.
BAFARAWA ‘TURNS THE TABLE’
In an interview with the author,
Bafarawa, who is now a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said: “I
appealed to the chairmen to change their mind because of the prospects of the
party at the polls if it were Buhari that emerged as our flag-bearer. I also
directed one of my staff, Abdullahi Bida, a relation to Buba Galadima, to give
each of them five hundred thousand naira (500,000). I later called General
Buhari to meet me at the Niger State Governor’s Lodge, where I was staying. He
came around 4 a.m. together with Sule Hamma.
“I informed him about the efforts
I had made to turn the table against Rochas. I also explained to him that I had
arranged for a private meeting between him and the state chairmen, later at 2
p.m. Furthermore, I begged him to be patient with all the criticisms and the
complaints they would lodge against him.
“Additionally, I gave him five
million naira to give them to fuel their vehicles back to their respective
states. He collected the money and thanked me for all the trouble that I took
to see him through. He later handed over the money to them at the end of their
meeting.”
THE RESISTANCE
Anwar wrote: “The rigging of the
mock election in favour of Buhari was not without resistance. Some of the
southern aspirants, who learnt of the private meeting organised between Buhari
and their state chairmen, invaded the venue and accused Bafarawa of nepotism.
He responded by reminding them how he also arranged for similar meetings
between some of them and the state chairmen.”
Southern aspirants withdrew from
the convention, including Nnia Nwodo, now president of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, in
protest.
Nwodo famously made his “my heart
bleeds for Nigeria” speech while pulling out from the race at the convention
ground.
Obasanjo eventually won the
election, credited with scoring 24.4 million votes while Buhari got 12.7
million.
After an unsuccessful second
attempt in 2007, Buhari’s associates accused the ANPP governors of betraying
him and left the party to form CPC.
Both ANPP and CPC are now part of
the All Progressives Congress (APC) which won power in the 2015 elections in an
unprecedented defeat of a sitting government.
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