by Afe Afekhume
The Nigerian government has been on this war of Terror for about 5 years now and they should have gathered enough intelligence to know the real sponsors of Boko haram.
….In the build-up to the 2012 US elections, Republican Mitt Romney was hot on Democrat and incumbent president, Barack Obama’s heels. Several credible polls gave Romney a slight edge over Obama especially on critical issues like National Security, the economy, foreign policy etc.
Just few weeks to the elections, two things happened: one was natural and the other man-made. The natural one was a crisis; “Hurricane Sandy” ravaged some American states. Obama grabbed that opportunity to deal with it. Americans commended him for quality leadership in time of crisis and said he was “Presidential”. Then, BOOM!!!……… his ratings skyrocketed.
The other was a “leak” of the details of Osama bin Laden’s raid and the US war on terror. This boosted Obama’s chances. The Republicans cried foul and accused The White House for the leak to gain political points. But who cares?
Fast-forward to 2015, somewhere in Nigeria, a similar scenario to that of America in 2012 is playing out. Gen Muhammadu Buhari is posing to be a real challenge to the incumbent, President Jonathan’s re-election bid. However, he has long been ‘wrongly’ accused of being a key sponsor of Boko-Haram. Many Nigerians think so and aides/supporters of the President and his Party have, at one point or the other, insinuated same.
It is sad and unfortunate that anyone in my generation will believe this – without proof.
This is a good opportunity for the supporters of the incumbent to grab and put a nail to the Buhari surge. The Nigerian government has been on this war of terror for about 5 years now and they should have gathered enough intelligence to know the real sponsors of Boko Haram. Even America will know (it is ‘their’ war!!!) if Buhari has/had ties with this sect and would have made sure he doesn’t participate in the upcoming elections. US Secretary Kerry will not hold a meeting with a sponsor of terror.
If the Nigerian government has proof of Muhammadu Buhari being a sponsor, they should “leak” (release it and deny that they did) evidence linking him so that Nigerians will vote massively for President Jonathan.
Speak now or forever hold your peace!
It’s 11 days to go , Dr. Reuben Abati, Dr Doyin Okupe, Pastor Reno Omokri, Dr Femi Fani-Kayode, Mr. Olisa Metuh, and all others your time starts now!
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Afe Afekhume tweets from @afekhumedaniel
Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.
They are clueless and failed Nigerians in time of security needs. Enough of Jonathan era. He cannot fool us for so long and wants to continue for the next 4 years again. Let Nigeria voters decide his faith. Now they want to see that the election become impossible because they now know that they will loose at the poll no matter how they campaign against the person of Buhari. God help us out of the present situation we find ourselves.