Anyone who says President Muhammadu Buhari’s mind is at ease now, as the countdown for picking a consensus candidate that would replace him come 2023 clinches closer, is certainly a good candidate for the Arrow mental hospital. PMB and his allies are surely Dis-Eased. If you remove the hyphen between the Dis and the Ease, you can comfortably say they have a DISEASE. Yes, in trying to get a leader for tomorrow, the present leader is burdened by a disease today.
The story making the rounds is that, thirteen northern Governors, all of them from the All Progressives Congress, APC, are insisting that the presidential ticket of the party must go to the south. The governors have conveyed their position to President Muhammadu Buhari, who earlier on had pleaded with them to give him the liberty of choosing his successor, just like he gave them the liberty of choosing theirs’. Nothing can be more fair-minded, I think.
According to reports, the President had directed the governors to meet with the national working committee (NWC) of the party to resolve the issue of a consensus candidate, just as the National Chairman of the party, Sen. Abdullahi Adamu is maintaining the position that the party is presenting the Senate President, Sen. Ahmed Lawan as the consensus candidate. This is clearly in conflict with the position of the northern governors.
In the forefront of this agitation to compel PMB to surrender, is my hero, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, the indefatigable Governor of Kaduna State. And I would want PMB to use his circumstances, in choosing the present Emir of Zazzau, as a case study on this issue.
It may be recalled that, pursuant to the demise of His Highness, Alhaji Shehu Idris, the 17th Fulani Emir of Zazzau, the Kaduna State Government, under His Excellency, Mal. Nasir El-Rufai, announced the appointment of Amb.Ahmed Bamalli as the new Emir of Zazzau. This was after a long wait of 17 days since the stool became vacant, and after the submission and rejection of several names to the Governor by the Kingmakers.
The selection process was marred by controversies, because, contrary to the position of the Kingmakers, who did not consider Amb. Bamalli among the frontrunners, he happened to be the preferred candidate of Mallam El-Rufai, hence his insistence for the list to be changed and changed, until a space was provided to accommodate him.
Those in the consideration of the Kingmakers were, the late Iyan Zazzau, Bashar Aminu, the Yariman Zazzau, Munir Ja’afaru and the Turakin Zazzau, Aminu Idris. But my hero El-Rufai wanted Amb. Bamalli, and eventually that’s what prevailed.
Now, has Mallam Nasiru gotten any moral right, to ask someone to relinquish his right of selection, especially when it comes to selecting his successor? The answer would be NO.
Information from the grapevine is saying the governors have now trimmed down the list of names to five, from which they want the President to select one, all of them from the south. However, another source is saying seven of the Presidential aspirants have dismissed and distanced themselves from that arrangement, saying they were not consulted before the Governors arrived at the decision.
In the heat to the selection of the new Emir for Zazzau, Governor El-Rufai posted on his Facebook page, the picture of a seminal work on the old Hausa kingdom of Zazzau, saying he was consulting, while awaiting the submission of the Zazzau kingmakers. The book is, ‘Government in Zazzau, a sociological exploration of the old Emirate’, written by a former colonial officer.
“While awaiting the recommendations of the Zazzau Emirate kingmakers, I am re-reading Prof MG Smith’s authoritative epic on the selection of Zazzau Emirs from 1800 to 1950 to guide me in taking a decision. The kingmakers can recommend but ultimate responsibility to choose rests on my humble self. I must be knowledgeable about the process”.- Mal. Nasir El-Rufai.
With such antecedent, if I were PMB, I would ask Governor El-Eufai, to lend me that book, and direct me to the precise page that talked about the powers of outsiders to compel a President to accept their own consensus, as his own consensus.
