Buhari and Saraki

I would give the proverbial arm to know what President Buhari and Senate President Bukola Saraki said to each other last week Thursday. Still, the photo smiles of a tired-looking President, VP, Saraki and a posse of governors (who presumably, midwifed a meeting of the two people with potentially the greatest impact on the 2019 elections) was a collector’s item. It has been in the air that Saraki was leading an exodus of powerful and severely aggrieved APC politicians, and  President Buhari was treating the threat in his characteristic manner: either it will all go away, or it will be someone else’s responsibility to deal with. The comfort is in knowing that this week, it will most likely all spill out. It is that season of high drama, risky gambles and earth-shaking developments that will lay out the boundaries of the contests for elective offices next year.

Four years ago this month, Saraki’s group absconded with a huge chunk of the APC’s assets, and were settling in nicely into the new coalition that was the APC, leaving a fatal gap in the PDP. The tables are now turning. The political renegades say they had found no home in the APC and appear, in all likelihood, to be headed back to PDP. They also appear to have picked a substantial number of other aggrieved APC politicians along the way. President Buhari’s fixers with some political antennae must have been alarmed enough to shut out the let-them-go chorus that had been dominant in the air until now. Arrogant complacency over Saraki's wrecking crew's threat to the APC must have worried a few around a President not used to panicking over opposition. It now appears that President Buhari was convinced that he had to persuade Saraki to call off the rebellious hoard  that had all but factionalized the party.

Now, let your imagination roam around what President Buhari could  have said to a man he had prosecuted for three years until the Supreme Court said he was innocent, and that his trial had been engineered by other interests outside the powers of the Court of Conduct Tribunal. In general terms, Buhari’s propagandists have created a role for Saraki as the scoundrel-in-chief in the anti-corruption war. In the last three months, Buhari’s police had strongly hinted that Saraki was the leader of an armed robbery gang in his home state. Many of Saraki’s fellow-travelers also bear deep scars from altercations with law and order agencies and governors who appeared to enjoy free hands to make enemies for the president. The party structure had shut out an entire segment of elected members of the APC, making it virtually impossible for them to contest fairly for re-election. Scores of Senators and dozens of members of the House of Representatives can only win back mandates if they contest on other party platforms. The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara who is the highest ranking elected northern Christian in the ruling APC has been stripped of all influence and presence in his State by his governor. There are a number of governors in Saraki’s group who are unsure whether the APC can or will deliver them another mandate.

President Buhari obviously assumes that Saraki has awesome powers of forgiveness and the clout to lead a large group of very bitter politicians who are convinced they will get better deals elsewhere, back to the APC. In fairness, it must also be assumed that the President had offered Saraki & Co some incentives to stay, but what could they be? He cannot dismantle the elaborate party structures put in place by governors to keep Saraki’s people out. He cannot persuade governors to make up with injured adversaries, some of whom suffer precisely because they covet the governor’s places. He cannot call off the EFCC from pursuing suspects without doing serious damage to his fragile claim to fighting corruption. He will not stand down for another person, nor can he convincingly promise to be a different person or president. He has little time left to make major changes in his government to affect improvements in the quality of governance.

President Buhari could promise Saraki’s people to be altogether a different leader if they all stay put and get him re-elected, but will they believe him? Already in his 70s, he is pretty much settled in his ways, and these do not include pronounced traits for charting new courses, living outside the past or designing radically new options. If he has another four years, will he run a more effective and inclusive adminstration? Will he dismantle the tiny, rigid circle of relations to whom he appears to have consigned huge powers to run the country? Will he eschew the tendency to ignore vital political relationships; assume a firmer control over the decision-making process; and respect the rule of law more diligently in a four-year period when he could afford to be less accountable? Will his frail health hold enough to allow him to personally offer strong leadership in a nation desperate to be secured, healed, united and developed? Can he be trusted by people who see him basically a vindictive, narrow -minded leader who has deep disdain for the basic mechanics of politics?

If Senator Saraki walks with a swagger these days, it will not be the result of the vindication of his innocence by the Supreme Court. True, that  verdict must have removed a huge psychological restraint on an ambitious politician, but the swagger will hide deep concerns that his group’s  destination is by no means a distinctly better option than staying, as we speak. They are working to put together a coalition around their old party, the PDP, but that will only give it a thin coat of paint which will not cover its basic character. His camp, which is still dangerously exposed to subversion, has many doubts over their ability to sell the PDP as a better choice  than Buhari’s APC, even potentially poorer without them. It will be interesting to see how much Saraki’s people can make PDP change its character, and how much difference they can make to its chances to defeat the APC. In 2015, they reinforced the APC’s key selling point, which was Buhari. If they leave now, Buhari will be the only asset available to the APC, as well as  its major liability. Can Buhari defeat a poorly-rebranded coalition using only his bruised persona and a ragged scorecard?

Saraki and his fellow travelers have two options. They can continue  to perch  on the margins of the APC with their record of  disloyalty to Buhari and trust that the future will be kind to them. Or they can leave and do all they can to defeat Buhari, because life for them under Buhari’s second term will be thoroughly unbearable.