By Emmanuel Aziken
One of the selling points used to market the political aspiration of President Muhammadu Buhari in the past was the claim that he was not the run of the mill politician.
Buhari’s frugal instincts and introvert nature had shown him as being out of place with the acquisitive and exuberant impulses of many Nigerian politicians.
So when the president last week shook the political landscape with his decision to honour the sacrifice paid by Chief MKO Abiola, it was not surprising that friend and foe would describe his action as a political masterstroke.
Kingibe
Though the delivery of the package was largely naive, it was nevertheless, a significant masterstroke that may revive the Buhari phenomenon in the Southwest.
The political sophistication of the move and its consequence in the opinion of some must have been beyond the unpretentious political imaginations of the austere president.
In the opinion of some, the June 12 masterstroke was the brainchild of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, one man who significantly contributed to the realisation of the Buhari presidency.
Tinubu it is claimed may have chosen to swim or sink with the president. A Buhari second term, it is argued, would be to the great advantage of Tinubu whose 2023 presidential campaign could start the day Buhari wins a second term.
Others have pointed at the shadowy Ambassador Babagana Kingibe, reportedly, one of the intellectual powerbrokers behind the Buhari administration.
Kingibe’s influence in the Buhari regime had been largely unreported until the saga involving the appointment of a new director general of the National Intelligence Agency, NIA.
The former acting director-general, Mohammed Dauda had alleged in petitions to the House of Representatives of that he was schemed out of office by a power cabal in the presidency with Kingibe as an arrowhead. He had alleged in the petition that he refused to give heed to the demands of the cabal and was because of that refused confirmation as director-general of the NIA.
Before then, Kingibe had served in the Umaru Yar‘adua administration as Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF and was forced aside reportedly on account of the political power game in the villa.
Since he came into political reckoning in the Third Republic, Kingibe had been an astute man in power games. And he had almost always survived. After riding on the crest of the Shehu Musa Yar‘adua led Peoples Front to become the national chairman of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, he was soon enmeshed in a power game with Yar‘adua, his former benefactor.
After Abiola emerged as the presidential candidate of the SDP in 1993, his consideration for running mate was between Paschal Bafyau and Dan Suleiman, two Christians from Adamawa State. However, the powerful SDP governors’ lobby and Yar‘adua had their candidates in Kingibe and Atiku Abubakar respectively.
Kingibe eventually prevailed setting up the Muslim-Muslim ticket that defied creed and culture to win his historic victory.
However, Kingibe’s subsequent role in the Abacha government, hanging on, even when his principal was imprisoned left a sour taste in the mouth of several democracy activists.
A reminder of Kingibe’s loyalty to the June 12 mandate was echoed last week when the cover of a 1994 edition of The News Magazine with the banner headline: “Why I dumped Abiola – Kingibe” took social media by storm.
So when President Buhari decided to confer the nation’s second highest honour of Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger, GCON on Kingibe being the running mate to Abiola in the June 12 election, it inevitably stoked controversy.
To his critics, Kingibe did not deserve the honour. But those who justify the award say that Abiola could not have been a candidate without a running mate.
It is an argument that has bemused many democracy activists. But for the man who has almost always come back from the cold, the GCON was just another re-emergence after being taken to the political mortuary. If there was ever a man who ate his cake and kept it, Kingibe was surely the man.