President Buhari, Betray Not Thy Brother, Bola Tinubu -Jesutega Onokpasa

My dear President Muhammadu Buhari, I wish you well for in wishing you well, I am also wishing my country, therefore myself, well.

My President, history has a most uncanny way of repeating itself.

You simply cannot afford to end your career as a democratic leader the same way you ended it as a military head of state.

While you could have taken solace in the fact that you were overthrown before you could truly make your mark in the eighties, you do not have the privilege of such excuse this time around.

You cannot leave office and be known as a backstabber and betrayer of your friends.

You cannot leave the presidency without doing all in your power to ensure your party and its candidate succeed you.

I do not know what anyone close to you might have been whispering in your ears.

Even if you hadn’t had any history, whatsoever, with Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, it is still him you should support and work to hand over to amongst the contenders for President, since he is the candidate of your party, therefore your candidate and political obligation, Mr. President!

That is what honour demands.

Even if you hadn’t had any history, at all, with Bola Tinubu, he is still the one you should support and work to hand over to going by track record in governance, leadership credentials, and, history of delivery of the dividends of democracy to the greatest number of people.

That is what love for country dictates.

Unless we are to be willfully detained by some diabolically weird paradigm of preferences, how might either Atiku Abubarkar or Peter Obi even remotely compare with Bola Tinubu?

What has Atiku ever achieved in his entire life that wasn’t for himself alone and to the detriment of this country?

The man is profusely the least qualified of the entire lot to be President!

He clearly does not love our country, Mr. President, hence his desperation to rule even if it leads to the dismemberment and final demise of Nigeria by stealing the turn of the South to produce the next President of Nigeria.

Trust me, my President, that is exactly what will happen to this country were Atiku to win.

The entire southern half of your presidential constituency (and do not for a second forget our entire country, North and South, is your one and only true constituency) would immediately, thereafter, become so irretrievably disenchanted that what we are presently witnessing as secessionist movements would become a full-blown pandemic even up to the Middle Belt!

I am quite sorry to have to put it so bluntly but it is the truth that sets us free: you cannot allow yourself to be the last President of Nigeria or you would have become a complete disgrace and an eternal disappointment, my President.

You cannot be the President who Southerners assisted to become President only to stab them in the back and insist on handing over to your fellow Fulani.

You will only, thus, end up effectively decommissioning your country, Mr. President.

Those pushing this satanic nonsense of one Northerner handing over to another, may think they are only trying to win a presidency but what they are actually sowing are not even the seeds, but, indeed, the full-grown Iroko trees of the final division and dissolution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria!

My President, this country, Nigeria will not have one Fulani handing over to another.

It is actually that simple, sir.

If anyone is telling you anything different, that person, however close to you, is actually your very worst enemy.

As for the pathologically lying Peter Obi, he cannot muster the votes to win and even if by some miracle, were to do that, would immediately become the worst thing to ever happen to this country.

He would simply be unable to rule.

He was barely able to govern his native Anambra – how can it possibly be Nigeria that he could possibly superintend?

The man implacably despises our country, even to the extent of brewing alcohol with the Biafran flag on its logo!

He cannot and will not be our President.

A Peter Obi victory would immediately lead to the implosion of this country even before he could be sworn-in.

But, come to think of it, my President, do I really need to tell you to support Asiwaju Bola Tinubu?

Does anyone, within or without our party need to do that?

How did it even come to this, that the entire party is becoming suspicious of you and your loyalty to it, even while being the chief beneficiary of its electoral success?

My President, can you really consider yourself a good Muslim if you were to betray Bola Tinubu, of all people, as many in the party and Nigerians, at large, now believe you are doing?

My President, please and please, please, insist on exiting with grace and not in disgrace.

Go out in style, indeed, with the honour and integrity expected of a true Muslim.

Make sure you hand over to Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu or you would have completely failed, once again.

Bola Tinubu is thy brother from another mother according to the will of God, the Almighty, who works in mysterious ways.

Believe it or not, apart from your wife and children of your loins, Tinubu is undoubtedly the very best thing to ever happen to you in this life, my President!

It is not only by blood that we become brothers; it is also by the will of God.

Unfortunately, tens and tens of millions of Nigerians now suspect you are ultimately the one trying to stab your own brother in the back!

Nigerians accuse your blood relations of machinating needless horrors of fuel scarcity and currency chaos against them just so they might stop Bola Tinubu, thereby biting the finger that fed them.

Mr. President, I don’t know these brothers, nephews or other categories of relations of yours, but, even if only because they are your flesh and blood, may God bless them.

Nevertheless, they are not elected officials, hold absolutely no mandates whatsoever and have no business dictating policy.

In any case, strictly politically speaking, all of them combined were not even remotely as contributive as Asiwaju in electing you President of Nigeria, twice in a row!

And, unless they are truly terrible people, they should not forget that.

To the extent that they might actually be working against Asiwaju and our party, they are the greatest ingrates in the world; a complete disgrace to African values; and, total embarrassments to Islamic tenets.

Frankly, I would rather not have any brothers, at all, than have the likes of them for my family.

In any case, neither our country nor party is a family enterprise and everyone ought to know his proper place within the greater scheme of things.

We have an election to win in a matter of days and, that election, in case you didn’t know, is actually your responsibility, as sitting President, to win for us.

Dear President Muhammadu Buhari, get up from thy slumber and move mountains, if need be, to win this election for thy brother, Asiwaju, for the rest of us in this party, for yourself, as our President, and, most importantly, for Nigeria and the future of this country.

My President, you called this man “Mr President” in Bauchi; it cannot be that when you did that, you were just scamming him for that is most certainly not who you are!

Mr. President, you are a child of God and you will be thy brother’s keeper.

Believe me, my President, the greatest legacy you could ever possibly leave is to hand over to Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, thy brother from above, according to the will of God whom it pleases to bring his children, even from the ends of the Earth, together as one.

And that is what we are in this country: one nation, one destiny!

May God bless you and your entire household as I wish you and yours a happy St Valentine’s Day, Mr. President.

Onokpasa, a lawyer and member, All Progressives Congress, APC Presidential Campaign Council, writes from Abuja.