•Report by Kamil Opeyemi
A former Secretary to the Government of the Federation,Babachir Lawal has said that President Muhammadu Buhari is not in total control of governance.
Lawal said this while featuring on Channels Television’s special programme “The 2023 Verdict” on Friday.
According to him, those in the current administration who had the ears of the President refused to carry Buhari’s expectations.
“Things are out of his hands, there’s no running away from that fact. There are people that do not take the orders they are given,” he stated.
“As soon as they leave where the order is given, they go and do different things.There is nothing like cabal. There is no government that does not have an inner caucus. There’s no government.
“There are people who have the ears of the President, to whom the President by functionality, their functions in government, ought to do things, but they are not doing what the President tells them to do, or what the President expects them to do, or what society itself expects them to do.”
“The expectation was that based on the president’s antecedent as former governor of Borno State, former Minister of Petroleum and then President, but when he got in I think he had issues with some of his lieutenants about who executes the orders he gives and who executes the policies that he makes,” Lawal claimed.
Speaking further,Lawal said that he dumped the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) for the Labour Party,adding that he pitched his tent with the LP’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, for the February 25 election after realizing that he is the ‘light’.
Describing the APC and the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the old system which represents ‘darkness’, Lawal said he saw the light and left the darkness.
“I have seen the light, you can repent when you see the light, I saw the light and repented. The light is Peter Obi; the darkness is the old system that used to govern us which is represented by both the PDP and APC. Same people, same agbada, same red caps, so Nigerians have seen the light not only me.
“In the life of a people that are so oppressed living under indescribable insecurity, poverty, ignorance, hunger and diseases, a time comes when they get fed up and little thing will just ignite the flame and there is conflagration. I can tell you Peter Obi is that conflagration in Nigeria because every Nigerian has come to realize there is no way we can continue the way we are going,” Lawal said.
Speaking on the chances of Obi in February polls, Lawal said the LP candidate will achieve more than 50 percent of the total votes cast in the majority of the states in northern Nigeria.
“On the side of the Labour Party, what has changed is that areas where we had not expected the Labour Party to do well; they are galloping through. The momentum is so much that it is difficult to curtail,”he said
“When the 2023 election season commenced, Peter Obi was not on the card during the computations as to what will happen and the expectation was that the race was a straight one between APC and PDP.
“Out of nowhere,Peter Obi came in and then followed by Rabiu Kwankwaso.The whole permutations changed.
“Unfortunately for the two parties (APC and PDP) they don’t have the capacities to factor this dynamic.
“As we speak,Peter Obi has run PDP out of Adamawa,Taraba, Plateau, Benue, and Kaduna states and quite a number of states in the north.
“Before, in our calculations,we were targeting 25 percent but now we are targeting within 55 to 70 percent in the majority of the states in the north.”
Reacting to a comment by Kaduna state governor,Nasir el-Rufai, that Obi is an actor and can’t win the election, the former SGF said el-Rufai will be shocked by the outcome of the election.
“Every Nigerian is now determined to have a say in this election, including those who Nasir el-Rufai claimed are not many. He said northern Christians are not many.
“I want him to wait for February 25 and he will see the shock of his life. When he goes around bandying about five and six million votes in Kano, he forgets that in that five and six million, the Igbo are about one million, residing in various towns in Kano,”he said