Sir Celestine Omehia is the former Governor of Rivers State. In this interview with journalists in Abuja, he gave reasons why Buhari should not be voted in as President. In his view, if General Muhammadu Buhari is elected president in 2015, his election would be tantamount to retrogressing the country.
Responding to whether he thinks President Goodluck Jonathan is a match for Buhari in the coming 2015 election, he said, “I don’t have any fear about Buhari being the APC presidential candidate. People are rating Buhari from his military achievements, but we are now talking about the democratic government of Nigeria.
If Buhari achieved anything, it was by the force of arms – the use of the army, the use of gun and so on. If you put Buhari and Goodluck Jonathan in the same environment, you will see that their behaviour would be different. One was democratically brought up. The democratic ideologies in him are different from the military ideologies in Buhari.”
He further stated that, “Buhari has not learnt anything about democracy and more so, Buhari’s so called achievements in administration were not piloted by him. They were practically piloted by his second-in-command and the second-in-command unfortunately, is not his second-in-command now. He has a professor as his running mate. And we are not talking of academic work; we are talking of practical politics.
We are not talking of who will be tested in the laboratory, we are not talking about who will be tested in the farmyard; we are talking of democracy in politics. So, if the two second-in-commands are not the same, it then means that Buhari cannot do better than Jonathan.
But one thing is basic: Jonathan has had democratic experience from being deputy governor to governor, from being governor to vice president, being vice president to president. You cannot compare their experience in life in terms of democratic experience. You cannot compare their achievements. Put on the same scale, Jonathan will score 80 percent, while Buhari will score 20 percent in democratic achievements.
If you put them on the same scale, the vice presidential candidate of the PDP who was once a governor and vice president for some number of years will score much more than the intimidated vice presidential candidate of the APC. So, put the two together, Nigerians are matured enough and reasonable enough to think and know that Jonathan stands a better chance to give Nigerians what they need. Again, don’t forget that being the president for four years running; Jonathan has set several things in motion: several projects, several principles, and several ideologies that could keep Nigeria moving.
On the other hand, if Buhari is given the opportunity, he will set Nigeria ten years backward because we will start a new idea not from where Jonathan has started. He will go back and draw a plan that is different from what Jonathan has started. And in that case, Nigeria will be taken ten years behind the schedule. So, the issue of continuity comes to play.
I have always said the issue of continuity is important in Nigerian politics and in the Nigerian administrative system. Mind you, APC is only coming up with vendetta. APC has never said anything good about any other party. So, when they talk about what they can do for Nigeria, APC would always think of how to destroy what the PDP has set up to do and in that case, there would be a lot of abandoned projects, there would be a lot of wastage of our resources, there would be a lot of acrimony between the two parties. So, there would be no need creating such things.”
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