By Ibrahim Habu Suleiman
Politics in Nigeria cannot be complete today without mention of Engr Buba Galadima, an engineer by training and a politician by his calling, who became popular nationwide as an opposition politician from the fourth republic. He excelled as a vocal critic of political affairs, based on the populous belief that a Democratic society seeks to serve the interests of the people and that democracy itself is a government of the people, for the people and by the people.
Born in 1948, Alhaji Buba Galadima bagged a B.Sc in Building Engineeeing from the famous Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in 1975. He rose to the position of Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Authority, MMA now referred to as NIMASA before throwing himself fully into politics in the nineteen nineties. As a politician it did not take long before he became popular as a passionate critic and a frontliner in the opposition circle. This further made him a toast of the media in the country as well as the national and international human rights and civil society organisations following his frequent brush with law enforcement agencies in the country.
Buba Galadima teamed up with the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP and became a staunch critic of the Obasanjo administration accusing President Olusegun Obasanjo of being “the usurper president.” When Buhari pulled out from the ANPP over irreconcilable differences with the leadership of the party, Alhaji Galadima went with the breakaway faction led by General Muhammadu Buhari to form The Buhari Organisation and he became the national campaign secretary of TBO from where the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC was formed in 2006, as platform to contest the 2011 presidential election.
Subsequently, Galadima became the National Secretary of the CPC while Tony Momoh was made the National Chairman in January 2011. As the national secretary of the CPC Engr Galadima freely descended on the ruling PDP at the slightest opportunity particularly after CPC’s defeat at the 2011 general elections, insisting that the ruling party rigged the elections. The result was a protracted court action decided finally by the supreme court. In fact, the violence that broke out in the North following Buhari’s defeat at the 2011 elections was blamed on Galadima and Buhari. Galadima, who is one of the nine signatories that came together for the merger with a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, Congress for Progressive Change, CPC and Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, remained a loyal supporter of General Muhammadu Buhari for president until 2015.
However, Galadima’s loyalty and support to Buhari began to fade and finally he outrightly rejected the president’s decision to contest again at the 2015 Presidential election, arguing that he had promised not to stand for the president again. Presidemt Buhari’s explanation that he was called upon to stand by the generality of the people did not convince Galadima, who already had Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso as his preferred candidate. In fact, not even the primaries held in Port Harcourt in 2015 that produced Muhammadu Buhari as the party’s presidential flag bearer could appease Galadima.
Perhaps, it was because he intended to change camp that he decided to retire ostensibly from active politics in order to give him time to make up his mind. And truly, though retired Engr Galadima was apparently not tired; he resurfaced this time around as a vehement critic of the man he had helped to make president. He accused PMB of failing to keep his promises. Since then, observers have continued to ponder on why the sudden turn-around by Engr Galadima who had become a household name as one of the leading figures solidly behind President Buhari up to his emergence as the elected president of the Federal Republic. A school of thought reasoned that the apparent absence of ideology among politicians and political parties must have been at the back of Engr Buba Galadima’s actions. It was gathered that he supported Kwankwaso to win the APC presidential primaries in 2015 and when the latter lost, he decided to retire from active politics. But when it became apparent that Kwankwaso and his group were actually planning to ditch the APC, Engr Galadima decided to come back from retirement.
Nevertheless, since 2015, Engr Galadima’s sustained vitriolic attacks and outright propaganda against the APC and President Buhari failed to unseat the president – so far. His new boss, Atiku Abubakar was soundly beaten at the polls with a wider margin than between Goodluck Jonathan and Buhari in 2015 when the former threw in the towel even before the votes were fully counted. As the nation awaits the court judgement on whether Buhari’s victory was truly as a result of rigging and INEC’s complicity in deliberately declaring Buhari winner when according to the PDP its candidate was actually the winner, Galadima and co would continue to clutch at straws to save their political careers.
It is a sad irony that Engr Galadima has now become like a bat that is neither bird nor human. Now he would either call himself the national chairman of the Reformed APC whose members have long decamped to the opposition PDP or the spokesman of either Atiku Abubakar or the PDP. In fact, his condition has become so pathetically ridiculous that the APC is now officially not willing to join forces with him on any national issues because he seems to have lost all credibility as a principled politician whose word is golden. As Professor Itse Sagay, Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption noted, it is difficult to understand what “befell Buba Galadima at his old age that made him to continually talk recklessly and becoming irresponsible.” Further in the same interview with Vanguard, when asked to comment on Buba Galadima’s allegation that President Buhari militarised the 2019 elections in favour of the APC, Professor Sagay said, “I don’t know what he lost or didn’t get in APC that affected his mentality that he is talking childishly and embarrassingly.” He explained further that in states like Zamfara, most of the entire North east and Rivers as well as Akwa Ibom, for instance, there would have been no election without the military. So instead of descending on the military, they deserve some gratitude. Recently, the national publicity secretary of the APC, Mr Lanre Issa-Onilu when asked to comment on Buba Galadima’s allegations that the APC actually lost the February 23 presidential election to the PDP, said that he would not descend to joining forces with him because he has lost the respect he had in the eyes of the world as a man of his words. All this tend to speak negatively of the man once revered and dreaded across the country as the mouthpiece of truth, honesty, integrity and good governance. This could be the prelude to a free fall from grace to grass.