Everything, they surmise, must therefore be done to create panic amongst the electorate in order to have PDP back in power.
Determined not to waste any time whatever in its avowed intent to unseat President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2019 Presidential election, PDP and its foreign collaborators have ‘set forth at dawn’. In a pincer movement, some of their agent provocateurs, this time two powerful imperialist organisations, namely, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and the British Multinational Bank, HSBC, have launched a frenetic attack on President Buhari with the former, like a prophet of doom, asserting, categorically, that he will not win the 2019 presidential election while the other took the more subtle, but no less damning route of claiming that his victory in the election would plunge Nigeria into far greater economic chaos.
But first, what is a pincer movement? Put simply, a pincer movement or double envelopment is a military manoeuvre in which forces simultaneously attack both flanks of an enemy formation. It typically occurs when opposing forces advance towards the centre of an army that responds by moving its outside forces to the enemy’s flanks to surround it. At the same time, a second layer of pincers may attack on the more distant flanks to keep reinforcements away from the target units.
That both the Nigerian political opposition and these institutional monsters made their move early, long before the election beckons, should not be a surprise to any keen observer of the Nigerian political economy since 2015 when Buhari has become very bad business for these enemies of Nigeria. It is standard imperialistic move. Projecting dire economic consequences for a country should the more patriotic political party win in an oncoming election has always been their style. Another method they have used with great success in the past was to collapse the price of the main revenue resource of the country as students of history would remember happened to cocoa prices ahead of their ousting the Osagyefo, Dr Kwameh Nkrumah, from office, in a military and police coup d’état on February 24, 1966.
In an opinion piece published in the Washington Post of Monday, July 20, 2015 shortly before his meeting with President Obama, President Buhari had given notice that he would go after the 150 billion dollars which public officials have stolen from Nigeria in the 10 years preceding his administration. This loot, as is well known, is warehoused in these big international banks which thrive on such illegal funds. Also, the fact that Buhari has, back home, retrieved over a trillion naira from their customers, ipso facto, depleting their bulging balances was obviously bad business, something his victory in 2019 would make completely intolerable, and there fire, unbearable. Everything, they surmise, must therefore be done to create panic amongst the electorate in order to have PDP back in power.
Back home in Nigeria, several of these same people, some with corruption charges against them, are now running round the country hoping to be the PDP candidate, contest the election, win – which God forbid – and return Nigeria to business as usual. Indeed, court documents and the Panama Papers have shown, conclusively, even if our corrupt courts would hold otherwise, how some of them illegally laundered huge sums of money out of the country since as far back as over a decade ago, with which they acquired undeclared, eye popping properties all over the world while another allegedly wired millions of dollars to an American university during the same period. It, therefore, should not be a surprise that their foreign collaborators have risen early to attempt to dampen the chances of a Buhari re election by creating fear amongst the citizenry.
But they will labour in vain.
PDP didn’t just start these dangerous moves. Investigations tangentially related to the alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US Presidential election have shown that they also toyed with the idea of ruining candidate Buhari’s electoral chances through a company called Cambridge Analytica which they contracted to generate damaging campaign materials against candidate Buhari in the 2015 presidential election.
For accurate reporting, let us press The Pulse of 22 March, 2018 into action. Its report: “A London firm called Cambridge Analytica was hired by the Goodluck Jonathan campaign just before the 2015 election with a simple mandate-sway the Nigerian election by digging dirt on opposition candidate Muhammadu Buhari. All the dirt in the world. Buhari’s medical records were also fair game. The firm was handed a princely £2m for its troubles – as also revealed by both Guardian UK and the Observer.
“Cambridge Analytica, it was reported, was paid an estimated £2m to orchestrate a ferocious campaign against his rival, the opposition leader Muhammadu Buhari.
“It was the kind of campaign that was our bread and butter,” said one of the operatives, while confirming that they “were employed by a billionaire who was panicking at the idea of a change of the Good luck Jonathan government.”
This is typical PDP and its collaborators. This time around it is influential organisations like the IEU and HSBC that are taking over from where Cambridge Analytica left.
In clear knowledge of their wiles, it would be recalled that President Buhari has already warned Nigerians, and the entire world, about the humongous amounts money PDP people have stolen and are now prepared to deploy towards the 2019 Presidential election. He said this in an address at the 2018 Democracy Day Lecture held at the International Conference Centre in Abuja. His words: “the opposition in the country has stupendous resources at its disposal in preparation for the 2019 elections; resources which even the ruling All Progressives Congress , APC, will not be able to match adding that they were, in fact, already sponsoring mischief against his government in a bid to discredit him and make him unpopular”.
Such mischief, Nigerians have already seen, for instance, in Benue State with horrendous consequences. It has been reported, for instance, that “as part of the sleaze in Benue State, the EFCC uncovered how the state government allegedly pays N20 million into the account of a Boko Haram suspect, Aliyu Yaminu, who is nicknamed Tershaku. According to the EFCC: “Between December 20, 2017 and April 6, 2018, the Joint Account Allocation Committee (JAC) has been remitting N20million to the account of Al-Tershaku Global Security Limited allegedly owned by Tershaku. JAC, the report said, posted N80 million to this account as at the time of Tershaku’s arrest. This is aside suspicious cash lodgements by Tershaku himself into the company’s account.” Tershaku is suspected to be the head of the Benue State government’s militia which has killed thousands in an effort by political opponents to make that part of Nigeria ungovernable, thus de- marketing Buhari ahead of 2019.
Given PDP’s synergy with these foreign demolition agents, it could not have been more euphoric than in its reaction to the EIU and the HSBC reports when it exuded: “the independent reports that President Buhari stands no chance in the general elections and that his winning portends grave danger for our nation, is completely in tandem with the stand of majority of Nigerians, irrespective of their current political party affiliations, ethnicity or creed.”
You will not but marvel that PDP, considering its record in office during its 16-year stranglehold over the country, could ever have the temerity to level these charges against the present administration.
In its own reaction, the APC said the reports are nothing more than the usual doomsday prophesies from these same sources, and their acolytes, many of which have failed in the past.
Wrote the party: The Presidency wishes to make clear to all Nigerians, and particularly the global banking giant HSBC that what killed Nigeria’s economy in the past was the unbridled looting of state resources by leaders who were, actively supported by HSBC. Their tantrum is, therefore, an expression of frustration over the measures put in place by the administration which have abolished grand corruption, the type on which the bank thrives in many countries. Continuing, the party said HSBC laundered more than USD 100,000,000 for the late General Sani Abacha in
Source: The Nation
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