Author: Ken Ugbechie

Now, the real General Muhammadu Buhari (GMB) is coming out in full glare of his audience. Strangely, Buhari commands the awe of a certain audience of easily-deceived Nigerians who bought into his posturing of an incorruptible, squeaky clean Army General and former Head of State. Strangely again, this Buhari audience is made up of literate and illiterate Nigerians; a composition of men and women who ought to know that Buhari is not better than any of the military locusts that plundered the national treasury.

Recently, a rather clownish Buhari told Nigerians that he picked expression of interest and presidential nomination forms worth N27.5m with a bank loan. He went ahead to dramatise how he got the loan from his bank whose chairman is his friend. Hear Buhari: “You could recall in the entire contest, I have always tried to personally pay for the nomination form at least. But N27.5m is not small. Thank God, I have a personal relationship with the chairman of my bank. I called him and told him that the forms are coming and so, whether my accounts are in red or green or black, you must honour this, otherwise, I will lose the nomination. I was about to go to Kaduna today and told the chairman and he said, ‘you better pick the form’ and he kept a straight face. That means that there is no excuse”. That was all Buhari needed to do to get a loan.

Buhari is running on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC). But it does not matter which party. What matters here is the intent and process of Buhari going for a bank loan just to be president of Nigeria.

First, Buhari gives the impression that he has no money near N27.5 million anywhere. Please, let’s not forget that the same Buhari is a retired Nigerain Army General who is on pension, who got all his retirement benefits, who was once a head of state, petroleum minister, and many more. Even if he is the most frivolous of them all, he must have invested part of his earnings since he left office and such investment must have grown since then. Again, this is not my worry. My real concern is how Buhari got his loan. He said he got such hefty loan on account of his personal relationship with the chairman of his bank. So all you would need to get a loan in the Nigeria Buhari wants to lead is to know the Oga of the bank…nothing else matters. Remember, we live in a country where to get a loan, even for N1 million, you are required to provide ‘comfort’ for the bank, some form of collateral. We live in a country with a rich history of failed banks, banks that crumbled on account of toxic loans, loans procured on pally-pally basis, the type Buhari, a presidential aspirant got. Buhari did not tell Nigerians what collateral he used to secure a loan just to pick forms. I reckon he would take more loans to fund his campaign, this time fatter loan from this same bank where the chairman is his friend or any other bank he could invoke his personal relationship with the CEO as his collateral.

Now, let’s assume Buhari goes on a loan spree as he is likely to do to fund his campaign and then loses, which also is a likely scenario, how does he repay his loans? I guess he would again invoke his ‘personal relationship’ with whoever to get the loans written off as bad debt and leave the bank bleeding. Pray, what manner of bank would give a loan to fund politics? Except of course, to Buhari politics is serious profit-making business. And it must be for desperate men like Buhari and his likes who must rule at all cost and by all means, fair or foul.

Nigerians, listen to the man who wants to be your next president. He says you can walk into any bank where you have a ‘personal relationship’ with the Oga and walk out with wads of naira. He says you should put all the banks at high risk by arm-twisting them to fund any of your indulgences including marrying more wives, staging Owambe party, organizing a road show to announce the arrival of your new baby or just about anything.

So, Buhari got loan to play the game of politics. Before now, I thought loans are procured to finance projects which in the long run would be able to repay such loans, usually projects with prospects of profit. If it is so, then Buhari must be expecting serious return on his investment in politics. He intends to win and then recoup the money from somewhere to pay back the loans, that is if he ever intended to pay back such loans obtained via a mere chat or handshake with the Oga of his bank.

I just wonder why Buhari would incline himself in the valley of dissimulation, pretending to have obtained a loan to buy nomination form. If this was intended to strengthen his claim of being squeaky clean, he got it all wrong. Personally, I would not vote for a president who would take loans through the back door in flagrant violation of permissible processes of securing loans; I would not vote for a man who tells me to observe due process but does the very opposite. Buhari should have told us a more intelligent lie. He could have told us that he got just 28 persons out of his millions of admirers including the horde of under-age almajiris in the north to donate N1 million each to fund the purchase of his form. This would have made more sense than the fib of loan. This is a cheap lie that doesn’t just sit well, my dear General. Please, tell us another lie…!