By Emmanuel Aziken

The camp of All Progressives Congress, APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was ecstatic on Friday morning after it emerged that President Muhammadu Buhari had agreed to campaign for him in ten states of the country.

The news was relayed by Olorogun Festus Keyamo, the spokesman of the Tinubu Campaign in a statement which could barely veil the joy of the campaign that the man they generally believe has a 12 million vote bank had finally been brought on board.

President Buhari’s seeming hesitance in campaigning for Tinubu is quite unlike the situation of the last two-term president of Nigeria, Dr. Olusegun Obasanjo. Nigerians would recall that ahead of the 2007 presidential election that President Obasanjo was rather very enthusiastic in his campaign for his party’s candidate, Alhaji Umaru Yar‘Adua, famously terming the campaign as a Do or Die affair.

Indeed, in the case of President Obasanjo and Yar‘adua, the outgoing president at that time indeed almost took over the campaign going out to campaign even when the candidate was in hospital.

However, the difference between President Buhari and Tinubu as many know is that the APC presidential candidate got the ticket in spite of the president. Having obtained the ticket, Tinubu even had the effrontery to shove it down the president by telling the Aso Rock favoured candidate, Senator Ahmad Lawan, to go and lick his wounds.

Buhari kept a straight face at Eagle Square as Tinubu in the opinion of some used macho power, money and machinations to overcome his rivals to obtain the ticket.

But truth be told, Buhari’s seeming lack of enthusiasm for Tinubu is not universal in his home and in his government. His wife as nearly everyone knows is enthused about the Tinubu candidacy and shows it anytime she is in the country.

In the government, a few aides, including a strategic leg in the security architecture is also said to be in bed with Tinubu.

However, other strategic enablers of the Buhari presidency are said to be either aloof or working in cahoots with Atiku Abubakar to sustain what they see as the Fulani hegemony.

It is no wonder that in Buhari’s Katsina base, Atiku has become a major force in the state. Some of the president’s relatives have also openly embraced Atiku. Recently, an enthusiastic PDP supporter sent your correspondent a picture of an imposing Atiku banner that was said to be positioned in the palace of the Emir of Daura.

The dithering procrastination of the president and the increasing strength of the Atiku campaign in the core North was perhaps what forced Tinubu to meet with Buhari on December 22 last year in what was described as a strategy meeting.

It appears that what came out of that strategy meeting was the decision by Buhari to now campaign for Tinubu in 10 out of the 36 states.

Meanwhile, the seeming half-hearted gesture has been shadowed with conflicting messages from the outgoing administration.

The cash withdrawal policy and the determination of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC to forge ahead with the use of the BVAS in the election are two reasons why some others allege that the Buhari government is planning to sabotage Tinubu.

Some who remember how two bullion vans were spotted in Tinubu’s Lagos residence on Election Day in 2019 note that the cash withdrawal policy was formulated by Governor Godwin Emefiele to weaken Tinubu.

Remarkably, some civil society organisations have called out the Department of State Services, DSS of frustrating the cash withdrawal policy to the purpose  of benefiting Tinubu. Even more, the same CSOs have called out a presiding officer of one of the chambers of the National Assembly of being in the plot. With no evidence of a conspiracy between Tinubu and the DSS to get Emefiele and the cash withdrawal policy out of the way, many have been left wondering over the silence of President Buhari.

What is arguably the best policy to come out of the Emefiele bank is now being subjected to politics with claims that Governor Emefiele has now fled from Nigeria with threats against his safety being alleged by the CSOs.

The attack against Governor Emefiele has been shadowed with the similar attack against Prof Mahmood Yakubu, the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. Dodgy groups have taken up allegations of forged declaration of assets to batter the INEC chairman ostensibly to make him to relegate the use of the BVAS.

With these attacks on crucial institutions of state, President Buhari has remained mum making many to wonder as to his inclinations.

While it is true that many institutions of government and officials of the Buhari government have in the last seven and half years fought one another as if the government is without a head, your correspondent posits that this is not the time for Buhari to remain silent anymore.

Decisive actions should be taken by the government to allow Governor Emefiele effect faithful implementation of the cash withdrawal policy and with it kill many ravenous birds that have devoured Nigeria with one stone.

As was argued on this page last week, among the ravenous birds to be targeted are kidnapping, vote-buying, foreign exchange instability, corruption among many others. This is indeed, one-time Buhari cannot hide. He must come out and be counted even as Tinubu shouts for joy over Buhari’s decision to campaign for him.