Buhari’s victory lacks popular mandate – Balarabe Musa

Buhari’s victory lacks popular mandate – Balarabe Musa 

Former civilian governor of old Kaduna State and national chairman of the de-registered Peoples Re­demption Party (PRP), Alhaji Balarabe Musa has described the victory of Gen. Muhammadu Bu­hari in the March 28 presidential poll as lacking popular mandate.

In an interview with Saturday Sun, Balarabe Musa said without mincing words that it was unwise to conclude that out of 70 million registered vot­ers; only 28 million Nigerians that voted could not be said to amount to a popular mandate.

However, the former governor said the election victory was only ac­cepted for the sake of peace, adding that the candid advice he could give to the president-elect was for him to form a government of national unity to encompass every political party so as to make the mandate more popu­lar.

He also spoke on fair and free election, saying that Nigeria has a long way to go in achieving transpar­ent election since the nation’s politics is characterized by money power and outright arrogance by political play­ers.

According to him “Let me advise Buhari that he should just form a gov­ernment of national unity because he did not have a popular mandate, he has a mandate, but it is not a popular one. Let him bring on board all the political parties and form a govern­ment of national unity.

“Many Nigerians were disfran­chised, they were so afraid to come out to vote because of the perceived looming violence, so we cannot say that the president-elect has a popular mandate in the election.

“Just look at it this way, out of 70 million registered Nigerians voters, only 28 million Nigerians voted for both the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressives Con­gress (APC). This is not a popular mandate.

“The election was not a qualitative change; it has both negative and posi­tive features, so much so that no one knows why we are in this situation.

“It is not possible to have free, fair and transparent election in future, leading to legitimate government because we are still playing money bags politics in this country. There is no condition on ground to guarantee free and fair election for a very long time to come. This is the basic truth.

“The deciding factor in our elec­tion and politic is money power, and this is not good for the future of our democracy. But it is better that we had an election than not having it at all.

“If the election had been post­poned again, nobody would have known where Nigeria would have been by now because there would have been series of fighting in the country. But we thank God the elec­tion came and went peacefully.

“However, one good thing about the election is that in spite of anxiety and expectation that Nigeria would disintegrate during the election, it did not disintegrate, rather it was peace­ful. Aside this, we are yet to get it right in terms of free and fair elec­tion”.