By Sam Omatseye
The president has always seen silence
as a mark of dignity in a time of crisis. When he opens his mouth eventually,
he spews out venom that neither gives him nor the office he occupies any form
of dignity.
 |
| *President Buhari with Baru |
Tall, gaunt, lean of face with a straight stare and loping
strides, his smile comes across more like a lickspittle than a royal. Yet,
behind that simpering exterior is a granite heart. However, little cunning or
high thinking dresses up his hearty resolves. So, in the final analysis, what
we have is not the Buhari of nobility but a pretension to the high moral act.
Sometimes that façade confronts us in the form of silence.
Occasionally he does speak. When he breaks his silence, he
ruptures not only peace but logic. As I have noted in the past, Buhari’s soul
is a battle between the martial impulses of his breeding and the entitlement of
his ambience as a Fulani hierarch. And then there is a third. He has managed,
since his ouster from power as head of state, to cultivate the talakawa.
So, he sees himself as a sort of royal with a common touch. He is
simultaneously on top and at the bottom, a prince and pauper, a head and
herdsman, at once erupting from the floor and swooping down from heaven.
