By Ikechukwu Amaechi
Until
recently, the Muhammadu Buhari brand was, perhaps, the most potent and
compelling brand in the country. In the north, he was “Mai Gaskiya” (truth avatar). Even as he
never gave anyone scholarship, never built a vocational centre or any industry
to employ youths or get almajiris off the streets, he
continued to get millions of votes from there.
*President Muhammadu Buhari |
In the south where he didn’t enjoy the same cult status, he was
completely rebranded shortly before the 2015 elections so much so that the
Buhari myth became so persuasive almost to the point of deification.
But time makes all the difference in the affairs of not only men but also
nations.
It took less than a month after he took oath of office as president for some discerning Nigerians to realise that Buhari’s unflattering tendencies portend danger for the country. Yet, some were not quite perspicacious. But three years hence, the brand has become toxic, having contaminated the country’s filial bonds, which, no matter how tenuous they were before now, endured.Nigeria , despite all its
challenges, was work in progress. The problems we faced were the birth pangs of
nationhood. They were bound to be difficult but not insurmountable. What was
needed was unrelenting selflessness in pursuit of common good, an anathema to
Buhari.
It took less than a month after he took oath of office as president for some discerning Nigerians to realise that Buhari’s unflattering tendencies portend danger for the country. Yet, some were not quite perspicacious. But three years hence, the brand has become toxic, having contaminated the country’s filial bonds, which, no matter how tenuous they were before now, endured.
Those who
voted for him in 2015 believed they were electing a president for Nigeria .
But Buhari
knew where he was headed and gave a clue in his first major policy statement as
president-elect in a speech he delivered before an audience of exclusively
prominent northern Moslem leaders on May 2, 2015 at Queen Amina Hall, Ahmadu
Bello University (ABU), Zaria .
“I charge you to join me as we build a new
northern Nigeria in a generation … the best investment we can make in the north
is not finding oil in the Chad Basin … we will start with one local government
in each state until we get to every school in all of northern Nigeria … To
achieve this, I have secured a northern rehabilitation fund … to rebuild the
north after the devastation of Boko Haram insurgency … Join me my brothers and
sisters and let us finish the work our forefather, Ahmadu Bello, started,” he exhorted his
audience.
He didn’t
seek the presidency for 12 years to rebuild Nigeria . As Professor Ben Nwabueze
observed recently, this speech “portrays
the picture of someone driven by something more than the ordinary ambition to
become President of Nigeria .
“Buhari was driven by a passion, the passion
of religious fanaticism or a religious zealot, to become president of Nigeria
in order to carry on and finish the work started by his forebear, Sir Ahmadu
Bello, including the Sardauna’s fond idea to extend the rule of the Moslem
north throughout the country by means of a jihad.”
This dire
portrayal may seem outlandish, but some of the president’s actions, utterances
and postures since assumption of office on May 29, 2015, bear Nwabueze out. An
example is his appeal to Benue leaders who met
with him at the Aso Rock Villa on Monday, January 16, over the killing of 73 of
their kinsmen by Fulani herdsmen on New Year day.
Addressing
the delegation led by Governor Samuel Ortom, and which included Deputy Governor
Benson Abounu, former Senate President David Mark, former Governor George
Akume, Senators Barnabas Gemade and John Waku, Generals Lawrence Onoja and John
Atom Kpera, former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice,
Michael Aondoakaa, Speaker of Benue State House of Assembly, Terkimbir Kyambe,
etc., the president admonished his grieving visitors to accommodate the
villains.
“Your Excellency, the governor, and all the
leaders here, I am appealing to you to try to restrain your people … I ask you
in the name of God to accommodate your countrymen. You can also be assured that
I am just as worried, and concerned with the situation,’’ he said.
More than
two weeks after the fatal attacks by a group already labelled by the Global
Terrorism Index in 2015 as the fourth deadliest known terrorist group in the
world – only Boko Haram, ISIS and Al-Shabab terror groups were deemed deadlier
– Buhari, the same president whose regime declared the Indigenous Peoples of
Biafra (IPOB), a self-determination group, a terror organisation could not
muster the will to declare murderous herdsmen same.
More than
two weeks after the cold-blooded and gruesome murder of hapless Nigerians, no
arrest has been made even when the umbrella group of the herdsmen, Miyetti
Allah Cattle Breeders Association (MACBAN), had on Sunday, January 14, 2018,
admitted, literally, that the massacre was in revenge for herdsmen and cows
allegedly killed in Benue and Taraba states by
natives.
Yet, this
is a government that had severally claimed that these terrorists were not
Nigerians. When did they suddenly become fellow countrymen?
The
implication of the president’s plea is that he truly believes that the herdsmen
are victims in this war of attrition. That explains why rather than bringing
the full weight of the law on them, they are shielded. That explains why people
who should be hiding from the long arms of the law are brazenly addressing
press conference, threatening more violence if a law validly enacted by a state
and which by no means violates the Nigerian Constitution, is not abrogated.
Even if
these blood-sucking vampires were foreigners as the government often claims,
isn’t that the more reason why they should be vanquished? Why is a government
that hoists on a totem its trumped-up ability to secure the lives and property
of the citizens feigning helplessness in the face of unprecedented bloodshed in
the country? Truth is, this wanton spilling of human blood continues unabated
because Buhari’s government and its security forces have elected to do little
or nothing to prevent, investigate or hold perpetrators accountable. How can
anyone explain this lack of willingness to prosecute perpetrators of these vile
acts in the face of overwhelming and unassailable evidence?
Just as it
was the case in his first coming as military head of state, the arrogance of
the Buhari government is insufferable. Its insensitivity and imperviousness
have led to the elevation of ethnicity and nepotism to principles of state
policy. The consequence is negation of good governance. Or is the best
government no longer that, which for good or bad, carries the majority of the
governed along?
Buhari neither means well nor has a salvific agenda for Nigeria . His
actions and utterances are visceral, disrespectful and dehumanises Nigerians
just as his presidency remains the most potent threat Nigeria faces
today. His body language ratchets up tension in the polity. His sense of
entitlement is exasperating. He must be stopped or Nigeria is doomed.
President
Buhari is one man, who, despite the lofty heights God placed him – former
military governor of the defunct Northeast, petroleum minister, head of state,
etc. – he could not rise above debilitating and petty primordial loyalties.
Here was a man whose myth was so romanticized barely three years ago that many
Nigerians believed that he didn’t even need to talk to fix Nigeria . His
body language alone was the magic wand and he almost got away with the false
portrayal, until his prejudice, nepotism, clannishness, provincialism, bigotry
and absolute lack of empathy betrayed him.
Still, I
believe that President Buhari is a man to be pitied because it is apparent he
cannot help himself. But it behoves well-meaning Nigerians who are desirous of
charting a new course for their beleaguered country to salvage it by doing the
needful as 2019 beckons if Buhari decides to hearken to the self-serving
entreaties of sycophants urging him to prolong the agony of Nigerians for
another four years.
*Ikechukwu Amaechi is the publisher of TheNiche newspaper
(ikechukwuamaechi@yahoo.com)
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