President Buhari And Obasanjo’s Red Card

By Wale Sokunbi

If the widespread support of the people is the sole determinant of the outcome of electoral contests in Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari may well be on his way to kissing the presidency goodbye in 2019. Irrespective of his desire or otherwise to seek another term in office, it is actually becoming very difficult to imagine how he could ride over the growing gale of disenchantment with his person and government, especially in the Southern part of the country, to win a second term in office.

*Buhari 

What initially began like the mumblings of disgruntled elements of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that had just been routed from power in the early days of the Buhari administration soon turned into a howl over the new government’s tardiness in forming its cabinet, which took all of five months. The government’s roaring nepotism and disregard of the multi-ethnic and multi-religious nature of the country in its appointments also helped in no way to decrease its approval ratings.

The President, unfortunately, turned a blind eye to these grumblings and went ahead with the ceding of almost the entire security infrastructure of the country to persons from his northern part of Nigeria, at the detriment of the rest of the country. It is hardly necessary to rehash the details of that claim here. That tendency towards nepotism might, however, not really have mattered for many of the president’s diehard supporters, but for the coloration that it has taken, on account of the mindless massacres being perpetrated by herdsmen from the northern part of the country from where the president and most of his security chiefs hail.

If the president’s perceived failings on the economy, the corruption of some of his cronies which he disregards, and the failure to make a difference on importance issues such as education, health, electricity supply, roads and other infrastructure can be condoned; even if the failure to fully rein in the Boko Haram insurgents as promised during his campaign, and expected by the people, can be rationalised and tolerated, the unending massacres of Nigerians in the North Central/Southern part of the country by Fulani herdsmen cannot, and will not, be tolerated. It will, indeed, be nothing short of class suicide for any of the country’s southern geopolitical zones and the North Central to continue to take a light view of the march of the herdsmen on the altar of politics, economics or what have you. The time, I believe, has come for a rethink of the issues at stake with a view to ensuring that the rights of any part of the country are not trampled upon to accommodate people from other parts.

It is unfortunate that the president has allowed his government’s policy of appeasement of killer herdsmen to overshadow and torpedo his good intentions for the country. He has not shown himself sufficiently in charge of the issues at stake and has lent great credence to the claim that his government has been hijacked by a cabal which is now dictating his actions and inactions.

This sad situation has clouded the president’s genuine intentions and his achievements, such as the better management of public revenue through the Treasury Single Account (TSA); the increasing tax revenue which, for the first time in our national history, shot up to N4 trillion, (about a half of the country’s budget); and his fight against corruption, which has, however, been largely circumscribed by our high profile lawyers and the courts, as well as the president’s own failure to employ the same canes used for fighting corruption among other Nigerians for his own cronies, a la the former SGF, Babachir Lawal.

These achievements of the president, if they are sustained for some years, are capable of turning the country’s economy around and providing the resources required to address the monumental challenges in other areas of our national life such as health and public infrastructure.

But alas, the continuing willful killings by herdsmen will not let this be and Nigerians, it seems, must be on the march again in the quest for the one who would rescue them from the brink and build the country of their dreams. It is sad that the great hopes that attended the change campaign of this administration have largely ended in the despair that has been further brought into bold relief by the herdsmen’s menace.

Nothing has, however, captured the mood of many southern Nigerians better than former president, Olusegun Obasanjo’s letter (those letters again!) to President Muhammadu Buhari, urging him not to seek re-election in 2019. Obasanjo eloquently detailed the perceived failings of the president and issued him a red card. What the president needs, as Obasanjo put it, is a dignified exit from office. In short, OBJ issued a vote of no confidence on the government of the day.

Is Obasanjo right? Certainly, he struck when the Buhari government is at its most vulnerable and has drawn the angst of many Nigerians. What is, however, surprising is its finality. The red card from Obasanjo was issued without the benefit of a yellow card, which could be “against the run of play.”

Certainly, President Buhari has not performed up to the expectation of many Nigerians. Certainly, his feathers need to be ruffled. There are, however, many who believe that Buhari deserves a “formal query and a warning” before a sack. He did not get any of these from Obasanjo, possibly because of the pains of the herdsmen’s menace and its religious and ethnic connotations. Nobody, how much less a former military leader who also served as a civilian president, wants to be a sitting duck for killer herdsmen from the sitting president’s part of the country, who are even defending their atrocities, boasting about them, and vowing not to obey the laws of the land, with impunity. There are also those who have asked who Obasanjo is to be issuing such letters to sitting Nigerian presidents.

What do I think of Obasanjo’s letter? First, there is no doubting his relevance and his right, like that of any other Nigerian, to air his views or issue letters on matters of concern in the country. I, however, think President Buhari should take the letter as a wakeup call to quickly address the issues it raised and see if he can still redeem his presidency and regain the love of those who voted him into office, which has largely waned in the southern part of the country.
There seems to be hardly any further basis for the widespread support for this administration by Christians and the North-Central/Southern geo-political zones, but I believe Buhari can still remake his presidency and do those things that can re-endear him to the hearts of all Nigerians. What Buhari unequivocally needs from Nigerians at this time is a yellow card, while failure to mend his ways should result in an irrevocable red card. The president can still make a u-turn, put the herdsmen in their place, address the nation’s various challenges and regain the love of his disenchanted former supporters.

*Wale Sokunbi is the Op-Ed Editor of Daily SUN newspaper, Nigeria. She could be reached with walesookunbi2010@yahoo.com