It was not really
unexpected that President Muhammadu Buhari would hinge his bid to return to
office on patriotism. It is the way of all politicians. They are not tired of
striving to mislead us into considering their personal ambitions as goals that
are inextricably tied to our collective good. Thus, Buhari wants us to see him
as a good patriot who is only responding to the call of his people to serve
again.
 |
| *President Buhari |
But it is clear to those of us who are far
from the madding Buhari chorus that he is propelled by naked self-interest.
Before the leaders of his political party, the All Progressives Congress (APC),
Buhari rhapsodised about how much the people who are appreciative of his
service to them want him back. But he should have gone further to provide the
specific areas in which the citizens have benefited from his government.
To be sure, the Buhari government would in the
coming days roll out a list of its achievements. Among these would be the
billions the president’s anti-corruption has brought to the treasury; and how
he has rescued the economy from the ravages of the waywardness of the Goodluck
Jonathan administration. But the fact that we must not ignore is that even if
these achievements were tenable, they pale into insignificance in the light of
the harm the Buhari government has done to the nation and its people.
Thus, when the president says he is only responding to the clamour for him to
re-contest, he leaves unresolved whether he truly appreciates that he is thrown
onto the path of ultimate demystification or deification. The part that the
president and his supporters find inescapably seductive is that the citizens
are appreciative of the good lot that this government has fostered. But they
are blind to the robust possibility of being set up to fail at the poll by the
citizens who are racked by a sense of betrayal at the hands of the president.
No one rules out the fact that there are those
who want Buhari to come back. These are the politicians who think that without
Buhari they would not be able to win an election. And other unelected persons
who cannot contemplate the prospect of losing their perks of office if Buhari
is not returned to office. But Buhari is being misled when he equates these few
people to the generality of the citizens to whom he has been an ogre they are
eager to shake off their back. But if the citizens had genuinely called for
Buhari to re-contest, then we need not blame him. The blame should go to the
citizens who want to be plunged deeper into their misery by Buhari. Thus, when
they queue up to vote in 2019, they are only endorsing their immolation at the
hands of the president.
Beyond the so-called clamour, Buhari’s
eligibility for a second term could easily be decided against the background of
his promise to leave indelible marks in major three areas of the nation-
security, corruption and economy. There was the expectation that as a former
head of state and as a retired general, Buhari’s presence in Aso Rock would
immediately scare off all real and potential troublemakers. It was thought that
the Boko Haram challenge that the Goodluck Jonathan government could not handle
would be resolved by Buhari. But now, the almost three years that Buhari has
been in office have only revealed the illusions about Buhari’s magic wand to
engender security in the nation. He has not only been unable to tackle Boko
Haram, he has worsened the security situation in the country. Buhari’s coming
has added Fulani herdsmen to the security crisis of the nation. And months
after serenading the citizens with the technical defeat of Boko Haram, the
Buhari government is now asking for $1 billion to buy weapons to destroy the
terrorists.
Instead of the economic eldorado that Buhari
promised, he has inflicted so much economic hardship on the citizens. The
citizens are now confronted with the stark reality that Buhari has rather
become the bane of the economic prosperity that they wished for. Thousands of
companies have collapsed and millions of jobs have been lost. In less than
three years of Buhari’s presence in Aso
Rock , Nigeria
Even the so-called personal integrity of Buhari has not stood the test of time.
In less than six months after Buhari assumed office, it became clear that
Buhari did not set much store by integrity as we thought. Or why would Buhari
who is averse to corruption name corrupt former governors and other besmirched
political leaders to be his key officials? Thus, neither Buhari nor those
working with him showed that Buhari would be able to defeat corruption even
though he rightly acknowledged that the nation has to obliterate corruption or
else this monster would remain its eternal albatross. In fact, under the Buhari
government, corruption has taken a more ferocious character. It is in this
government that those who have been declared corrupt have been rehabilitated by
the same government that claims to fight corruption. It was the same government
that brought from overseas Abdulrasheed Maina who was accused of stealing
billions of pension funds.
When he returned, he was forgiven his sins,
reinstated in the civil service and paid arrears of salaries. Worse still,
every attempt by Buhari to show that he is fighting corruption rather indicates
that he has been encouraging corruption. Consider the case of the lists of
looters that the Buhari government has released. Those who should normally be
on the lists because of the glaring cases of corruption against them were not
there. Rather, the Buhari government just filled the lists with members of the
opposition. Even those who were in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that the
Buhari government considers as the bastion of corruption were not on the list
even though they are facing corruption charges in courts.
Having lost the control of his government,
Buhari’s aides are free to do whatever they like. It is these aides who must
corral Buhari into re-contesting even if he is not personally disposed to doing
this. The Director General of the Department of State Service, Lawal Daura, the
Inspector General of Police Ibrahim Idris, the Attorney General and Minister of
Justice , Abubakar Malami, among other aides need Buhari as the president so
that they can have the freedom to operate their own presidencies. Although
Buhari’s serial failures have provoked his demystification, he still had an
opportunity to redeem himself until recently. Knowing his ill health and his
lack of understanding of modern governance, Buhari should simply have declared
before now that he would never re-contest. This would have launched him into
the pantheon of legendary democratic leaders presided over by Nelson Mandela on
the black continent. But having lost this opportunity, he does not know how to
quit when it is already too late. His dilemma is that if he quits now, it would
appear as if he has succumbed to the pressure of the Obasanjos, Babangidas and
Danjumas who have written off his presidency.
Ultimately, if the citizens allow the return
of Buhari to office in 2019, what would await them after the celebration of
their victory is the searing memory of a country that once existed but that has
been obliterated by religious bigotry, nepotism and the clannish protection of
terrorist Fulani herdsmen.
*Dr. Onomuakpokpo is
on the Editorial Board of The Guardian
Brilliant write-up. Are Nigerians reading this?
ReplyDelete