Even in saner times, the citizens are confronted with an epic
struggle in an attempt to trust their politicians. Bogged down by decades of treacheries that
have manifested in the repudiation of promises on whose back politicians got to
office, the prospect of the citizens trusting them is effortlessly rendered
nugatory.
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| *President Buhari |
All the citizens could see is a land strewn
with broken promises and the politicians as a venality-plagued species of
humanity who veil their self-serving ambitions as the inevitable means of the
people attaining development. Yet, because politicians are indispensable components of the democratic
experience, the citizens have to learn to tolerate their peccadilloes, vanities
and cupidity. The duplicities of politicians often gain
heightened expression in the times of campaigns for offices. Our country is in
such times now.
The politicians are in times when the
propensity for deception is given the amplest room. They are desperate to get power;
they are ready to do any thing to get it.
It is thus in the spirit of the season of
barefaced duplicity that we have been told that because President Muhammadu
Buhari is such a great patriot, he is so propelled by uncommon love for his
fellow citizens that would not allow him see them suffer.
He would not want to personally drive his
campaign to return to office while the citizens are neglected.
He would thus concentrate on governance while
the responsibilities for his campaign for the presidential election of this
year have been given to Bola Tinubu, the man the members of Buhari’s All
Progressives Congress (APC) grudgingly call the National Leader.
Now, Buhari and his APC expect to see a
grateful nation. But should the citizens really be grateful? No, they are once
again being conned by the Buhari government. For Buhari has not given up his
electioneering responsibilities because of them.
It would have indeed redounded to Buhari’s
patriotism and rare altruism if he really wanted to spend his time for
effective governance. After all, there are different areas of the country that need urgent
government’s attention. There are the issues of the workers’ minimum wage and
strike by university teachers.
There is the challenge of renewed hostilities
in the Niger Delta.
The more compelling among these issues now is
obviously that of insecurity in the north east that brooks no sacred boundaries
and that is spreading fast to different parts of the country.
In Zamfara, the governor has offered to resign
the office for which his colleagues killed and maimed and others are still
readying themselves to commit all kinds of crime to get in the coming
elections.
He is ready to make this sacrifice if only it
would allow the Federal Government declare a state of emergency that would
bring peace to the state and send away the blood-suffused Boko Haram
insurgents.
But no matter how much Buhari strains to tell
us the version of why he may not be on the campaign trail again after opening
his electioneering in Akwa Ibom, there is another one that appears much more
seductive to the citizens than his own. Under Buhari, there has not been
anytime that governance has not been neglected.
Buhari is not identified with a history of
taking governance seriously. Was Buhari taking governance seriously and
demonstrating an acute awareness of the urgency before him when he failed to
appoint his ministers for six months? Was Buhari urgently and effectively
responding to governance needs when he failed to resolve the Fulani herdsmen
question while they continued their rapine? Buhari has failed to provide a
compelling reason for outsourcing his campaign duties to Tinubu. And what is
clear is that Buhari may not be deeply involved in the campaign because he does
not have the energy for this. Perhaps, if Buhari had sincerely disclosed that his health status cannot
accommodate the rigour of the campaigns, he would have earned the plaudits and
empathies of the citizens.
Clearly, the gains of his being involved in
the campaign outweigh the feeble excuse he has given.
If there were compelling state matters, what
stopped the president from combining them with his campaigns? After all, was it
not the president who once inveighed against the slothfulness of the nation’s
youths he is saddled with providing their education and other needs with free
oil revenue? No, the president cannot be too busy not to campaign. He has an
opportunity to multi-task and model hard work before millions of the idle
youths of his nation.
By not leading his campaign, Buhari has only
alienated himself from the citizens.
He has denied himself the opportunity to be
familiar with the problems of the citizens such as their grinding poverty and
infrastructural deficit.
Yes, Buhari has held so many government
offices in the country. These positions have enabled him to interact with
people from different parts of the country. Buhari himself has also referred to the fact
that through his earlier campaigns, he has been able to understand the
challenges of the people in different parts of the country. But the deprivations that Buhari saw so many years ago might have taken a turn for the
worse.
Thus, Buhari being involved in the current
campaigns would give him the opportunity of a better and fresher view of the
plights of the citizens and a more urgent need to mitigate them.
Buhari has also denied himself the opportunity
to regale the citizens with tales of his achievements and a future of plenitude
if he is re-elected. Tinubu cannot do this.
No, another person cannot tell the story of
Buhari’s achievements as himself and tantalize the citizens with a future that
would be theirs if he is re-elected. How can Tinubu express the genuine gusto of a leader who after seeing the faces
of starved citizens is only preoccupied with bringing them happiness?
Or was it not the quest for service that made
Buhari to keep on seeking the presidency even after failing serially? Or was it
just for vengeance? Or is Buhari dodging the campaign field because he has no
achievements in the past three and half years to be proud of? Now that Buhari
has given this responsibility to Tinubu, should we still rule out the aberration
of the latter also representing him at the expected presidential debate?
This current position of Buhari has only
confirmed the allegation of his having outsourced the presidency a long time
ago. Now, the prime beneficiary in the next dispensation if Buhari wins is
Tinubu.
If Tinubu is able to sell the bad product he
has been saddled with its marketing, it would only be fair if the presidency is
outsourced to him.
In that case, what Tinubu could not get as a
vice president because a Muslim-Muslim ticket affronts the religious
sensibilities of the citizens would fall on his laps, thanks to Buhari not
campaigning.
But is it only a grand future that Tinubu sees
as he contemplates the post-election era? Is his past experience with Buhari
not a trigger for foreboding amid the madding electioneering? Tinubu was among
Nigerians who rebranded Buhari as a better alternative to the then President
Goodluck Jonathan.
But after the election, Buhari and his coterie
of inner supporters were in a great hurry to de-privilege Tinubu’s role in his
emergence as the president.
In the process, when Buhari’s historian
chronicled his emergence as the president, Tinubu’s role was only consigned to
a footnote. But Buhari is only cozying up to Tinubu now because he has realised
that he is the only one who can deliver the result he wants.
But if Buhari returns after Tinubu proves that
his genius as a marketer of a bad product is peerless, would he be ceded
control of the presidency? Or would his aborted demystification be completed by
Buhari and his men?
*Dr. Onomuakpokpo is on the Editorial Board of The Guardian
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