By Paul Onomuakpokpo
Beyond the official hectoring about the need for the citizens to
be sympathetic towards their sick president, pray for his recovery and not
allow themselves to be co-opted on to a malignant campaign of gloating over his
predicament is the contempt for the citizens’ expectations of good governance.
This disdain is betrayed by President Muhammadu Buhari’s associates’
unvarnished interest in the next election at a time he is hobbled by ill health
that has aggravated his inability to effectively deliver his current mandate.
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| *Buhari |
Those who
importune the citizens for a pledge of fidelity to this charter of demands do
not demonstrate the understanding that they expect of the citizens. Clearly,
what they envisage is not the president walking into full recovery, but a
single candidacy in 2019 so that they would not lose their privileges of their
closeness to power. They talk gleefully about his re-contesting for the
presidency in 2019 as though there would not be opposition from any quarter.
Your
expectation is misplaced if you think that they would demur at the prospect of
their principal losing the election because he has failed to perform in his
first term. They do not bother about the ill health of Buhari and the need for
him to take good care of his health. Amid this dizzying quest for re-election,
we are drawn to the increasing similarity between Buhari’s associates and the
wife of Robert Mugabe. Remember, it was Mugabe’s wife who recently declared
that the corpse of her 92-year-old husband and president would contest Zimbabwe
