Buhari
As I suggested earlier, imaginative adoption of relevant recommendations of the last national conference on devolution of powers can serve as the starting point of a new political restructuring programme for optimum utilisation of human and non-human resources throughout the country. I believe that one of the best legacies President Buhari will bequeath to Nigerians at the end of his tenure is a solid foundation for constructing a well-structured federation in which each component geopolitical zone would freely develop at its own speed untrammelled by an overbearing central government.
Now, Buhari’s antecedents and one-man-show approach to governance since he became President do not inspire confidence that the issue of political restructuring would be addressed by his administration.
Hence, he is likely to miss the excellent opportunity of becoming arguably the greatest political engineer in Nigerian history.
President Buhari is widely regarded as a straightforward, disciplined and honest human being, a man of integrity and incorruptibility. But from experience, I have learnt not to believe uncritically praise-singers who are fond of exaggerating the purported virtues of their benefactors in the media, and to refrain from hasty or dogmatic conclusions while judging those one has not met and interacted with personally.
One thing is certain though: President Buhari has a unique combination of personality traits some of which are suitable for the office he currently occupies and some of which are not. It follows that any portraiture of him that exaggerates his positive attributes and ignores the negative ones is a fiction. Our President seems to believe, or has been made by fawning sycophants to believe, that his ideas about how to tackle the myriads of problems facing the country presently are the best and that because of his alleged good intentions he can do as he pleases.
Fortunately, not everyone is optimistic about Buhari’s presidency. According to Prof. Nwabueze, Nigeria is gradually sliding back to dictatorship since Buhari took over from Goodluck Jonathan. I believe that Nwabueze is essentially right, although there are very powerful constitutional and legal checks that would at some point stop President Buhari from becoming a full-blown dictator. Anyway, even if Buhari were as impeccable as his supporters claim, he needs to excise those dictatorial proclivities that marred his reputation as a military head of state.
We know that old habits, like old soldiers, die-hard; that with advancing age (especially from fifty) it becomes increasingly difficult to change one’s fundamental habits. Being a septuagenarian, President Buhari is set in his ways, and it would be hard for him to change radically from who he is to who he could become. Yet, change is the only permanent thing in the world.
It is still possible for Buhari, through continuous critical self-examination, to jettison some of those attitude that alienated him from certain parts of Nigeria, particularly the South East. Those expressing consternation and disappointment that the President is already implementing his promise in the United States that he would give preferential treatment to those constituencies that voted massively for him during the elections should look again at his records as a public officer.
When he was military head of state from 1984 to 1985, how many members of his Supreme Military Council were from the South East? While he was Chairman, Petroleum (Special) Trust Fund (PTF), what percentage of PTF’s projects was implemented in Igboland? Irrespective of the woolly arguments by Buharimaniacs, there is compelling evidence that President Buhari is not interested in the developmental aspirations of Ndigbo generally.
Lest those with keen noses for smelling hatred of Buhari from every criticism of the President misunderstand me, I sincerely want him to succeed based on enlightened self-interest. In addition, I think it is inaccurate to argue that Buhari hates Ndigbo because of his indifference towards Igboland. It is just that, for him, the concerns of Ndigbo for fair distribution of the benefits of belonging to the Nigerian federation is relatively unimportant in comparison to meeting core interests of conservative feudalistic members of the Northern establishment.
If Buhari wants to be remembered as a great leader, he must put on a new thinking cap. He must, both in his speech and action, recognise that he is the President of Nigeria, not the President of any section of the country, and that parochial preferential treatment of any sort based on voting pattern or ethnic and religious considerations will exacerbate the problem of mutual ethnic suspicion and rivalry that led to the devastating civil war.
At his age, Buhari ought to realise that the best thing he can do for himself, his family and for all Nigerians is to devote his entire intellectual and affective powers to the service of Nigerian people. He must search within himself for the moral strength and intellectual acumen to take the right decisions in the very challenging task of presiding over a multiply complex geopolitical entity like ours.
Unfortunately, glaring inconsistencies since he assumed office, despite noisy posturing by agbata ekee APC politicians, signify either lack of adequate preparation for the job or plain inability to match campaign promises with actual performance. Take for instance his stance on how best to tackle Boko Haram terrorism. During his electioneering campaigns, Buhari claimed that he knew the Nigerian Army very well and that our soldiers, if well equipped and motivated, can defeat the Islamic fundamentalists without assistance from neighbouring countries.
Indeed, he excoriated his predecessor for reaching out to the leaders of Chad, Niger, and Cameroun for help to fight Boko Haram. Now as President, Buhari has been actively soliciting assistance from the very countries former President Jonathan asked for help in dealing with the terrorists. Buhari asked Nigerians to forget his dictatorial past, and pledged that he would lead in accordance with democratic norms.
But his somewhat aloof I-know-it-all attitude and recent harassment of opposition politicians contradict that very pledge. I understand that during electioneering campaigns, politicians tend to exaggerate their virtues and do everything possible to hide their weaknesses for electoral victory.
That said, discrepancies between his campaign rhetoric and his actual performance as President are early warning signs that Nigerians must not allow the euphoria of change mantra used by APC to win the presidential elections and Buhari’s sometimes exaggerated reputation as a stern disciplinarian and anti-corruption military ruler prevent them from critical engagement with his government. Certainly, President Buhari has a rendezvous with history, and his legacy will be determined largely by how he navigates the treacherous terrain of power politics in the next four years.
Concluded.
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