PeeCeeJay By Jideofor Adibe Buhari: Seven Months After Email: pcjadibe@yahoo.com Twitter: @JideoforAdibe It
is almost seven months since Buhari was inaugurated
as President and about ten months since he defeated President Jonathan in the
March 28 presidential election. It is also more than a month since the
retired army general inaugurated his ministers – after ruling the country as
a sole administrator for almost six months. I
have previously argued that Buhari’s stuttering; if
not disappointing start, is not unusual for a new regime because just as it
takes a while for an aircraft to get to a cruising height after a take-off so
it is often for new governments to master the terrain. I thought one year
after inauguration will be a reasonable length of time to start drawing
conclusions from our observations and call out the government. This
however does not mean that we should abandon our role as public individuals
to help keep the government on its toes. The difference is that whatever
lapses we observe now we are willing to attribute to mistakes of the head,
not of the heart. After one year we can attribute lapses to
both mistakes of the head and that of the heart. In
the nearly seven months that Buhari has been in
power, a number of observations could be made: One,
the man is a bundle of energy that belies his age. At 72, he walks spritely –
almost as erect as the letter ‘i’. Buhari’s energy mocks those who made mockery of his age
during the campaigns. At the same time it raises concerns in some quarters on
whether he can sustain this energy level or whether he is setting himself up
for a quick burn out? I have lost count of his globetrotting since he
became President. Two,
more than a month after his ministers were inaugurated, several of the
ministers appear to thread as cautiously as possible – as if they want to
take all the time in the world to decode Buhari’s
famed body language. Under Obasanjo – arguably the most self-assured and
cosmopolitan of the country’s presidents – ministers had the room to take
risks and would receive political cover from Obasanjo when they inevitably
come under public criticisms or when the owners of the toes they stepped upon
decide to fight back. Under both Yaradua and
Jonathan, political covers seem to be quickly withdrawn from many loyalists
who come under public criticisms or are victims of whispering campaigns from
jealous colleagues. It is doubtful if the likes of El-Rufai,
Nuhu Ribadu and Chukwuma Soludo who stepped on
powerful toes in the course of their jobs would have been able to keep their
jobs under any other leader but Obasanjo. Will Buhari
be willing to provide enough political cover for his ministers to take risks? Three,
how willing is Buhari to learn from history? Let me
give a simple example with Boko Haram. There is fairly a consensus that until
2009 the group more or less went about its business peacefully, even if they
were a little unruly. On June 11 2009 following a row with the police over
the members’ refusal to wear crash helmets in Maiduguri, Borno
State, several sect members were killed. Yusuf
was said to have vowed to avenge the death of his members, which he allegedly
did three days after the incident. The chain of events triggered by this
reportedly led to the death of some 800 sect members. Yusuf himself died in
police custody and what was meant to be a ‘final solution’ for Boko Haram
ironically ended up radicalizing the group. Fast
forward to mid- December 2015. There were reports that several Shiites (some
reports quoted figures as high as 1000) were killed in Kaduna in clashes with
soldiers over claims that the group had planned to assassinate the Chief of
Army Staff Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai
. The leader of the sect Sheikh Ibraheem El-Zakzaky was also arrested. Before
the reported massacre of Shiites in Kaduna, the government had also detained Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the
Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) and director of Radio Biafra. That action
alone turned an otherwise innocuous individual into a mythical figure that
spurred days of protests across many parts of the South- east, south- south
and even beyond the borders of the country. The more things change the more
they remain the same. Four,
the pattern of political alliances in the country may be undergoing some
imperceptible changes. Given the North-South political dichotomy, the
President and Vice President are not expected to come from the same side of
the political divide. The common assumption was that in the south, the
south-east and the south-south are the North’s (essentially the so-called
core north’s) natural allies while the South-west are masters in playing
opposition politics. For the first time in the country’s political history,
Igbo political elites appear to have swapped roles with their Yoruba
counterparts – and surprisingly seem to be enjoying it. Hitherto, the Igbo
political elites were known for their doctrine of “the goat follows the man
with the palm fronts” – a certain craving to always be part of the politics
of the centre. With the pattern of alliances among
regions likely to become more fluid now than ever, it is hoped that this will
goad the different regional factions of the elites into cultivating traits
that will make them beautiful brides in the “political game” (apologies
Jibrin Ibrahim). Such qualities will include
reliability, loyalty and ability to deliver block vote. The fact that smart
alliances can neutralize population advantages and disadvantages may become
open political cards. Five,
related to the above is the puzzle of how some Igbo elites and ‘Internet
Warriors’ have become former President Jonathan’s greatest defenders since he
lost power – more than his Ijaw brethren. What made several Igbo elites and
‘lumpen proletariat’ to develop a sense of co-ownership of the Jonathan
Presidency despite the fact that Jonathan is not Igbo and the argument in
some quarters that the Southeast in fact received the least capital projects
under his presidency than other zones of the country? How come that the Igbo
political elites never had a similar sense of co-ownership of the Obasanjo
regime despite that fact Obasanjo appointed probably more Igbos to
influential positions than Jonathan did? I believe that knowing how this
sense of co-ownership was developed could be useful to regimes trying to
build critical support. Dasukigate The
reported admission by Sambo Dasuki, the former
National Security Adviser that he disbursed stupendous sums of money (in both
local and hard currency) to sundry individuals appears to be undermining the
public sympathy he had enjoyed over his arrest and detention. There is
however the danger that the almost daily revelations of the humongous sums
disbursed without appropriation will quickly lose their shock value as people
start craving for new storylines. The bottom line is that revelations of
possible embezzlement or diversion of mind-boggling sums of money cannot be
effective substitutes for policies that will fix problems, create wealth for
the country and jobs for the army of the unemployed. The revelations may at
best satisfy some people’s baying for blood and provide entertainment to
others. N5000 monthly for unemployed
graduates? President
Muhammadu Buhari is reportedly proposing a budget
of about N8 trillion for 2016 – twice the size of last year’s budget of N4.4
trillion. This is another contradiction of the Buhari
regime which is supposed to be an austere regime. A good chunk of this huge
sum at a time of dwindling oil revenue – will be to pay unemployed graduates
N5000 per month. Ordinarily the idea of unemployment benefit should be a
welcome idea but one would have thought that the first step would be to
develop the necessary framework, including the exact number of potential
beneficiaries, how leakages should be avoided and where the money will come
from. Just as the government chose to continue paying billions of naira
in subsidies to oil marketers (while reporting to the world that the country
is broke), this will become another hole draining the country’s meagre
resources at a time many state government are owing their workers
several months’ arrears in salary. Wouldn’t more be accomplished by simply
investing in schemes that will help the unemployed to create jobs for
themselves – and hopefully also employ others? |