Buhari and the Pitfalls Towards 2011

By

Abdullah Musa

kigongabas@yahoo.com

Human beings of our generation are selfish. We usually do not want to waste time on that which holds no promise of direct benefit to us. We care therefore to listen to the story of an individual where that individual is either related to us, or his life has ever touched us positively. We may however be inclined to gossip, for the malicious by-products that gossips engender; in that case we feel elated at the misfortune of others, who prior to that had looked more blessed than us. We may also be amongst those classes of human beings to whom time has no value; we are willing to spend it frivolously, discussing the lives of others, for our own lives are drab and un- interesting.

Political actors receive the attention of the media because their sayings usually translate into actions which touch the lives of people positively or otherwise. Muhammadu Buhari, the ‘disowned’ presidential candidate of the ANPP is a political actor. While in the military he was at one time Nigeria’s Head of State, and many are there who still give him credit for his achievements during his short tenure, while others may not want ever to forgive his lapses.

By his training and disposition, Buhari is authoritarian; believing that power or authority should not be played with. He worked according to firmly held convictions, which he felt under no compulsion to trade away. In politics, particularly Nigeria’s politics, people expect you to trade away all that are dear to you in order to gain public office; for it is the goodies you are after not the service.

This character of Buhari is what makes him to be different from the majority of today’s political actors. They are in the arena to chop. If anything is to come between them and chopping, then that thing has to give way: they call this expediency. So when Buhari wanted to challenge PDP in court over the 2007 election his party withdrew its support, and he ended up on the same ticket with Atiku, who was Obasanjo’s Vice for eight years.

In Nigeria of today, in a country governed by expediency and entrenched prejudices, many may seem more comfortable with an Atiku presidency than with that of Buhari. For instance in Business Day newspaper of 18 February, 2009, one columnist by name of Opeyemi Agbaje had this to say about Buhari under the caption ‘Political Scenarios’: “but the average Nigerian politician is afraid of entrusting power to him (Buhari) and Southerners and Christians will still be uncomfortable with a Buhari Presidency, especially as crisis in Jos and other places revive inter-religious suspicion”.

When it suits Nigerian journalists they make sweeping remarks and they get away with it. When this columnist says the Southerners and Christians will still be uncomfortable…, the implication is that all Southerners are Christians or are only sympathetic to Christians. If one were to judge another’s outlook on religion by appearance, then nothing in Buhari’s appearance suggests religious zealotry. The columnist also described Buhari as pious; so in Nigeria being pious is a crime? What did the Muslims of Taraba State do with eight years of the rule of Reverend Father Jolly Nyame? Would they have said that they were going to leave Taraba because they feared the rule of an evangelist?

There was this issue of Buhari being accused of asking voters of a particular Northern State to vote only one of their own in 2003. Was that not the character of the Yoruba throughout Nigeria’s political history, voting only for a member of its ethnic group? Did they ever repent? Was it not even on the ethnic agenda that Obasanjo’s way was paved to emerge as President? While Buhari denied ever making the statement credited to him, those who do not want him as President for a different reason want that ‘stigma’ to remain.

If we are to go back to the columnist again, why is the average Nigerian politician afraid of entrusting power to Buhari? Is it expected that he would rule in military fashion?  Or is it because the average politician sees governance as source of enriching oneself, while Buhari’s antecedents will not accommodate such evil? The columnist felt that his was to make the damning statement; he knew the audience he was addressing it to, and he knew the paymasters that stand to benefit from a chained Buhari.

Political parties as we all know are the vehicles that politicians use to campaign and come to power. A candidate may have the loftiest of vision, but without an entrenched political party his message may never reach the electorate. It is for this reason that people fight tooth and nail to corner the big parties. Once they control the parties, they control who emerges as candidate, and hardly does the candidate of big party loses. Today, Buhari and his supporters do not control the machinery of his party, the ANPP. The rank and file may support him, but the top notchers do not, and it is they who even went to the GNU. This realization made Buhari to feel that those who went to GNU in defiance of everybody must be punished before any reconciliation can take place. In politics as in many human enterprises, you do not usually rule out possibilities. Those who disagree with Buhari have their reasons for doing so, mostly bordering on self-preservation. And you find human being at his most ferocious if survival is threatened.

Political like many other games may depend on skills much more than good intentions. The ability to draw people to your cause, to neutralize opponents, to work with the hypocrite till you are strong to reject him are all part of political skills. Nigeria is a colonial inheritance. You do not rule out the interest of those who set it up when you intend to lead it. They have erected within it pillars that will ensure the survival of their legacy; and those pillars are in many cases not sympathetic to the policies and perceptions of Muhammadu Buhari. How capable is he in bending back to accommodate them, in order to ensure that he gets the opportunity to achieve at least an agenda or two, whose impact may last a life time? Or is it possible that the thread of trust between them had long been broken that even if he were to lie flat on his back to be marched upon by them, they will not buy, because they see it as strategy of war?

Politicians usually boast of having and pleasing their constituencies. Where is Buhari’s natural constituency? Is it in the army? That is most unlikely. Is it in the civil service bureaucracy? That also is another unlikely niche. His most staunch constituency being the masses; and even here if we are to believe the columnist of Business Day, it is the Northern masses who are the staunchest supporters. And of certainty I do not need a doctorate in political science to come to the conclusion that Northern masses alone cannot put anyone into Aso Rock, Buhari inclusive.

Nigeria’s politics is usually bitter. The bitterness stems from the fact that you usually do not see any principles being employed, but crass bargaining or brazen display of greed and avarice. In such scenarios, someone with Buhari’s mindset will be revolted, and the others will perceive that he will not carry them along once he sails through; then they look for their type.

Obasanjo was a child of circumstance. Northern elites found themselves boxed into a corner. They chose him to bail them out. Once in, he caged them, and the rest is now what we are all aware of. He also ironically was favored by Providence with favorable economic climate till the end; Yar Adua came with the meltdown. Where is Buhari’s crest to ride to power?

I had all through avoided addressing Buhari as General. This is with hope that he would come to Nigerian people as someone who wants to sell something to them, not as one who is indispensable to their lives or well-being. I have to the realization which many had come to earlier than me that suffering does not push people to take drastic action. People are willing to sink slowly to certain death rather than be shot down to smithereens within the blink of an eye.

Buhari the marketer should forget terms like ‘punishment’ and so on. Even jiki magayi has double meaning. There should be a Buhari at people’s door step with his begging bowl: kindly help me to serve you; lets forgive the past, and work (ALL) together for the future of Nigeria!