Saving Buhari

Abdu Isa Kofarmata

“People hate those who make them feel their own inferiority”...Lord Chesterfield

Tacitus asserted that it is characteristic of human nature to hate the man whom you have wronged. Just as whom men fear they hate, and whom they hate, they wish dead. It has beat all imaginations when Daily Trust newspaper allocated its guest column to one Shehu Mohammed Funtua to exhibit his arrogance and hatred to the person of General Muhammadu Buhari, former Head of State and two times ANPP presidential candidate 2003 and 2007.

The said article should have been a sponsored advertorial in order to make it more of political attack/opposition, it would have also help the reader in understanding the real motive as well as the identity of the assumed sponsored. It will be fair therefore if Daily Trust Newspaper will consider this rejoinder and give it the prominence it deserves, unless if the paper is among the group threatened by the rising political popularity of the General Buhari that was founded on the highest level of integrity and sound moral standard.

It is important to make it clear at this point that I am neither member of ANPP/TBO nor do I have any personal relation or contact with General Buhari. However, as a Nigerian who cares about the poor condition of living brought about by bad economic management, corruption and lack of political will from the part of our leaders. I look at the General as a person of proven integrity, high moral standard and corrupt free Nigerian. To my little understanding of this country, I also see him as someone who chooses the path of honour and remain resolute in both public and private life. For these and many more reasons my respect and appreciation of his person goes beyond the political inclination or division.

This write up is a rejoinder to an article on the above subject matter authored by one Shehu Mohammed Funtua, which appeared on the Daily Trust of Friday, November13, 2009 which again I found to be highly sentimental and parochial. The language and the flow of statements in the said article was so aggressive so much that any objective reader can easily and clearly notice the grudges and personal hatred against the person and political activities of General Buhari.

As I said earlier on, I am not holding brief for the General, but I feel a sense of responsibility to respond due to the fact that the said write-up was too personal and offensive and has failed woefully to address the core political issues or even prosper solution to our national problems. The opinion is destructive and thus having a negative political implication on the country’s political leadership which hitherto remains our greatest challenge. In his submission Shehu Funtua emphasized that Buhari’s messiah complex contributed to his repeated political discomfiture and that Buhari believes to be a God’s gift to Nigeria. J.F Kennedy, former US president once quoted Dente saying that the hottest places in hell are preserved for those who in period of moral crisis maintain silence or neutrality. Buhari could be right in predicting the collapse of Nigerian state as all indices that often in history have led to the collapse of nation states can be clearly seen in our today Nigeria. Moreover, it was not Buhari that made that prediction on the future of our country. United State Government international affairs department and certain security agencies in the US made same observation back in 2007, which was not offensive enough for Shehu Funtua.

What more can lead to the collapse of a nation state other than failed leadership, corruption, election rigging and a total elite violence against the masses. No single social service is at work now in Nigeria, our education system is bad that even elite class prepares Ghana, Togo and Niger Republic than allow their Children to graduate in Nigeria with distinction in examination malpractice. The economy has been ruined by the past and present leadership in the country thereby leading us to our present economic condition of stagnation with its resultant effect of poverty, disease and unemployment.

General Buhari should consider himself a gift from God for having all the opportunities to be the wealthiest citizen of this country but chooses to remain poor military pensioner while his contemporaries are arrogantly displaying wealth and affluence to the impoverished masses.

Buhari could have been among the owners of oil blocks, his siblings should have been directors in major Nigerian banks, Julius Berger, Sawoe and other blue chip operating in Nigeria. His son could have been riding million dollar Argentine horse with +5 ranking in the lucrative polo game. Buharis’ definition of politics within the rigid of moral standard can run into political difficulties as submitted by Shehu Funtua is informed by the complete absence of political morality and lack of ideology which are the basic ingredient of stable and matured democracy.

It was lack of morality in our political life that turned an ex-military convict into a democratic hero for presiding over the most expensive transition in the political history of Africa. It was the absence of high level political morality that corrupt politicians, 419ners and all sort of crooks sit in the two chambers of our National Assembly. It is indeed the absence of morality among our political leaders and captains of industry that many of them were able to made it to the Sunusi Lamido’s list of bad debtors. If Nigerians find it difficult to vote for morality in order not settle for Pope or Imam, they should continue to vote militants, oil bunkerer and all sorts of crooks thereby surrendering their right to life.

The fact that Buhari decided to join politics and his conviction to register his membership with ANPP though the party was founded and is funded by the crooks as stated by Shehu Funtua, has clearly demonstrated Buhari’s political flexibility and demonstrated his political ability to make compromise in order to achieve a political objective. This put the Shehu’s earlier claim to shame and contradictory.

A tactical re-introduction of religious issues by Shehu and how the issue was used by his political opponent in 2003 election is laughable and deceptive. It is important to note that the controversial comment was popularized and exaggerated by the General’s fellow Muslims. That was an old northern style of dividing and diverting the attentions of their subjects. Nigerian Christians were not particularly interested in the statement at the initial stage. Buhari’s Muslim brothers who daily profess Islam have participated and are still participating in the looting of the nation’s treasury and other dastardly act for which they will surely pay dearly in posterity did.

Let’s assumed that Buhari made the comment as reported and Nigerian Christians voted against him, what meaning or benefits accrued to them for their actions. Was it not the Christian president that increased the pump price of petroleum products seven times in eight years to further impoverish his fellow Christians? Was it not the Christian president that sent troops in the predominantly Christian communities of Odi and Zaki Biam to massacre his Christian brothers? Did their voting for Christian president eventually places food on their tables? Was their decision to vote for Christian president lead to the improvement in the quality of life and that of their children? The questions seem to be endless. Therefore one can conveniently and succinctly without fear of contradiction claim that both Obasanjo and Yarádua’s government were not founded on the basis of religion or any other primordial sentiment but on election rigging and desperate desire of certain section of the elites to perpetuate infinitely within the corridor of power thereby guaranteeing their relevance to siphoned and continue to plunder our resources.

With the good constitution, electoral law, and truly independent electoral body, not only Buhari, every citizen of this country can contest any election and come out victorious if found suitable by the electorate without collecting donations and finances from the well to do Nigerians who not only Buhari termed as crooks but myself inclusive.

If Shehu’s arrogant submission was an advice to the General Buhari, then that was not how to advise. I wish to conclude this rejoinder with some extract from the Sunusi Lamido Sunusi’s article titled “ Buharism: Economic Theory and Political Economy” posted on Gamji website July,22, 2002.

“I have tried to show in this intervention what I consider to be the principal building blocks of the military government of Muhammadu Buhari and the logical connection between its ideology, its economic theory and the legal and political superstructure that characterized it. My objective is to raise the intellectual profile of discourse beyond its present focus on personalities by letting readers see the intricate links between disparate and seemingly unrelated aspects of that government, thus contextualizing the actions of Buharism in its specific historical and ideological milieu. I have tried to review its treatment of politicians as part of a general struggle against primitive accumulation and its harsh laws on exchange and economic crimes as necessary fallout of economic policy options. Similarly its treatment of drug pushers reflected the patriotic zeal of a bourgeois nationalist establishment.

As happens in all such cases a number of innocent people become victims of draconian laws, such as a few honest leaders like Shehu Shagari and Balarabe Musa who were improperly detained. The reality however is that many of those claiming to be victims today were looters who deserved to go to jail but who would like to hide under the cover of a few glaring errors. The failure of key members of the Buhari administration to tender public and unreserved apology to those who may have been improperly detained has not helped matters in this regard.

This raises a question I have often been asked. Do I support Buhari’s decision to contest for the presidency of Nigeria? My answer is no. And I will explain.

First, I believe Buhari played a creditable role in a particular historical epoch but like Tolstoy and Marx I do not believe he can re-enact that role at will. Men do not make history exactly as they please but, as Marx wrote in the 18^th Brumaire, “in circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.” Muhammadu Buhari as a military general had more room for manoeuvre than he can ever hope for in Nigerian Politics.

Second, I am convinced that the situation of Nigeria and its elite today is worse than it was in 1983.Compared to the politicians who populate the PDP, ANPP and AD today, second republic politicians were angels. Buhari waged a battle against second republic politicians, but he is joining this generation. Anyone who rides a tiger ends up in its belly and one man cannot change the system from within. A number of those Buhari jailed for theft later became ministers and many of those who hold key offices in all tiers of government and the legislature were made by the very system he sought to destroy. My view is that Nigeria needs people like Buhari in politics but not to contest elections. Buhari should be in politics to develop Civil Society and strengthen the conscience of the nation. He should try to develop many Buharis who will continue to challenge the elements that have hijacked the nation.

Third, I do not think Nigerians today are ready for Buhari. Everywhere you turn you see thieves who have amassed wealth in the last four years, be they legislators, Local Government chairmen and councillors, or governors and ministers. But these are the heroes in their societies. They are the religious leaders and ethnic champions and Nigerians, especially northerners, will castigate and discredit anyone who challenges them. Unless we start by educating our people and changing their value system, people like Buhari will remain the victims of their own love for Nigeria.

Fourth, and on a lighter note, I am opposed to recycled material. In a nation of 120million people we can do better than restrict our leadership to a small group. I think Buhari, Babangida and yes Obasanjo should simply allow others try their hand instead of believing they have the monopoly of wisdom.

Having said all this let me conclude by saying that if Buhari gets a nomination he will have my vote (for what it is worth). I will vote for him not, like some have averred, because he is a northerner and a Muslim or because I think his candidacy is good for the north and Islam; I will vote for him not because I think he will make a good democrat or that he was not a dictator. I will vote for Buhari as a Nigerian for a leader who restored my pride and dignity and my belief in the motherland. I will vote for the man who made it undesirable for the “Andrews” to “check out” instead of staying to change Nigeria. I will vote for Buhari to say thank you for the world view of Buharism, a truly nationalist ideology for all Nigerians. I do not know if Buhari is still a nationalist or a closet bigot and fanatic, or if he was the spirit and not just the face of Buharism. My vote for him is not based on a divination of what he is or may be, but a celebration of what his government was and what it gave to the nation.”