27th June, 2016
Those whom the gods will destroy, they first make deaf – Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka.
Only God knows what we can do without artistes – writers, intellectuals, and critics especially. What would our world be without their artistic talents, creativity, and Bohemian spirit? To my mind, they are the very essence of our existence; the totality of our being. Apart from educating and entertaining us, they interrogate ’knowledge’; speak the truth to power; explore unknown terrains; and fantasise about the future. In doing these, they break barriers and lounge us into new frontiers. They help restrain despots and free a thousand thoughts to contend and thousands more ideas to blossom. These they do at grave personal risks to their own freedoms, liberties, and limbs. In “Writers against rulers”, Dusan Hamsik extensively discussed the perils of those who frontally confront officialdom, especially vile dictatorship. As editor-in-chief of the official newspaper of the Czech Writers’ Union, “Literarni Noviny”, Hamsik graphically chronicled how Czech intellectuals and writers confronted the “Berlin wall” of official bureaucracy and autocracy as the writers prepared for the 1967 Congress of their Union. Those were the days of the Cold War and the Iron Curtain when official censorship and authoritarianism held sway against the human spirit which, ebullient and ever effervescent, demanded and forcibly appropriated, at great costs, the freedoms and liberties necessary for rejuvenation, renewal, and re-birth. Whereas the Berlin wall has collapsed and the Iron Curtain torn into shreds in the erstwhile Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR), authoritarianism is yet to be defeated across the globe. In many of the nations of the world, dictators, many of them in the garb of elected leaders, still strut the landscape. Our country, Nigeria, no less!
Thank God, President Muhammadu Buhari is back from his trip to Britain. Be it holiday or medical treatment, we are happy he is back hale and hearty. Now, he should be better able to devote all attention to the job Nigerians hired him to do. Before now, we have heard very discomforting news that the president was a snob. You can talk for God-knows-how-long and at the end of it; all you get is “thank you”! Now, with the revelation that the president had ear infection and, possibly, hearing problems, we can understand what might have happened: The president might not have heard them fully or might not have heard them at all! How, then, can such a man govern at all or govern well? This goes to show that something is still wrong with the way we practice the presidential system here: Too much secrecy still surrounds the business of government and government top functionaries; one of which is the state of their health. How healthy are the men and women who aspire to lead this country? Their health status ought to be in the public purview well before election date for voters to peruse and make up their minds one way or another. In the United States whose presidential system we copy, this is always the case. There is no privacy involved here. Those who choose to offer themselves for leadership positions ought to reveal all the information about themselves – their health and finances especially. While Buhari came out clean on one, he neglected to do the other. I doubt whether his hearing issue is a new phenomenon. This was how we were conned concerning the health status of the late president Umaru Yar’Adua – and see the havoc it nearly wreaked on the polity. No one prays for another such disaster so soon.
Do we assume that the president is well enough now to assume the onerous duties of his high office or must there be the formality of someone with the appropriate authorisation to make a definitive pronouncement on the issue? And who can that be: The President’s personal physician or the Minister of Health or a Medical Board? This issue must not be treated with levity or swept under the carpet as we are wont to do. Imagine, for instance, that the president’s hearing problem still persists despite the treatment he had received home and abroad, how does that affect the performance of his job? The president himself was quoted recently as saying that Nigeria is not easy to govern. Any form of disability can only make that task much more onerous. Have you suffered ear infection\hearing problem before, you will understand how easily it makes the sufferer irritable and aggressive. And this president has been unnecessarily irritable and increasingly aggressive in recent times.
And this has not helped matters for him – as well as for the nation. This president is a fighter; we have said it before that on issues that should, ordinarily, be settled around the negotiation table, this president sends troops to handle. That is why he is engaged on many war fronts at one and same time and is embroiled in many disputes with friends and foes alike. He should ask Jethro, biblical Moses’s father-in-law: In no time, he will wear himself out and weary the nation as well. This president may have good intentions; but what are good intentions if the right approach to issues is not applied to husband them? It has been said that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. This was how Buhari floundered with his good intentions on his first coming as military dictator because his approach was not correct. He promulgated draconian laws with retroactive effects and sent three young Nigerians to an early grave. He enacted laws which criminalised publication of the truth and sent two Nigerian newspaper editors to jail. His craftily-drafted money laundering law trapped and jailed Afro-beat king Fela Anikulapo-Kuti; which prosecution and sentencing were patently flawed and, in the end, led to Fela’s unconditional release from jail. His government ordered a demeaning search on the home of the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo; ordered the humiliation of three first-class traditional rulers; and looked the other way while 53 suitcases belonging to an Emir entered through the airport against the decrees of the regime. Buhari’s regime also was noted for his preferential treatment: While the ousted President Shehu Shagari was put under house arrest, Vice- President Alex Ekwueme was hauled into prison. The regime also did not obey its own laws: While it banned minors from pilgrimage to the holy lands, the Number Two in that regime, Tunde Idiagbon, took his 14-year-old son with him on pilgrimage to Mecca. He was on that pilgrimage when the regime was toppled.
Nigerians have not forgotten all these dark sides of Buhari. And there are many who have also not forgiven him. This was why thrice he ran for the presidency in 2003, 2007, and 2011 and Nigerians flatly rejected him. And each time the present reminds us of the past, we squirm. In the intervening years between the time Buhari was toppled in 1985 and his election as president last year, he also chalked up more negatives. His very reckless statements in support of Boko Haram; his provocative statement of baboon and monkey will be soaked in blood, which many still hold responsible for the mindless butchering of innocent NYSC members and others in the aftermath of the 2011 presidential election; his “arrest me if you can” pugnacious statement after the blood of the innocent was shed; and his seemingly I-don’t-care attitude to the rampage of Fulani herdsmen, who have turned the country into their killing field – all these and many others make Nigerians wary of the man Buhari, including many who voted to make him president in 2015. The choice of Buhari was not an easy one for many to make. It was like we were caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. Buhari should be grateful that, ultimately, the doubts were resolved in his favour. He should reciprocate with good governance. And good governance starts with treating the man who conceded power to him on a platter with utmost respect. If ex-President Goodluck Jonathan had been as desperate for power as Buhari, Nigeria would have gone to the dogs and whether or not he won the 2015 election, there would have been no country for Buhari to preside over. Good governance is carried forward when Buhari behaves as the president of the entire country and the leader behind whom every Nigerian would feel safe, confident, and comfortable enough to file. But this president has been divisive – and embarrassingly so. Nothing justifies the way Buhari has polarised Nigerians and heated up the polity. At no time in our recent past has this country been so polarised and the polity so much on the boil. Resurgent Biafra, which was timid under Jonathan, has suddenly found its voice. The militants are back with vengeance in the Niger Delta. The economy is prostrate. Unemployment is inching towards 50%. The Naira is going the way of Zimbabwe. Hunger stalks the land. Crime wave is alarming. The Legislature is rebelling. The Opposition is under attack. In all of this, there is no direction from Buhari’s government. The country is like a rudderless ship.
Buhari has got to CHANGE and adopt a better approach which will better serve him and the nation; achieve more results and have him exert less energy. He will burn lesser number of bridges while building many more. But should he decide to turn deaf ears – Aah! Those ears again! – he should consider Wole Soyinka’s quote above. Recently, IBB volunteered that they toppled Buhari because he ran a one-man show. It is not wisdom to make the same mistakes twice. Our “husband” must not run mad again!
LAST WORDS: FCT, Abuja is not going to be big enough for two presidents – the one of the Senate and the other of the Federation. So, in addition to his CCT trial, Bukola Saraki has an additional forgery case to answer. Buhari, like IBB, wants to totally dominate his environment. The other time, he served notice to Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu that the Jagaban Borgu cannot continue to be called “National Leader” of APC. Uuumh! “Power corrupts…