Pendulum: Buhari And The Failure Of Style And Strategy

By Dele Momodu

“God forbid.
A P what?
I am with Sunday Igboho, any Southern politician contesting without
an amendment of the Constitution is a traitor and should be dealt
with as one!
Thank goodness Tinubu is already facing his own judgement… God
willing, we shall first fix the faulty foundation…”

Fellow Nigerians, the above quotation was a response I got from
my Sister-in-Law, a die-hard Buharist, once upon a time. Let me
assure you that she’s not a frivolous person. Sister T had read Law
and won laurels both in University and at the Law School over 30
years ago. Prior to the 2019 general elections, she was so
fanatical about President Muhammadu Buhari to the point that I
stopped discussing politics with her since, by then, I had lost
confidence and faith in the President’s ability and capability to
steer the ship of the Nigerian State. It therefore came as a rude
shock when I taunted her yesterday about her political party, APC,
causing so much trouble in Nigeria and she responded with the above
bazooka and I was momentarily stunned.

I had no idea when she stopped seeing Buhari as an infallible
leader who can do no wrong and what triggered it. Knowing her as a
woman of impeccable pedigree (her Dad was a State Attorney General)
and such a deep thinker, I concluded Buhari must have really
crossed the red line for her to have responded in such a manner.
And for this woman, and many more like her, to even choose Sunday
Igboho Adeyemo over and above Buhari should be a source of worry
for the Presidency.

Believe it or not, I know of many distinguished Yoruba people
who are pledging allegiance to this man from Oyo State who was
practically unknown to most of them until the cold indifference of
the Buhari Government threw him up as a child of circumstance! I
have always opined that Buhari’s ceremonial, monarchical style can
no longer work in this time and age. Not even a military leader in
his full majesty can enjoy the lifestyle of an Emperor again. The
world has shifted base since those days of military dictatorships
in the 80s and 90s. The youths of today are ready to do almost
anything to liberate themselves from oppressive regimes. A good
example is how our beloved First Lady, Mrs Aisha Buhari, openly
spoke up and rebuked the government of her own husband, and even
lashed out at some of its most powerful operatives. Such would have
been unthinkable in the past.

I wish Buhari truly knows the extent of disappointment he has
inflicted on many of his supporters and devotees, of which I was
one in 2015. I’m still hoping that what’s going on is a bad dream
and that I will suddenly wake up and see Buhari fulfilling all the
promises he made to Nigerians in 2015 and 2019. I understand the
trepidation with which most of those working for the President
treat him, so it is obvious that they will never tell him the
truth. It is even more dangerous when everyone around you decides
to edit every statement they want to make to you, out of fear. The
ruling party today cannot rein in its Party leader. Its own
internal crisis is a topic for another day. More than two years
away to the 2023 Presidential election, most of the Party’s
apparatchiks are busy positioning themselves in a game of thrones.
So, none of them has the time and temerity to approach Buhari and
tell, or remind, him of the unaccomplished gargantuan promises he
made before attaining power.

For example, I was very certain of the following. One. Buhari,
as a retired army Major General and no-nonsense personality will
waste no time in sacking and completely obliterating the army of
bandits operating like the Janjaweeds of Somalia. Our misplaced
expectation was so high that I almost imagined that he would even
adorn his combat camouflage fatigues and military gears in a
symbolic gesture to serve as inspiration to our soldiers from their
Commander-in-Chief, even if for mere photo-ops! Just picture how
much of a morale-booster this would have been. Instead, our
military got more entangled in the ethnic politics of Nigeria due
to no fault of theirs. It has even been alleged by a respected
Muslim cleric that the Christian soldiers have been responsible for
the summary killings and harassment of bandits. Nothing could be
more dangerous than dividing our armed forces along ethno-religious
lines. Unfortunately, our President has remained funereally silent.
This coming from a man who travelled energetically and crisscrossed
the whole of Nigeria from 2003 to 2019, desperately searching for
power which he now possesses, but is clearly clueless as to how to
use or deploy it. He spoke at rallies to a beehive of rambunctious
fans and Party members. How can the same man become so tongue-tied
as his country continues to haemorrhage to death? Nigeria is
possibly far worse today than Iraq in terms of insecurity. The Pope
just landed yesterday in Iraq. I’m not sure he would consider
coming to Nigeria any time soon. Is Nigeria more Islamic than Iraq?
Nothing is more annoying than the head of a nation switching off
like NEPA/PHCN in its time of tribulations!

Let’s digress a bit. Is it that President Buhari does not watch
international news? He and President Joe Biden of America are age
mates. Is he not seeing how Biden has been going about his job
meticulously and methodically, selecting some of the best brains it
has pleased God to bless America with? Just yesterday, another
Nigerian, Mrs Adesuwa Ogiamien-Adesotoye, originally from Benin
City, Nigeria, took her oath of office in Washington DC, after
being picked by President Biden. I doubt he can even properly
pronounce her name, but what matters is her meritorious services in
the Department of Health and Human Services.

Let’s go back to the issue of insecurity. One would have
expected President Buhari to continue to reassure Nigerians
directly. He was employed to serve Nigerians and not vice versa.
But what it seems now is like Nigerians employed a Lord and Master
over themselves. Hordes of visitors daily troop to the Aso Rock
Presidential villa and these include Governors who should be too
busy attending to a myriad of challenges in their States (and
please consider the cost implications in a very depressed economy);
Royal fathers who should be the ones inviting Buhari to their
palaces (May God bless the souls of some old departed Oonis,
Alaafins, Obas of Bini), Sultans, Emirs, Obis who knew about their
spiritual superiority over temporal powers; Corporate titans (Joe
Biden had to visit Pfizer to physically examine how well the fight
against Covid-19 was going on with the production of vaccines)… Not
so in our own country. Presidents are treated as Emperors who must
be worshipped, and billions of cash are wasted on unnecessary
visits to Abuja! The President who came to power on the promise of
frugality and accountability has inadvertently and unwittingly
encouraged jamborees and profligacy. That is the hallmark of this
administration. Everything including the good, the bad and the ugly
is happenstance.

It is wrong and offensive to every sense of decorum and decency
for a leader not to personally empathize and sympathize with
victims of violence and their families. The habit of issuing Press
releases in reaction to monumental disasters should stop forthwith.
The impression is that these alleged missives from the President
are simply penned by the authors with or without his authority. If
the President is unable to cope with the rigors of his job on
account of any unknown incapacitation or debilitating ailments, he
should be humble enough to assign his Vice President on such
important missions. He needs to endear his government more to the
people of Nigeria. The general impression out here is that he is
too standoffish to care about us. This is so unfortunate.

Two. We expected the President to fight corruption in a more
serious and professional manner devoid of the obvious witch-hunt
that has become the biggest existential threat to EFCC, ICPC, SFU,
and all our other anti-corruption and anti-crime agencies. Before
our very eyes, we have seen the body language of this government,
in its attitude to protecting members of its own clique while
bullying and intimidating others. What we expected was a
standardization of the operations of crime investigators and the
offices of the prosecutors. A situation where dusty files of a
leader are whimsically resurrected because he wants to be stopped
from contesting Presidential elections is utterly reckless,
deplorable and reprehensible. Those citizens who applaud such
rascality and display indifference towards such apparent
intimidation of former benefactors will soon have their own day in
similar circumstances.

The way to go is for the President himself, and his Vice
President, to make their assets declarations public and compel all
public office holders to do same. This should be the starting point
and there should be no sacred cows. When that foundation has been
laid, it would be much easier to build on it.

Three. Many had warned us against supporting Buhari for two
reasons, that he’s too tribalistic and over religious and may not
be tolerant of other ethnic and religious groups. Many of us argued
that after 30 years out of office, he would have learnt his lessons
and calmed down. But if truth must be told, Buhari seems to have
confirmed the worst fears of his traducers and they are now
reminding us that “didn’t we tell you a leopard can never change
its spots.” The way and manner Buhari made certain appointments
could not have been more provocative. The infractions are too many
but let but let me just pick a few samples.

How could any leader have selected most of his military service
chiefs from a particular ethnic group as if no other parts of
Nigerian are represented in the armed forces. Worse still, even
when these guys displayed abject incompetence, the President
ignored all calls and kept them in situ. And when he eventually
removed them, he compensated them with diplomatic jobs abroad. How
could a leader have removed a Southerner from an appointment and
replace him with a Northerner but retain a Northerner for much
longer in office or replace him with another Northerner. A sad
example is how Ms Hadiza Bala-Usman was retained as the Managing
Director of the extremely powerful Nigerian Ports Authority but Dr
Dakuku Peterside was removed as Director General/CEO of the
Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency and was
immediately replaced with a Northerner, despite the general acclaim
that he added much value.

4. Many of my Northern friends have expressed dismay at the
ethnic profiling of bandits as Fulani but they have failed to place
the blame where it really belongs, at Buhari’s doorstep. Till this
day, the President has never directly and openly spoken against or
about the herdsmen who happen to be his kinsmen. He has not
proscribed them or the infamous Boko Haram sect. However, he was
quick to proscribe IPOB that has not engaged in mayhem compared to
the Northern groups. They have certainly not been involved in any
kidnapping, raping, despoliation of farmlands and all that. Where
they have been militant, it has been clearly for a cause and any
bloodshed has come only from their being attacked by the Nigerian
military. He has never called or labelled the Northern elements or
foreign Fulani mercenaries and insurgents as terrorists. He has
seen how some Northern leaders have been strolling in and out of
the forests of the North without as much as casting a glance their
way, yet the military is quick to crush supposed rebellions in the
South even before they erupt.

What’s my advice and solution? The President should know that
his present style is faulty, and his strategy has failed. That is
if he is really in control of such strategy or policy. He should
admit that he has not been fair to a large chunk of Nigerians and
he should reach out very quickly to all people in all parts of the
country. He and his Vice President should urgently begin some
goodwill trips to different parts of the country, alternately. They
should visit campuses, palaces, leaders of faiths, civil society
groups, cultural leaders, captains of industry, the media, host
town hall meetings and warm up to the people of Nigeria instead of
this unproductive aloofness. This idea of sitting in one place and
expecting people to come and pay homage is outdated.

Leaders must be visible to the generality of the populace and
proactive in meeting and dealing with them.
The President must look inwards and do things that would develop
Nigeria first, before thinking of developing Niger Republic. I have
no problem with whatever ties he has to Niger Republic but, for
God’s sake, Nigeria is bleeding and crying for help in all areas of
human existence.

The President has two years to redress the wrongs of six years.
He should set up a Federal Character task force to ensure power and
positions are equitably distributed. This will help bring down the
tension in the land.
The current system of government cannot be sustained. The country
must be restructured. The President is in possession of many
documents containing useful recommendations. He should act on them
urgently. Many fantastic bills were also passed in the recent
National Assembly headed by Dr Abubakar Bukola Saraki and Rt. Hon.
Yakubu Dogara, they should not be wasted.

Finally, I’m worried about the shoot at sight order given to
security forces against hoodlums. While a crazy situation deserves
a crazy reaction, the President should ensure that this won’t
become an excuse to get rid of some Southern agitators while the
Northern ones are being over-pampered in the forests. I believe in
miracles and this can still be achieved…
I just woke up from my dream…

By Dele Momodu

“God forbid.
A P what?
I am with Sunday Igboho, any Southern politician contesting without
an amendment of the Constitution is a traitor and should be dealt
with as one!
Thank goodness Tinubu is already facing his own judgement… God
willing, we shall first fix the faulty foundation…”

Fellow Nigerians, the above quotation was a response I got from
my Sister-in-Law, a die-hard Buharist, once upon a time. Let me
assure you that she’s not a frivolous person. Sister T had read Law
and won laurels both in University and at the Law School over 30
years ago. Prior to the 2019 general elections, she was so
fanatical about President Muhammadu Buhari to the point that I
stopped discussing politics with her since, by then, I had lost
confidence and faith in the President’s ability and capability to
steer the ship of the Nigerian State. It therefore came as a rude
shock when I taunted her yesterday about her political party, APC,
causing so much trouble in Nigeria and she responded with the above
bazooka and I was momentarily stunned.

I had no idea when she stopped seeing Buhari as an infallible
leader who can do no wrong and what triggered it. Knowing her as a
woman of impeccable pedigree (her Dad was a State Attorney General)
and such a deep thinker, I concluded Buhari must have really
crossed the red line for her to have responded in such a manner.
And for this woman, and many more like her, to even choose Sunday
Igboho Adeyemo over and above Buhari should be a source of worry
for the Presidency.

Believe it or not, I know of many distinguished Yoruba people
who are pledging allegiance to this man from Oyo State who was
practically unknown to most of them until the cold indifference of
the Buhari Government threw him up as a child of circumstance! I
have always opined that Buhari’s ceremonial, monarchical style can
no longer work in this time and age. Not even a military leader in
his full majesty can enjoy the lifestyle of an Emperor again. The
world has shifted base since those days of military dictatorships
in the 80s and 90s. The youths of today are ready to do almost
anything to liberate themselves from oppressive regimes. A good
example is how our beloved First Lady, Mrs Aisha Buhari, openly
spoke up and rebuked the government of her own husband, and even
lashed out at some of its most powerful operatives. Such would have
been unthinkable in the past.

I wish Buhari truly knows the extent of disappointment he has
inflicted on many of his supporters and devotees, of which I was
one in 2015. I’m still hoping that what’s going on is a bad dream
and that I will suddenly wake up and see Buhari fulfilling all the
promises he made to Nigerians in 2015 and 2019. I understand the
trepidation with which most of those working for the President
treat him, so it is obvious that they will never tell him the
truth. It is even more dangerous when everyone around you decides
to edit every statement they want to make to you, out of fear. The
ruling party today cannot rein in its Party leader. Its own
internal crisis is a topic for another day. More than two years
away to the 2023 Presidential election, most of the Party’s
apparatchiks are busy positioning themselves in a game of thrones.
So, none of them has the time and temerity to approach Buhari and
tell, or remind, him of the unaccomplished gargantuan promises he
made before attaining power.

For example, I was very certain of the following. One. Buhari,
as a retired army Major General and no-nonsense personality will
waste no time in sacking and completely obliterating the army of
bandits operating like the Janjaweeds of Somalia. Our misplaced
expectation was so high that I almost imagined that he would even
adorn his combat camouflage fatigues and military gears in a
symbolic gesture to serve as inspiration to our soldiers from their
Commander-in-Chief, even if for mere photo-ops! Just picture how
much of a morale-booster this would have been. Instead, our
military got more entangled in the ethnic politics of Nigeria due
to no fault of theirs. It has even been alleged by a respected
Muslim cleric that the Christian soldiers have been responsible for
the summary killings and harassment of bandits. Nothing could be
more dangerous than dividing our armed forces along ethno-religious
lines. Unfortunately, our President has remained funereally silent.
This coming from a man who travelled energetically and crisscrossed
the whole of Nigeria from 2003 to 2019, desperately searching for
power which he now possesses, but is clearly clueless as to how to
use or deploy it. He spoke at rallies to a beehive of rambunctious
fans and Party members. How can the same man become so tongue-tied
as his country continues to haemorrhage to death? Nigeria is
possibly far worse today than Iraq in terms of insecurity. The Pope
just landed yesterday in Iraq. I’m not sure he would consider
coming to Nigeria any time soon. Is Nigeria more Islamic than Iraq?
Nothing is more annoying than the head of a nation switching off
like NEPA/PHCN in its time of tribulations!

Let’s digress a bit. Is it that President Buhari does not watch
international news? He and President Joe Biden of America are age
mates. Is he not seeing how Biden has been going about his job
meticulously and methodically, selecting some of the best brains it
has pleased God to bless America with? Just yesterday, another
Nigerian, Mrs Adesuwa Ogiamien-Adesotoye, originally from Benin
City, Nigeria, took her oath of office in Washington DC, after
being picked by President Biden. I doubt he can even properly
pronounce her name, but what matters is her meritorious services in
the Department of Health and Human Services.

Let’s go back to the issue of insecurity. One would have
expected President Buhari to continue to reassure Nigerians
directly. He was employed to serve Nigerians and not vice versa.
But what it seems now is like Nigerians employed a Lord and Master
over themselves. Hordes of visitors daily troop to the Aso Rock
Presidential villa and these include Governors who should be too
busy attending to a myriad of challenges in their States (and
please consider the cost implications in a very depressed economy);
Royal fathers who should be the ones inviting Buhari to their
palaces (May God bless the souls of some old departed Oonis,
Alaafins, Obas of Bini), Sultans, Emirs, Obis who knew about their
spiritual superiority over temporal powers; Corporate titans (Joe
Biden had to visit Pfizer to physically examine how well the fight
against Covid-19 was going on with the production of vaccines)… Not
so in our own country. Presidents are treated as Emperors who must
be worshipped, and billions of cash are wasted on unnecessary
visits to Abuja! The President who came to power on the promise of
frugality and accountability has inadvertently and unwittingly
encouraged jamborees and profligacy. That is the hallmark of this
administration. Everything including the good, the bad and the ugly
is happenstance.

It is wrong and offensive to every sense of decorum and decency
for a leader not to personally empathize and sympathize with
victims of violence and their families. The habit of issuing Press
releases in reaction to monumental disasters should stop forthwith.
The impression is that these alleged missives from the President
are simply penned by the authors with or without his authority. If
the President is unable to cope with the rigors of his job on
account of any unknown incapacitation or debilitating ailments, he
should be humble enough to assign his Vice President on such
important missions. He needs to endear his government more to the
people of Nigeria. The general impression out here is that he is
too standoffish to care about us. This is so unfortunate.

Two. We expected the President to fight corruption in a more
serious and professional manner devoid of the obvious witch-hunt
that has become the biggest existential threat to EFCC, ICPC, SFU,
and all our other anti-corruption and anti-crime agencies. Before
our very eyes, we have seen the body language of this government,
in its attitude to protecting members of its own clique while
bullying and intimidating others. What we expected was a
standardization of the operations of crime investigators and the
offices of the prosecutors. A situation where dusty files of a
leader are whimsically resurrected because he wants to be stopped
from contesting Presidential elections is utterly reckless,
deplorable and reprehensible. Those citizens who applaud such
rascality and display indifference towards such apparent
intimidation of former benefactors will soon have their own day in
similar circumstances.

The way to go is for the President himself, and his Vice
President, to make their assets declarations public and compel all
public office holders to do same. This should be the starting point
and there should be no sacred cows. When that foundation has been
laid, it would be much easier to build on it.

Three. Many had warned us against supporting Buhari for two
reasons, that he’s too tribalistic and over religious and may not
be tolerant of other ethnic and religious groups. Many of us argued
that after 30 years out of office, he would have learnt his lessons
and calmed down. But if truth must be told, Buhari seems to have
confirmed the worst fears of his traducers and they are now
reminding us that “didn’t we tell you a leopard can never change
its spots.” The way and manner Buhari made certain appointments
could not have been more provocative. The infractions are too many
but let but let me just pick a few samples.

How could any leader have selected most of his military service
chiefs from a particular ethnic group as if no other parts of
Nigerian are represented in the armed forces. Worse still, even
when these guys displayed abject incompetence, the President
ignored all calls and kept them in situ. And when he eventually
removed them, he compensated them with diplomatic jobs abroad. How
could a leader have removed a Southerner from an appointment and
replace him with a Northerner but retain a Northerner for much
longer in office or replace him with another Northerner. A sad
example is how Ms Hadiza Bala-Usman was retained as the Managing
Director of the extremely powerful Nigerian Ports Authority but Dr
Dakuku Peterside was removed as Director General/CEO of the
Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency and was
immediately replaced with a Northerner, despite the general acclaim
that he added much value.

4. Many of my Northern friends have expressed dismay at the
ethnic profiling of bandits as Fulani but they have failed to place
the blame where it really belongs, at Buhari’s doorstep. Till this
day, the President has never directly and openly spoken against or
about the herdsmen who happen to be his kinsmen. He has not
proscribed them or the infamous Boko Haram sect. However, he was
quick to proscribe IPOB that has not engaged in mayhem compared to
the Northern groups. They have certainly not been involved in any
kidnapping, raping, despoliation of farmlands and all that. Where
they have been militant, it has been clearly for a cause and any
bloodshed has come only from their being attacked by the Nigerian
military. He has never called or labelled the Northern elements or
foreign Fulani mercenaries and insurgents as terrorists. He has
seen how some Northern leaders have been strolling in and out of
the forests of the North without as much as casting a glance their
way, yet the military is quick to crush supposed rebellions in the
South even before they erupt.

What’s my advice and solution? The President should know that
his present style is faulty, and his strategy has failed. That is
if he is really in control of such strategy or policy. He should
admit that he has not been fair to a large chunk of Nigerians and
he should reach out very quickly to all people in all parts of the
country. He and his Vice President should urgently begin some
goodwill trips to different parts of the country, alternately. They
should visit campuses, palaces, leaders of faiths, civil society
groups, cultural leaders, captains of industry, the media, host
town hall meetings and warm up to the people of Nigeria instead of
this unproductive aloofness. This idea of sitting in one place and
expecting people to come and pay homage is outdated.

Leaders must be visible to the generality of the populace and
proactive in meeting and dealing with them.
The President must look inwards and do things that would develop
Nigeria first, before thinking of developing Niger Republic. I have
no problem with whatever ties he has to Niger Republic but, for
God’s sake, Nigeria is bleeding and crying for help in all areas of
human existence.

The President has two years to redress the wrongs of six years.
He should set up a Federal Character task force to ensure power and
positions are equitably distributed. This will help bring down the
tension in the land.
The current system of government cannot be sustained. The country
must be restructured. The President is in possession of many
documents containing useful recommendations. He should act on them
urgently. Many fantastic bills were also passed in the recent
National Assembly headed by Dr Abubakar Bukola Saraki and Rt. Hon.
Yakubu Dogara, they should not be wasted.

Finally, I’m worried about the shoot at sight order given to
security forces against hoodlums. While a crazy situation deserves
a crazy reaction, the President should ensure that this won’t
become an excuse to get rid of some Southern agitators while the
Northern ones are being over-pampered in the forests. I believe in
miracles and this can still be achieved…
I just woke up from my dream…