By Steve Nwosu
Let me begin by saying that President Muhammadu Buhari has never disappointed me. And the reason is simple: I have never expected anything, other than what we are currently getting, from him.
Unlike millions of Nigerians, who fell for the ‘born-again democrat’ bait with which Buhari was sold to us in 2015, I have never believed in any of the Buhari credentials – except probably, that there is something, somewhere in the inside of him, that intuitively wants to do good and live right.
However, there is a great debate as to whether that aspect of his persona ever gets to prevail in all that he does, as president of Nigeria – considering all the other extraneous forces that come to play before a decision is finally made on a myriad of national issues.
Of course, many of these other forces are not as altruistic as that latent Mai Gasikiya trait (which, clearly, is not a dominant strain). There are forces of religion, ethnicity, regionalism, the personal agenda of each and all of the president’s men, the all-powerful kitchen cabinet (otherwise known as the cabal) and, sometimes, the bedroom force(s).
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The only problem here is that, going by the way the First Lady Aisha’s catfights have intensified in recent times, not a great deal appears to be happening in the bedroom – as decisions that should ordinarily have been signed and sealed over pillow-talks have now been moved to other rooms in the Villa (including the guest room).
Consequently, we are now being confronted with decisions, which do not only have a woman touch, but are increasing lacking in human touch. Decisions which seem to arise out of the Gentlemen’s Club, hardly subjected to the benefit of wide consultations and robust interrogation are suddenly slammed on us and rammed down our throats, without a single drop of water to ease the pain of swallowing such rock-hard morsels.
And it comes in all forms: One-sided border closure, games with forex, liberty with the Excess Crude Account, decisions to incur more foreign debts etc. It also extends to federal appointments, the anti-graft war, cherry-picking which court orders to obey, the P&ID mess, etc. Of course, we have hit a few bulls eye in our blind pitch – like the bid to stop importation of fuel by 2023 (good); moving to stop importation of rice (another good); What Rotimi Amaechi is doing with railway (great); What Malami is doing with Sowore’s prosecution (good but suspicious); the new regime at the Customs (mixed bag).
Of course, I totally refuse to be drawn into the Fowler, Banire, Asiwaju narrative, which claims Buhari is shadowboxing Tinubu by kicking out the helmsmen at the FIRS and AMCON, respectively.
Even if I’m tempted to believe the Fowler narrative, I’ll never buy the Banire angle. It would be politically naïve of anyone to think Banire is still a Tinubu boy.
He belongs to the class of students, who forcefully graduated themselves from the Tinubu school of leadership – albeit without taking their certificates. Two of such ‘graduates’ are still governors today. There are also some others who graduated abruptly in the past, but who have now retraced their steps and re-enrolled (even at the price of demotion, and going back a class or two).
But, despite all these, I refuse to fall for the story that Buhari, and those pulling the strings from behind the throne are moving against Asiwaju. No! Even when I’m reminded that President Buhari (Yes, I still call him ‘president’) had openly warned us that he can now be reckless, since he’s no longer seeking re-election, or anybody’s vote, I still console myself that he only said he would be ‘reckless’, not ‘ruthless’ (and he didn’t mention impunity).
Of course, I don’t want to believe that the increased disregard of the rule of law, the in-your-face electoral robberies, the closure of the border, the unflinching commitment to lopsided appointments and the legendary refusal to call transgressing aides and appointees to order are part of the recklessness PMB warned us about.
Back to PMB’s style! Even with a few hits and near misses here and there, one is still uncomfortable that our country is either being run on a knee-jerk basis or that some people, who are reading from a completely different rulebook have seized our country by the jugular, and using PMB to legitimise their iniquity – and pass same down to us as governance.
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The last time, it was our petroleum industry bill that was taken to London for signing. And we were fuming over that, without knowing what was to come. Now, the president has gone to Egypt and thrown our borders open to everybody. We must be the only country in the world to so do.
I don’t want to join the Fulani agenda narrative because, even with our visa regime, the absence of visa has never stopped Fulani from all over West Africa and the Maghreb from flooding into Nigeria.
Many of them are welcomed into the country with this same national identity card that is so difficult to come by for those of us bona fide Nigerians.
In fact, if the idea of removing visa requirement is to let Fulani from West Africa into Nigeria, then in the same breath, our brothers in Southern Cameroun, Gabon, Benin Republic, Togo, Southern Ghana and Equatorial Guinea can also come into the Southern parts of the country and balance out the demographic disequilibrium. And nobody should tell me those ones are not as itinerant as their Fulani counterpart.
My only fear is that with the way our president is going about this his pronouncements from abroad (often with little consultations with the National Assembly or any of the other arms of tiers of government), we would just wake up one day and hear that our Buhari, after a sumptuous lunch in Turkey, Russia, China, or even North Korea, has decided to suspend the 1999 constitution (both in its original form, and as amended).
And some people would mount public podium to tell us that it is for the good of the country. After all, the Senate president has already told us that whatever request Buhari brings to the Senate would be granted because “it is good for Nigeria”. And the CJN, who should have provided us with the last defence just noted, in his condemnation of the rubbishing of the judiciary by the Presidency, that the judiciary is responsible for what has been dished out to it. A case of putting the blame for rape on the victim!
But unlike The Punch, I’ll not stop addressing Buhari as president. Let him keep the title. It reminds me of the proverbial mad woman named Veronica. She said, instead of ‘nica’ (punned as knicker) to cause any quarrel with people, her kinsmen should hold unto the ‘nica’ and allow her walk about as ‘Vero’ (knickerless).
Let our president and his aides keep the ‘President’ alias. But it remains clear that the hood does not make the monk.
Needless to say, however, that The Punch simply put a voice (and a face) to what many of us, especially in the media, have been saying inside our closets. There’s no need singling out The Punch for the backlash. As a leading paper, The Punch only did what it should do: Provide leadership. It does not matter if we are only 100,000 people, who think that way. But a 100,000 dissatisfied people should give any serious government cause for concern – even if the country is as large as China.
Meanwhile, whoever says 100,000 people should not cause government sleepless nights should ask Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State how even one person can cause you to lose sleep for several months.
Yes, as the storm continues to gather ahead of next year’s governorship election in the state, the thought of one man, Osagie Ize-Iyamu, returning to APC from PDP has seen Gov. Obaseki, running from pillar to post – and in one instance, threatening to bring down the house on everybody.
Of course, there is one truth that neither the APC, National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, nor Obaseki is willing to tell the rest of us. That truth is that they all know that, as PDP flag bearer, Ize-Iyamu floored the APC at the last governorship election in the state.
That it took a lot of creative collation, a little bit of arm-twisting, and a trailer-load of cash to wrest it out of PDP’s grasp. Not even the verdict of the Supreme Court, which ultimately validated the APC victory, has given the APC confidence that it can survive another election against the structure Ize-Iyamu had (and still has).
And with Oshiomhole falling out with Obaseki, and getting into bed with Ize-Iyamu, Obaseki knows he cannot sleep with both eyes, especially when nobody is in doubt that Ize-Iyamu wants another go at the governorship. That is the other truth.
And that is the long and short of the crises that have been going on in Edo state – from the state assembly to controversial party rally. It even overflowed into the National Working Committee meeting, where aborted moves were initiated to sack Oshiomhole, as National Chairman. That move has yet to die down. And everything boils down to one man: Ize-Iyamu.
