IN two dizzying weeks from September 24, 2019 to October 8, 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari had the opportunity to deliver three speeches that should inspire his audience and establish him as an accomplished statesman and possibly rhetorician. For the past four years, he had been presented with similar opportunities to galvanise his compatriots and make a powerful impression on the world stage. He has, however, not quite met the expectations of the world, nor of his people. Going into his fifth year in office, it is now very uncertain that his speeches, even if they are sincere and germane, can perform the tasks invested in them by a hopeful public. As many great leaders have proved, some of them badly flawed, soaring speeches can be made to do the impossible and exert powerful and indescribable effect on national psyche and destinies.
For Nigeria, and especially the Buhari presidency, there will probably be no great speeches of any kind in the coming years. If the country is to achieve greatness, it will be because the people inspire themselves and carry their leaders along. It will not be the other way round, as the world has become accustomed. Perhaps it is even misplaced to expect that President Buhari will be that great speechmaker, that man whose instinctive feel for the people and the nation propels him into the grandest speeches that stir the soul of the country and grab and arrest the attention of the world. The president’s supporters may argue that what matters is the ultimate goal of nation-building, such as lifting millions of his people out of poverty, not fiery and inspirational speeches. But unlike when he took office, when his admirable terseness influenced his speeches into idiosyncratic brevity, President Buhari has begun to give very long and poorly cadenced addresses.
The president’s September 24 address at the 74th sessions of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) was all of 43 paragraphs, while the Independence Anniversary speech was 53 paragraphs. The October 8 Budget 2020 speech repudiated thriftiness and went full bloom into 68 incestuous and ungainly paragraphs. Many commentators have remarked that the president’s recent speeches cock a snook at English grammar, and that those speeches would have been enormously improved had they retained either their brevity or, even in their ordinariness, at least promote some succinctness. This disappointment is probably because the critics believe that the president can pay for the best speechwriters in the country, that is, should matters come to that dire pass. But right or wrong, President Buhari’s speeches are neither inspiring nor succinct. He should, therefore, have strived for both brevity and precision, two virtues always capable of redeeming any potentially bad speech.
It is possible that the speeches are afflicted by two inherent weaknesses: either the president does not believe what he is saying, or he does not have a firm grasp of the subject upon which he is declaiming. The September 24 address before the UN, probably the only one among the three that attempted to soar a little, exemplifies the first weakness. It is impossible to think that the president believes himself when he declares towards the end of his address that “In Nigeria, we have made significant strides to put our own house in order. We will work tirelessly to uphold due process. The rule of law remains the permanent, unchanging foundation of the world order.” To confirm that he was not just rambling a wayward point, the president concludes: “Freedom, tolerance and the rule of law are universal values and underline the best that this General Assembly (UN) represents. And that binds us all.” If the three values he points out are universal, surely Nigeria should be included among its exponents. After all, as he says, the world is bound by the three values, and they are the best the General Assembly represents.
President Buhari’s most fanatical supporters do not believe that he knows anything about freedom or tolerance or the rule of law. In fact they have shockingly and consistently argued that the Buhari presidency has licence to promote the axiom that says the end justifies the means, and to deploy the most vicious tactics and tools to ensnare and damn lawbreakers because by breaking the law in the first instance, the lawbreakers showed their contempt for the law and affronted civilisation. There is absolutely nothing in the Buhari presidency that indicates it has knowledge of, let alone accept, the values of freedom, tolerance and rule of law. Nothing. Not in partisan politics, not in its official relationship with the judiciary, and not in its interactions with a legislature it once deemed hostile and uncontrollable. Indeed, for those three values mentioned in his UN speech, there is little proof that the president is conversant with their meanings, not to say be eager to adopt and promote them.
One more point from the UN speech should suffice to prove the case that the president was actually not conversant with the arguments he was making. It was indeed not a point to make, not by any stretch, for it was both horrendous and absolutely misplaced. The president says: “… On cessation of hostilities after World War II, the United States in one of the greatest selfless undertakings in history decided to revive Europe through the Marshall Plan and uplift and restore Japan economically. This generous policy catalysed a great economic revival globally. This action of the United States not only benefited Europe and Japan but the United States as well through vastly improved trade and cross investments. The United States and Europe have become friends and allies since the end of the war. The United States and Japan have also become friends and allies since the end of the war. This example can be replicated with respect to Africa…A coordinated multilateral effort should be set in motion to utilise and maximise use of the enormous resources on the African continent for the benefit of all nations…”
Apart from dreadfully contextualising the Marshall Plan and naively asking for its replication in Africa, President Buhari has obviously not read the history of World War II and seems to carelessly juxtapose times and eras as well as mix up terms and concepts. The $12bn Marshall Plan was designed to effectively integrate and somewhat subordinate the economies of Western Europe to the economy of the United States, checkmate the spread of communism, remove trade barriers, and rebuild war-torn areas of that region. As wartime Britain’s prime minister Winston Churchill observed, World War II effectively put the US on the ascendancy though Britain provided the inspirational leadership that won the war. At a time the Asian Tigers proved that a region could conceive separate and original economic models and directions, and prosper by them, it is inconceivable that Nigeria would be inviting the Industrialised West to come and dictate the pace. Doesn’t Africa have pride? Must they transit from the clutches of China to which they have freely and greedily consigned themselves and return to the bear hug of the West which for decades had shackled and smothered them?
The theme of the 74th UNGA was “Galvanising multilateral efforts for poverty eradication, quality education, climate action and inclusion”. Nigeria must not try to hide under multilateralism to be spoon-fed by the developed economies. Though the point escaped President Buhari and his speechwriters, it is important for Nigeria to link up with the world economy from a position of strength. Pleading for aid and offering untrammelled access to a structurally and ideological weak Nigerian economy is short-sighted and reprehensible. The war in Europe was triggered by Nazism, a destructive, racist and right-wing ideology bathed in blood and expansionism, but purporting to redress an unjust armistice. The sporadic wars in Africa, despite the connivance of outsiders, is largely a product of the incompetence of the continent’s leaders, their lack of ideological depth and discipline, and their lack of visionary focus. Nigerians had hoped President Buhari would declaim on those germane nation-building issues and confidently admonish the West to key in as equal players.
The Independence Anniversary broadcast, on its own, took dullness to a new nadir. It was perfectly placed, as every October 1 speech is, to enable the president rouse the feelings and passions of Nigerians and galvanise them to heights they never thought possible. Churchill did it for Britain in 1940 to 1945; Fidel Castro did it for Cubans; George Washington did it for Americans oppressed by British colonialists; Abraham Lincoln did it for the future of the US by preferring to fight than succumb to an enslaving ideology. The list is indeed very long and inspiring, of great leaders in the East and West who rose to the occasion by envisioning great and mighty achievements like the moon landing, and who prove that once the society was well structured and had managed to produce a resonating ideology, nothing was impossible, nothing that they dreamt about. President Buhari’s October 1 address envisioned nothing.
The best in it is the president’s presumption that his government was “Re-elected by Nigerians on a mandate to deliver positive and enduring change – through maintaining our national security; restoring sustainable and inclusive economic growth and development; and fighting corruption against all internal and external threats.” He suggests that the change he talks about “…can only be delivered if we are united in purpose, as individuals and as a nation. We must all remain committed to achieving this positive and enduring change.” Then he reminds the country of his statement many years back in which he said that “Change does not just happen… We must change our lawless habits, our attitude to public office and public trust… simply put, to bring about change, we must change ourselves by being law-abiding citizens.” Not satisfied with homilies and platitudes, the president goes on to deliver this deadpan “…The path of hatred and distrust only leads to hostility and destruction. I believe that the vast majority of Nigerians would rather tread the path of peace and prosperity, as we continue to uphold and cherish our unity.” If there is distrust or hatred, what panaceas does he offer beyond sermonising? None.
Might the president’s budget speech, the long and statistically tedious one which he delivered to the joint session of the National Assembly last week, bring some succour then? Alas, it was one unbroken vista of statistics to which the Finance minister would have been best suited. The president’s speech didn’t need to be so long, and did not have to contain as much detail as it did. But his speechwriters think he must impress by his command of the facts and statistics, and also by his constant admonition to ethical business. And having convinced himself that he had done well, and proudly beaten his chest on the performance of last year’s budget, the president finally dropped this clincher: “Despite these anomalies, I am happy to report that we met our debt service obligations, we are current on staff salaries, and overhead costs have also been largely covered.” This is bewildering.
In the past few months, and in spite of himself and what he has managed to achieve as president so far, President Buhari has risen in confidence, especially with his health bolstered. If there is a chance he could make himself amenable to great ideas of leadership and learn from past accomplished statesmen, he should rally himself and his aides to deliver on a new Nigeria far more transcendental and surefooted than the staid and parochial one he had long envisioned. In the three speeches in reference, he gave faint sound bites of promising ideals that could change the fortune of Nigeria. It is not clear whether those faint indications represent anything substantial and fundamental in his mind and worldview. If they do, and his speeches past and present are a deviation from what he is capable of and are unworthy of his huge status, the country must hope that he can also stumble into a company of great minds that would meet minds with him and ennoble him.
The president is unlikely to reach that goal by his own deliberateness. That is not the cloth from which he is experientially or idiosyncratically cut. Indeed, reaching that desirable goal is going to be made doubly difficult for him, having determinedly moulded the judiciary injuriously into his reactionary outlook, cherry-picked the legislature into a woven assemblage of pantomimic and hesitant lawmakers, and browbeat the executive branch into a shape which, despite the talents available to it, has settled into a monarchical-support role.
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