By Idowu Akinlotan

When Kaduna State governor Nasir el-Rufai received the freed College of Forestry Mechanisation, Afaka, students, reporters noticed his disinterestedness, almost as if his original plan was thwarted by the unexpected success of the Sheikh Ahmad Gumi/ ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo initiative. No one could put his finger on what the matter was, or why the feisty and voluble governor suddenly became taciturn as the emaciated and harassed students met him. There were of course guesses, including one that suggested he had wished for an uncompromising stand, even if it led to a tragic outcome. Alas, this was true, and it may be a psychological portrait of the essential el-Rufai as a hard, unfeeling and unyielding technocrat and politician.

Last week, speaking in a webinar organised by the Africa Leadership Group and hosted by the Pastor of Trinity House Church, Ituah Ighodalo, Mallam el-Rufai explained that his government and the military were not indifferent to the plight of the 37 Forestry Mechanisation students abducted by bandits in March. In fact, he gloated, unmindful of the tragedy many observers would read into the decision he and the military had agreed on, that a military rescue plan had been drawn up, but was aborted at the last moment when the bandits shifted base. That plan speaks volumes of the workings of the mind of Mallam el-Rufai, and the cavalier and unprofessional manner decisions are taken in Nigeria during crises. That the governor publicly reiterated the decision after having nearly two months of elbow room to reconsider it also indicates the poor judgement that occluded his mind as a decision maker and distorted his thinking.

Here is how Mallam el-Rufai painted the picture of their plan to rescue the students: “Two days after the abduction of the Afaka young people, I was assured by the air force and the army that they knew where the kidnappers were with the students and they had encircled them. We were going to attack them. We would lose a few students, but we would kill all the bandits and we would recover some of the students. That was our plan. That was the plan of the air force and the army. But they slipped through the cordon of the army. That is why they were not attacked. We know it is risky, we know in the process we may lose some of the abductees, but it is a price we have to pay. This is war, there will always be collateral damage in war, and we will rather do that than pay money because paying money has not solved the problem anywhere in the world.”

Twice in that short statement the governor acknowledged that had the plan been actuated, some students would have died. It takes extreme callousness to contemplate such a course of action, simply because the government loathes ransom payment, and also because, in his constricted view, paying money does not solve the problem of kidnapping anywhere in the world. Of course the public is not ignorant of the nuisance of paying ransom to secure the release of abducted family members; but to suggest so offhandedly that some of the students would die during a rescue attempt that already factored their death into the equation demonstrates not only intuitive savagery but gross incompetence. There are times when collateral deaths attend the best intentioned rescue efforts, but to glibly suggest that Kaduna State was prepared for that tragic cost in order to underscore a twisted policy smacks of irresponsibility and poor leadership.

The governor’s deceptively rosy optimism is exacerbated by his calculations that in the rescue effort, all the bandits would be killed and only some students would suffer collateral damage. How can he tell that all the bandits would be killed? Is there any way that even the smartest of smart bombs can tell the difference between students and bandits in their savannah redoubts? Of course every statistician, but the governor and his military comrades, knows that bandits and abducted students stand equal chance of being obliterated by the bombs. Mallam el-Rufai is naturally glib, and both his speech and politics manifest the same tragic flaws common with superficial thinkers who repose excessive confidence in their oratorical fecundity than their depth. Like the federal government that is paralysed by the objectionable trade in humans which ransom payment connote, the Kaduna governor is also rooted to one spot over the same conundrum. Yet, they have not devised any security plan to preempt banditry and abduction, and would rather remain impervious to the constitutional imperative of attending to the welfare and security of the people.

No one doubts Mallam el-Rufai’s confession that the government in conjunction with the air force had planned to bomb the bandits and their captives, regardless of the collateral damage. Thankfully, the governor is often too frank to dissemble. Just as he confessed to his ethnic exceptionalism in the webinar, but excuses it on the grounds of some alien culture intrinsic to the Fulani, he has also been truthful about some of his excesses, moral failings, and abominable instincts that bars him from flinching at needless collateral damage. The governor’s failings and the military’s collusion at bombardment leave observers puzzled as to how decisions are taken in Nigeria during crises. The country is familiar with the nonsense about RUGA as a livestock production strategy, and the equally condemnable genocidal policy implied in the land for peace policy as enunciated by presidential spokesman Femi Adesina; but who could have imagined that the military and a state governor could sit down, in the face of abductions underpinned by the silly and sentimental policy of ‘neither ransom nor anything else’, to confect a policy of indiscriminate bombardment against bandits still holding their captives.

How many more sterile policies have been devised by Nigerian leaders who have no pretext to be called leaders? men whose hearts have been calloused by rigid prejudices and parochialisms, men who see great and complex issues from narrow vision and would not countenance other points of view represented by other ethnic groups and religious perspectives, men who see their failings as strengths, and their imperial voices as unchallengeable. Mallam el-Rufai did not say whether the federal government signed off on the nefarious plan to bomb the bandits and their captives, but if Information minister Lai Mohammed’s exculpatory talk of abduction being strictly a state problem is anything to go by, they had probably assented to the plan and would gladly wash their hands off it if it backfired. Overall, it is remarkable but alarming that the Kaduna governor voiced the plan publicly. He was perhaps under pressure to prove he was concerned about the abductions more than he had let out; but to disclose that brutal bombardment plan after the students had been released tells the public and the families of the 27 young men and women that they had a close shave with death at the instance of a reckless politician and military who knew no better and whose moral and ethical compasses are too cracked to be of any use. No wonder the Boko Haram war is prolonged; and no wonder the country has not found answers to its economic, social and political conundrums.

Some of the present crops of leaders will leave office in about two years if the next polls hold. It will be good riddance to disastrous leadership. But there is no proof that the electorate will muster the competence to elect sounder leaders whose judgement will not be perverse in times of crisis. As the foolish talk about returning the military to some very public roles in the polity suggests, it will take a herculean effort to wean the people off their dangerous hallucinations. Their response to the huge and unsustainable cost of governance is to cut workers’ humiliatingly low wages or even retrench them; their response to the unfolding economic disaster bearing down on the country is to do nothing; their response to increasing militarisation of the polity by ethnic militias and self-determination groups is to wield the big axe and bomb advocates, without doing anything to tackle the underlying causes; and their response to campaigns to redo the unitary constitution masquerading as a federal constitution is to denounce federalists as separatists and conjure a fake unity-not-negotiable mantra. With such unimaginative leaders lacking in depth and the capacity to draw upon the country’s best to resolve its multitudinous problems, why would they not want to bomb abductors and their captives? And why would the country not teeter on the edge of the abyss in their hands, even as they can’t read the signs?

Orchestrated alarm of coup and subversion

Barely a day after the Department of State Service (DSS) last Sunday raised the alarm that ‘misguided elements’ were out to ‘wreak havoc on the government, sovereignty and corporate existence of Nigeria’, the military also weighed in to warn of the consequences of such plots. As the Defence Headquarters put it, “… misguided politicians who nurse the inordinate ambition to rule this country outside the ballot box (should) banish such thoughts as the military under the current leadership remains resolute in the defence of Nigeria’s democracy and its growth.’ It adds that it wishes “to remind all military personnel that it is treasonable to even contemplate this illegality.” Then on Wednesday, marching in lockstep with the DSS and the military, the presidency added its intimidating voice to warn against any plot to unseat the government.

The presidency’s misgiving, obviously synchronised with the alarms raised by the other agencies, was probably triggered by the decision of Afe Babalola, educationist, Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and proprietor of Afe Babalola University Ado Ekiti (ABUAD), to host a national conference christened Summit of Hope, to which he had made an initial commitment of N50m. The educationist’s intention seems to everyone a laudable and patriotic addition to the many rational voices calling for a dialogue on Nigeria’s existential crisis, believing that there is no problem that cannot be discussed or resolved by reason. The presidency thinks otherwise. In a statement issued by presidential spokesman Femi Adesina, any conference at this time was ignoble and designed to pass a vote of no confidence in the president. His logic is far-fetched, but the Buhari presidency has never been deterred by illogic nor by its own extravagant and consistent attempts to muzzle free speech.

Mr Adesina’s statement on behalf of the presidency encapsulates the views of the military and DSS. All three are united in muffling free speech, shoring up the flagging popularity of President Muhammadu Buhari, and intimidating the populace against any form of political adventurism. The presidential spokesman couches the statement with his characteristic elegance. Said he: “Further unimpeachable evidence shows that these disruptive elements are now recruiting the leadership of some ethnic groups and politicians round the country, with the intention of convening some sort of conference where a vote of no confidence would be passed on the President, thus throwing the land into further turmoil. The caterwauling, in recent times, by these elements, is to prepare the grounds adequately for their ignoble intentions, which are designed to cause further grief for the country. The agent provocateurs hope to achieve through artifice and sleight of hands what they failed to get through the ballot box in the 2019 elections.”

At least Mr Adesina concedes that the country is already in turmoil, only that the conferees would be amplifying it. How he manages to second-guess the outcome of a conference that has not held, including their passing a vote of no confidence in the president, must be the greatest political clairvoyance of the moment. Then he writes grandiloquently but inappropriately of ‘caterwauling’ by critics, their ‘ignoble’ intentions, their promotion of ‘further grief’, of ‘agent provocateurs’, of ‘artifices’, and of ‘sleights of hand’. If grammar were to be a canon, there is no way critics and conferees would survive Mr Adesina’s lexical volleys. But when he is not abusive, he can also be didactic, even sometimes preachy. He adds: “Nigerians have opted for democratic rule, and the only accepted way to change a democratically elected government is through elections, which hold at prescribed times in the country. Any other way is patently illegal, and even treasonable. Of course, such would attract the necessary consequences. These discredited individuals and groups are also in cahoots with external forces to cause maximum damage in their own country. But the Presidency, already vested with mandate and authority by Nigerians till 2023, pledges to keep the country together, even if some unruly feathers would be ruffled in the process.”

If the country ignores his name-calling, since he sees the potential conferees as ‘discredited individuals’, they should be able to take him on in his assumption that the eminent legal titans behind the conference do not know a thing about democracy and elections. They will also be mindful of the spokesman’s dark hints to ruffle ‘unruly feathers’, perhaps after he and his employers have found a constructive corollary to Section 37 of the Criminal Code of Nigeria. Indeed the apprehension of the presidency over the conference call typifies its long-standing abhorrence for intellectual contributions to how the Nigerian government is run. Their morbid dread of exotic and sometimes complex ideas explains why the administration has for the past six years been destitute of initiatives that answer to the country’s multifarious problems. The administration has made no serious attempt to tap the country’s brain power in dealing with its economic and security issues, and it has completely abandoned any effort to find the political formula by which the country can be sensibly governed.

Much worse, now, the administration has begun to fear a coup d’etat. This is an irrational and embarrassing fear, notwithstanding Robert Clarke’s recondite call for the president to transfer power to his Defence chief in order to allow the military reinvigorate the country. Mr Clarke, a lawyer, is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and a committed patriot. But is there still anyone in Nigeria who is persuaded about coups? Are soldiers not a part of the country, and products of the same cesspool of abominable practices, spendthriftiness and misrule? For decades, they took a promising country at par with China, South Korea, Singapore, etc and destroyed and bankrupted it. By what magic would anyone think the military could on a blessed tomorrow do better than civil authorities, respect the people’s rights, develop and implement economic and developmental models to raise standard of living, restore peace in the country, and enthrone justice, equity and fair play? The spectre of a coup is simply the administration’s bugaboo to alarm the gullible and find a pretext to embark on extra-judicial adventures against the people and the constitution. If anyone is thinking of a coup, it is the administration; for Nigerians know that the military, which has made heavy weather of the counter-insurgency war and remained generally unaccountable to the constitution, is even more discredited and disreputable than the civilian administration in office, as incompetent as the latter has been from the outset.