UnderTow
It is perhaps too late to do anything about the corrosive public statements of Nigeria’s presidential spokesmen. They are too set in their ways to countenance any change, regardless of public criticisms. In one day, both Garba Shehu and Femi Adesina frontally took on those they pigeonholed as detractors of the Muhammadu Buhari presidency. One of the supposed detractors was Enoch Adeboye, General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), who at a virtual symposium organised by the church last Saturday in conjunction with the Nehemiah Leadership Institute advocated the restructuring of Nigeria to forestall a potential breakup. It was probably the first time in recent years that the respected and reticent pastor would openly address anything properly describable as politics in Nigeria. That alone ought to ring an alarm bell among government officials, going by the novelty of the pastoral advocacy and the deeply controversial subject matter itself.
Mallam Shehu is, however, not disquieted by anything or anyone. It seemed to him that the pastor’s candid opinion was a subtle attack on the Buhari presidency, especially seeing how the government had resolved to ignore all the signs pointing at trouble ahead if nothing significant was done to address the structural maladies afflicting the country. Indeed, Mallam Shehu described and elevated the pastor’s proposal as an unpatriotic outburst and a threat. Said the livid spokesman: “The Presidency responds to the recurring threats to the corporate existence of the country with factions giving specific timelines for the President to do one thing or another or else, in their language, ‘the nation will break up’. This is to warn that such unpatriotic outbursts are both unhelpful and unwarranted as this government will not succumb to threats and take any decision out of pressure at a time when the nation’s full attention is needed to deal with the security challenges facing it at a time of the COVID-19 health crisis. Repeat: this administration will not take any decision against the interests of 200 million Nigerians, who are the President’s first responsibility under the constitution, out of fear or threats especially in this hour of health crisis.”
It is a mystery how Mallam Shehu concluded that Pastor Adeboye’s suggestion amounted to a threat, or why a clergyman of the general overseer’s status and reputation could be so casually dismissed as unpatriotic. Indeed, the country was astounded last week that the ink had hardly dried on the press statement before the spokesman flew into a rage, imperiously lambasting the pastor and anyone else calling for restructuring. Yet, the pastor’s suggestions were mild, logical, and anything but unpatriotic. He was quoted as warning that without restructuring, the country could break up. Hear him, after he had examined the presidential and parliamentary systems of government: “Can’t we have a combination of both and see whether it could help us solve our problems; because in Mathematics if you want to solve a problem, you try what we call Real Analysis, then if it doesn’t work, then you move on to Complex Analysis and see whether that will help you. If that fails, you move on to Vector Analysis and so on. I believe we might want to look at the problems of Nigeria in a slightly different manner.”
Probing further, the pastor adds: “Some people feel that all our problems will be over if Nigeria should break up. I think that is trying to solve the problems of Nigeria as if it is a simple equation. The problems of Nigeria will require quite a bit of simultaneous equation and some of them are not going to be linear either forgive me I am talking as a mathematician. Why can’t we have a system of government that will create what I will call the United States of Nigeria? Let me explain. We all know that we must restructure. It is either we restructure or we break-up, you don’t have to be a prophet to know that one. That is certain restructure or we break up. Now, we don’t want to break up, God forbid. In restructuring, why don’t we have a Nigerian kind of democracy? At the federal level, why don’t we have a president and a prime minister?”
Once Mallam Shehu saw the word ‘restructuring’, not to talk of its linkage with breakup, it was enough to make him dismiss the entire argument and logic of the pastor. But the warning was and remains in fact patriotic, much measured than how many analysts and politicians see the dangers involved in sustaining a political structure that has proved in the past few decades to be inept, distorted and unworkable. In taking issue with Pastor Adeboye, Mallam Shehu not only exhibited a disturbing streak of general uncouthness, he also more alarmingly, perhaps incidentally, gave the public a peep into how insularly the government he serves works. His uncouthness has lasted for as long as the Buhari presidency, and no one has been inclined to restrain or mollify his abrasive mannerisms, speeches and statements. If he has sustained his vitriolic responses to perceived threats, it may be because his employers and supervisors do not disapprove of his work. But for someone who came into the presidency job with decades of journalistic experience, much of it spent in turning the intemperate and disagreeable scripts of his juniors into palatable offerings, it is shocking that constant criticisms of his statements have not led him to any kind of moderation.
More frightening is the other messaging embedded in Mallam Shehu’s diatribe against Pastor Adeboye and other proponents of restructuring. In the first instance, his denunciation of restructuring, while consistent with the administration’s views on how Nigeria should be governed, indicates more disturbingly that there has been no attempt by the Buhari presidency to re-examine many of the salient issues debilitating Nigeria’s growth and stability. They have made up their minds what they think of the system, and despite shifting political and social variables, seem determined to keep to their perspectives. They will not entertain any change, indeed they loathe change, and are unwilling to discuss or be persuaded about a subject made volatile by their ignorance and obduracy. Such ossification is troubling. Second, that no reflection or change has been countenanced by the Buhari administration since its advent five years ago may also reflect the insidious homogeneity of the body of advisers available to a leader presiding over the complex affairs of a heterogeneous, boisterous and demanding society.
Clearly, by denouncing and threatening advocates of restructuring, the government appears oblivious of the constitutional protection Nigerians have been given to express themselves, disagree with or even protest against their government. The constitution does not presume presidential or governmental infallibility. It instead protects free speech in the expectation that vibrant even if disagreeable opinions would serve as an input in the consideration of national policies, helping the state fashion a better and stable union. But the Buhari administration has proved over and over again to be intolerant of dissent, especially of commentators whom presidential spokesmen have labelled in unsavoury terms and expletives. The government’s persistent denunciations will, however, not deter critics who have described the administration as impervious to change and resistant to progress of any kind, critics who are stupefied by the presidency’s unfathomable inability to read and interpret the stress marks on the polity as indicative of looming catastrophe.
Mallam Shehu presumptuously supposed that he was speaking for 200 million Nigerians, as he glibly indicated in his press statement, while the ‘unpatriotic’ advocates of restructuring were not. But he has no empirical evidence to determine what percentage of Nigerians the administration is representing in the matter of restructuring, a rather popular even if controversial political subject. Secondly, the spokesman appears to suggest that government’s engagement with the COVID-19 health crisis should preclude any consideration of other serious issues affecting the country. He is mistaken. After all, the coronavirus crisis has abated considerably in Nigeria, and even at its apogee never implied directly or indirectly the discontinuation or diminution of other state policies.
Final proof that nothing significant can be done to dilute the acerbity of presidential spokesmen in their response to public criticism was provided by Femi Adesina, the president’s special adviser on media. Responding to public disapproval of how the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) backtracked on its planned protest against fuel and electricity price hikes, Mr Adesina read meaning into the criticisms and scurrilously dismissed the critics. Said he: “Since Organized Labour toed the path of sense and sensibility last week, seeing reason with the imperatives of fuel price adjustment, and opening a further window of dialogue on the service based electricity tariff, some groups of Nigerians have been dolorous, disgruntled, and disconsolate. They had apparently perfected plans to use the strike by the labour unions as smokescreen to unleash anarchy on the land, fomenting mayhem and civil disobedience. But the plan blew up in their faces, and they have been in severe pains since then. They have launched series of tirades against Organized Labour. For some interest groups, their intention was to use the umbrella of the strike to further their whimsical and pie-in-the-sky dream of a revolution in the country. It went bust in their faces. For some others, Bitter-Enders, who have remained entrenched in pre-2015 and 2019 elections mode, it was opportunity to avenge the 2012 Occupy Nigeria protests, which they believe largely devalued the government of the day, and led to its eventual ouster in 2015.”
Mr Adesina was unsparing and vitriolic. As far as he was concerned, the NLC showed “sense and sensibility” but critics of the NLC were “dolorous, disgruntled, and disconsolate” and had planned to “unleash anarchy on the land, fomenting mayhem and civil disobedience”. And then he mocked those he called “Bitter-Enders” for ruing the end of their “whimsical and pie-in-the-sky dream of a revolution”. Ah! Such strong words. The country must now grow accustomed to the bitter recriminations of these spokesmen. There is no stopping or mollifying them. Worse, the people must now tolerate their idiosyncrasies for another three years or so. Nothing more can be done. The presidency is of course at liberty to defend the NLC and sell government policies and programmes, including the humungous loans it is bingeing on. But if it must oppress the country and project its self-righteousness, could it not do so civilly, recognising that as powerless as the people have become, the right to at least have their say must never be taken from them? That right was given them by the constitution, yes the same bedraggled constitution from which this government supposedly derives its legitimacy.
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