Tag: ailing

These are definitely not the best of times for our country and our president, Muhammadu Buhari. Both are ailing badly. First, the nation has, for two years now, been grappling with a painful recession that has left the economy devastated. The recession, arguably the worst  we have ever had, has been made worse by massive public corruption at all levels. Domestic prices are rising sharply. The current inflation rate has been put at just under 17 per cent. Bank lending rates are at very high levels and, instead of a single FX rate, we have multiple rates to ration out our falling FX earnings. This is the legacy President Buhari inherited from his predecessors in office, particularly President Jonathan.

Although, as claimed by the CBN and other economic experts, the recession may have bottomed out, all well informed financial and economic analysis have indicated that growth in the next few years is not expected to rise by more than 1 per cent. Growth in the second quarter of this year has been put at only 0.55 per cent. In effect, there is not going to be a significant recovery in our economy in the next few years. The situation in the oil sector on which Nigeria depends heavily remains uncertain and fragile. Production and export cuts may be forced on our oil sector by uncertainties in the global  oil market. Diversification of the economy away from its heavy dependence on oil exports has not yet materialized. In fact, some will say that our feeble efforts in the diversification of the domestic economy from its excessive dependence on oil exports have failed woefully.

Sadly, the fight against mass public corruption in our country is losing momentum. Some, including Mr. Magu, the acting chairman of the EFFC, believe the fight has already been lost. Due to tardy and inefficient prosecutions there has been virtually no jailing of any high profile pubic officials for corruption. Some of the public institutions that should support the anti-corruption struggle are far too weak and too compromised to rise to the challenges involved in fighting corruption in our country. Many of them have proved to be largely ineffective in the fight against public corruption. Some of them are even pushing back against the war on corruption, the primary focus of the Buhari APC federal government.

At the political level, the state is having to cope desperately with terrorism in Bornu, increased separatist tendencies all over the country, kidnappings, assassinations, and ritual killings. There is a near total breakdown of law and order in our country. The government is left bewildered and increasingly helpless in its efforts at tackling its security challenges. But the law and order agencies are hobbled largely by inadequate financial and logistics resources. They are overstretched. The call for the creation of state police forces to provide some relief for the federal police has, for political reasons, been largely ignored by the federal government. Nigeria is beginning to look increasingly like a failed state. The process of failure of a state can go on, gradually, for years, with the state struggling desperately to survive. That is where we are now. Progress of any kind has been very slow in our country. Vital public institutions, including the public service, the Police, and other security agencies remain very fragile, too weak to support and sustain the country.

And now, the nation’s woes are being further compounded by an ailing president. Since coming to power two years ago, President Buhari has been hobbled by his poor health. He has had to go to the UK twice, for extended periods, to receive medical attention for an undisclosed illness. He returned home from the UK only a few weeks ago after an extended stay of over 100 days abroad. We must continue to pray for his speedy recovery. It is in the interest of our country that he recovers fully from his illness. In these difficult times, with a myriad of very complex and disturbing challenges, the state needs a physically and mentally fit president to provide the much needed leadership and steadying hands in our country.  His poor health will limit his ability to govern effectively and take the right decisions in the interest of our nation.

The decisions that we take daily in our lives are often affected by the state of our health. A prolonged and debilitating illness, such as that of President Buhari, can affect the quality of decisions we take. Good health is even more important in the case of heads of state as they have enormous responsibilities and wield a lot of power. Their decisions are easily adversely affected by poor health.  But for his poor health, President Yar’Adua who died in office showed early promise of being a good president. His judgments in office were consistently sound and in the national interest. But when he fell ill there was a power vacuum. He could no longer govern effectively. Some of his cronies virtually seized power and served only their individual and selfish interests

After the defeat of Nazi Germany and the death of its leader, Adolf Hitler, historians of the Third Reich were able to establish easily that some of Hitler’s bizarre political and  military decisions, such as the sudden and reckless invasion of Russia, Germany’s ally, and the refusal to withdraw his beleaguered troops from Leningrad when they faced certain defeat, were due to his poor health. His quack German doctor, Theodor Morell, had to give him injections on a daily basis to keep him going. This dependence on drugs affected his political and military judgments. His illness, carefully concealed from the public, accounts for some of his outrageous decisions and ambitions as the leader of Nazi Germany. It has been offered as an explanation for the German concentration camps in which 6 million Jews perished. Such brutality can only have been the product of a demented mind, a kind of mental illness and amnesia.

Another equally bad case of poor judgment as a result of  illness is that of Sir Anthony Eden (later Lord Avon) who succeeded Winston Churchill as British Conservative Prime Minister. Anthony Eden, a brilliant and capable man, had made a name for himself as a principled and courageous politician when he resigned in 1936, or thereabouts, as a junior minister in the Foreign Office, in protest against the appeasement of Hitler by Neville Chamberlain, the British Conservative Prime Minister. But in 1956, he destroyed his reputation when he suddenly invaded and seized the Suez Canal in collaboration with France and Israel. His action was totally unjustified and reckless. And it was widely condemned  in Britain and abroad. Under international pressure, particularly from his principal ally, the United States, Anthony Eden was forced to withdraw his forces from Egypt in disgrace. Britain’s reputation for fairness was badly damaged. His action presaged the fall of the British empire in Africa. . Soon after, he was forced to resign from office due to bad health. His political career and reputation were destroyed.

In Africa too, we have the examples of Idi Amin of Uganda, and Mobutu Sese Seko of the Congo whose political judgments were badly affected by their poor health. Some of their outrageous decisions as heads of state have been attributed to the bad health from which they both suffered. In the case of Idi Amin, he was widely believed to have suffered from syphilis which accounted for his brutality. I was serving in our high commission in Kampala at the time and thought most of his decisions bizarre. Even here in our own country, there has been some speculation that the poor state of health of Gen. Sani Abacha, when he was military head of state, affected his political judgments, including his megalomania, very badly. He should have left office to look after his health. But he was no longer fit enough to take a rational  decision, even in his own interest.

It is not being suggested here that President Buhari is in that situation right now, in which his poor health may have begun to affect his judgment. But it is also possible that is the case right now. There is little or no doubt that the pace of his government has slowed down considerably. A bit of lethargy has set in and the government is perceived as being increasingly slow in taking some vital decisions. A lot of decisions regarding important public appointments are being left in abeyance. This has led to speculations about the emergence in the presidency of a so-called cabal, the ‘jackals and hyenas,’ that is now taking vital decisions on behalf of the President. This would, for example, seem to explain the contradictions between the Foreign Office and the presidency over Morocco’s application to join ECOWAS. Instead of working together, they seem to be pulling in different directions to the detriment of our country. Many would, in fact, like him to go now and look after his personal health. But that is a decision that only he can make. It cannot be forced on him as he has a mandate to govern until 2019 when the next presidential elections are due.

There is no doubt that, during President Buhari’s long absence from our country, Vice President  Yemi Osinbajo showed his mettle and capability in the able manner he ran the country, for which he has been publicly commended by President Buhari. But there were still critically important decisions that he could not take on his own. Some of these were pressing and urgent, but required the discretion of the president himself. Even if, in the absence of the president, he had full authority to act, the vice president would still have needed to be cautious and circumspect in taking some important decisions on behalf of the president. Professor Osinbajo is a competent and able man, and a great patriot. But he is no politician and most of the decisions the president has to take are political in nature, with political consequences.

Now that the president has returned to his duties, he should  delegate more responsibilities to the Vice president and his more senior advisers. It is obvious, even from his photographs that he has not yet recovered fully from his illness. At 74, it is unlikely that he will recover fully. We can only hope that he will be able to serve out his remaining term in office. But he should focus his attention on more important state matters, such as the fight against public corruption in our country, the poor economy, the continuing reform of state institutions to make them more viable and stronger, and state security. On account of his age and poor health, it is unlikely that President Buhari will seek a second term in office. In effect, he has only two more years left to shape the legacy he is going to leave the country with. That should be his main concern now.