Working with Buhari: Reflections of a Special Adviser, Media and Publicity (2015 -2023) written by Femi Adesina, spokesman for Nigeria’s former president, Muhammadu Buhari, is billed for public presentation in Abuja on Tuesday January 16.
The much-anticipated memoir chronicles, explains and situates the events, policies and actions of the eight-year rule of Buhari’s government. It details significant achievements of the administration, which, according to Adesina, despite being so glaring, detractors would rather downplay or deny as non-existent.
Expectedly, the book is also a grand, one-in-all and once-and-for-all response to criticisms by antagonists he tagged ‘wailers’ as against supporters of the President he dubbed ‘hailers!’
Never in the nation’s history were Nigerians probably as divided over the nature and performance of their leader, especially on the national unity, peace and security, equity, respect for the rule of law, economic progress and how all this impacted the quality of living of the citizens, as in the Buhari era.
Buhari was under fire for allegedly failing to fulfill his three-pronged electoral promises to tackle corruption, improve the economy and secure the country against the onslaught of bandits, kidnappers, terrorists and other hues of criminals and criminality that had not only claimed many lives and property, but also caused severe social and economic dislocations including huge internal refugee crisis!
The flaks came from the political opposition, notably the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which, after 16 years of unbroken rule, lost power to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2015 seismic presidential election that ushered Buhari in as president.
Also the media, the clergy and some sections of the country that nursed a beef against the former military ruler-turned democrat for allegedly giving them virtually the shortest end of the stick than previous leaders ever did in terms of government appointments and sharing of national resources, equity and balance in access to opportunities and privileges.
As spokesman for the President, Adesina, who has been a die-hard fan of Buhari since his first coming as Head of State in 1983, found himself in an endless battle of defending his boss against embarrassing insinuations and charges of incompetence, autocracy, tribalism, nepotism, religious irredentism, and paying lip service to being incorruptible- the very opposite traits and qualities he believes the man has in abundance and for which he left his highly influential and paying job as the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of the stable of the then highest-selling national dailies and weekly, The Sun newspapers, to serve in government.
In Working with Buhari, the former President of the Nigerian Guild of Editors and celebrated columnist still affirms his respect, loyalty and belief in Buhari, as a patriotic, de-tribalised, fair and dynamic leader of high moral principle and integrity that he had always known him to be.
This book redeems Adesina’s image, which had been nearly rubbished by his sometimes vain attempts to stand up to the opposition or correct some of the goofs and gaffs of his boss or the government. It also portrays Buhari as probably an astute but misunderstood patriot.
It consists of 30 chapters, each an exhibition of a mastery of the literary craft not only in terms of the logic, beauty, elegance and flow of the language with which the author threads his thoughts but also the brevity of presentation.
He opens with two chapters entitled: Please, Hold on for Mr. President-Elect and I woke up crying in which he discussed the 2015 watershed election and why and how he left his much more paying job and accepted to serve in Buhari’s government. Though he had envisaged a role of being a silent supporter of the President-elect for himself, Adesina said he realised that it would have been hypocritical of him if he declined to serve in the same government he had projected as good for the country.
For the record, Adesina had used his popular column in The Sun to persuade Buhari to drop his vow never to run for the President again after his serial defeats ending in 2011; and ramped up public support for his candidacy.
Chapter 3 Into the Eye of the Storm, is about the first major test he faced as Buhari’s chief image minder early in the life of the government – how to respond to the shocking emergence of Senator Bukola Saraki and Hon. Yakubu Dogara as Senate President and Speaker, House of Representatives in a ‘legislative coup’ that supplanted the ruling APC’s preferred candidates and arrangement!
Understandably irked by this act of disloyalty, Buhari was at first said to have declined to recognise or congratulate the new National Assembly leadership, as did his party. Adesina recalled how he persuaded Alhaji Lai Mohammed, then APC’s National Publicity Secretary, on the need for the party and the President to congratulate the new legislative helmsman to disabuse people’s mind that Buhari who ruled the nation with iron fist as a military dictator in the 1980s was not different under a democracy 30 years later. It was agreed that Mohammed condemed the flouting of the party’s directives while the then President could take a more measured position, since he transcended party affiliation as father of the country.
The next challenge was getting Buhari’s consent. Buoyed by a blank cheque of free access and right to argue he enjoyed with his boss, Adesina went to Buhari and impressed on him the need to issue a statement as the nation would be waiting for his position on the development. In the book, the former presidential spokesman writes: “He listened carefully. He always does. Then he shook his head. ‘I won’t say anything’’’.
Waxing his index finger (which Adesina comically said he could not but help noticing how long it was), Buhari insisted he would not say a word. But the aide eventually convinced him to back down, remind-ing him that he had promised to work with whomever emerged and that political foes would tag him dictatorial if he refused to say anything. A statement drafted by Adesina and slightly amended by the President was subsequently released to the media.
It said the President had noted the outcome of the just-concluded election of the leaders of the National Assembly and that though he would have preferred the process as established by APC was followed, a constitutional process has been “somewhat concluded.” It reiterated Buhari’s pledge to work with whomever the lawmakers elected, adding that the stability of our constitutional order and overall interest of the common man was uppermost on his mind.
As he admitted, the Saraki saga was Adesina’s baptism of fire in terms of issuing statements for PMB, and many more were to follow in the eight years to come.
The fourth, fifth and sixth chapters entitled: ‘The Wailing Wailers’, ‘The WAEC Certificate Saga’ and ‘Buhari and a Part of the Church’ see Adesina at his most pugnacious as he took on detractors of PMB and his government, notably a section of the press, the PDP, social media activists and some leading religious figures whom allegedly motivated by prejudice, malice and other ill factors, he says, never saw anything good about the President and the government.
Adesina, however, clarifies that the appellation ‘wailers’, which many people accused him of purportedly using to castigate the generality of the President’s critics, calling saucy, caustic and disrespectful, was originally not meant for them. He claims to have coined the term in a tweet to denounce the opposition PDP’s penchant for media propaganda and blackmail to discredit and distract the ruling APC so it would not achieve anything throughout its stay in office.
Specifically, the tweet was a riposte to the party’s spokesman, Olisah Metuh’s speculation that PMB plotted to impose his relation as the next Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) barely a month in office. “If PDP begins to cry wolf where there was none over INEC chairman, then they should be set for louder lamentations. The Wailing Wailers,” Adesina had posted.
But the online anti-Buhari mob upbraided him for the use of the term, claiming that the President’s aide used it to abuse them. It stuck with Buhari’s loyalists’ constant use of the label to pejoratively describe the antagonists.The author expresses disappointment that a lot of people he expected to have been more discerning held this against him. “Even newspaper columnists who should have better information banged on it”, the former presidential aide regrets.
Adesina is at his humorous best in these sections as he deploys sound reasoning, wit and sarcasm to throw jibes and pull punches at some of the prominent critics and their flawed positions at the time. For instance, of the PDP’s national spokesman, Metuh he writes: “He resolved to make himself a nuisance to Buhari and the APC… If he saw a wall gecko in his house, it was Buhari that transformed into that creature, and he would issue a statement. If it rained in one part of the city, and it didn’t get to his own, it was Buhari. If he suffered power failure under the waist at night, Buhari ooooo.
To accusations that he either lied out rightly or fed Nigerians half-truths about the state of affairs during PMB’s debilitating illness that led to his hospitalisation in the United Kingdom, Adesina ruthlessly tore their views into shreds, describing them as ignorant and full of misconceptions.
He also turned on its head a newspaper columnist’s attempt to ridicule his celebration of the first phone call he received from Buhari as the convalescing President came around from his debilitating illness. The columnist had written: “When eventually the President spoke directly to Femi – for so he told us, he was gleeful and announced it to the whole world to hear.
•Fabowale is an Ibadan-based journalist
‘He spoke to me’. ‘He spoke to me.
‘This, I dare to say, is very embarrassing. The President speaking to his image maker is not a gift, but a must’.
But supplying a lot of behind-the-scenes situations which made access to his principal inadvisable even if not impossible, Adesina counters in his book thus: “If this columnist was not an embarrassment to himself, how would he expect a President who had confessed that he had never been that ill all his life, so much so that he was not aware of his environment for some time, to be speaking to anybody?” On page 127, he asks: “Those criticising that the media aides were shut out, was it at such a time we were needed? To do what? To use our pens to conduct diagnosis and write prescriptions?” He also accuses the critics of mischief in selectively projecting PMB’s controversial statement during his first trip to Washington that one would normally give more positions to areas that gave him 80 percent of votes than where he got between four and five percent, underplaying or blotting out his conclusion that, as much as one may wish to do that, the constitution with the federal character principle enshrined in it, precluded the option. Even after the President‘s media office issued a statement putting the comment in its full perspective, it was still ignored.
Apart from the PDP, Adesina classifies those who nursed animus against the President to include some of Buhari’s original supporters who became turncoats after their ambitions to urgently be rewarded with political appointment were dashed. There were others who were compulsive grumblers and would complain against anything and everything.
He was equally unsparing of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) over, among other issues, the body’s position on killing of its officers and members in the northern part of the country. He also takes on specific prominent Christian leaders whom he accuses of using the pulpits to mislead their likely gullible congregations, stoke religious and inter-ethnic disaffection and get them to hate the President by constantly portraying him as a Muslim fundamentalist, Jihadist and Fulani ethnic group champion.
Himself a teacher of the Bible, Adesina forcefully shows how these clerics who headed mega assemblies betrayed their bias, prejudice and malice even to the point of making false prophecies and cursing the President as clear violation of scriptural injunctions. He reveals how ironic the clerics’ attitude reflected what they accused others of.
The former Buhari’s aide, however, credits Pastor W. F. Kumuyi, Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye, Chris Okotie, Bishop Mike Okonkwo and Rev. Felix Meduoye, General Overseer of Foursquare Gospel Church, among others for their level-headed temperance, support, prayers and understanding with the administration.
In Chapter 7, Buhari’s Kind of Kindness, we see a portrait of the former President as a smart, focused, attentive and dynamic leader who, despite the steely facade, and reserved mien is naturally kind. We see this demonstrated in the personal interest, advice, encouragement and help he offered his family members, personal aides and other Nigerians he interacted with. Adesina was, of course, a major beneficiary of this large-heartedness.
Nothing probably knocks off the bottom of the charge of Buhari’s allegedly nursing antipathy towards Igbo, or underscores his credential as an anti-graft crusader as when the former President saved Dr. Marilyn Amobi, an upright Igbo technocrat from being unjustly fired from her job as the Managing Director of Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading (NBET). Dr. Amobi had been summoned by the President on the verge of being issued a letter terminating her appointment based on sundry allegations by highly placed persons in government including at the Ministry of Power and Steel, according to reports. Rather than confirm the impending sack as she had feared, the meeting was to commend her for her courage in writing against a deal for which, Buhari discovered, he was misled by trusted aides into signing away $10million of Nigeria’s money. PMB not only halted her proposed sack but also arranged for her personal protection against the fallout of security risks, approved some perks, allowances and benefits for her and her agency and gave her free access whenever she needed to see him.
This account given on Amobi’s personal authority, writes the author, attests to the fact that Buhari was ethnically colour-blind when it comes to issues of probity and integrity. His reticence if not taciturnity and belief that “with some Nigerians, head you lose, tail you lose”, coupled with perceived media hostility accounted for why the erstwhile President rarely granted direct interviews and rather depended on his media handlers to make clarifications, Adesina indicated in the book.
Other topics the book deals with are: PMB’s relations with former President Olusegun Obasanjo; General Ibrahim Babangida, his erstwhile comrade-in-arms who toppled his regime in 1985; Goodluck Jonathan and other former heads of state; Buhari in the eyes of other world leaders; ex-CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele and the Naira redesign saga; 2023 polls and how Buhari received the ‘Emilokan’ declaration by his long-standing ally and APC National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, as well as the call for Interim National Government.
There are also telling revelations about power dynamics in Adesina’s experience working with the late Abba Kyari and Prof Ibrahim Gambari who succeeded him as Chief of Staff to the President; Nnamdi Kanu’s rendition and trial and the frightful insecurity in the land.
Adesina devotes Chapter 16 entitled Facts are stubborn things exclusively to cataloguing the achievements of the PMB’s administration.
In the end, Adesina reiterates his abiding love for the Daura-born Nigerian leader and submits that blindfolded, he would still follow him to battle again if necessary.
Apart from being a piece of vintage prose for which Adesina is renowned, Working with Buhari is a treasure trove that bears distinctive evidence of rigorous research, precision and accuracy. It contains incredible quantum of facts and figures, dates and other information historians, development experts, political science scholars, international agencies, individuals and anyone generally interested in the study of Nigeria’s fourth Republic politics, particularly the Buhari years, will find an invaluable resource in understanding the diverse and often contentious issues of the period.
Remarkably, Adesina broke all the complex mass of data down into delightful, lucid narrative, complemented here and there with graphics and tables that further enhances clear appreciation of the message. Clusters of photograph insertions illustrate the publication.
But is this the last word? Could it definitively be the last word?
Knowing Nigerians, the issues may be far from settled. Although he tried as much as possible to bring all the issues to the table and address them with courage, a sense of balance and fairness, Adesina may just have opened another cycle of disputations and set for himself a life-long career of romance with controversy not only with anti-Buhari forces, but also objective critics of his old master.
For one, he is likely to be put to task on apparent commission and omissions of some actions or proposed policies by the Buhari government which fuelled suspicions of preferential treatment of his Fulani kinsmen at the expense of other ethnic groupings and allegations of an agenda to Islamise and Fulanise the country. The Buhari Presidency, for most part of the period, tended to show either incapacity or unwillingness to rein in rampaging herdsmen and outlaws giving rise to speculation that they probably enjoyed government’s protection as they turned the country into a killing field.
The sad optics were worsened by Buhari’s often embarrassing body language and even sometimes outright prohibition of reprisals by the victims. Though the book captured much of the security forces’ renewed onslaught and routing of insurgents, terrorists and other shades of criminals across the country on Buhari’s orders in the twilight of his government, the questionable motives for and manner of execution of special military operations deployed in parts of the South is still a moot point for some watchers of the Nigerian polity.
More convincing responses are also probably still needed than the vague and glib answers Buhari offered in the book to dispel the insinuations of ethnic bias and justify his attitude on some other issues. For instance, how compliant was his government to the constitution and to the rule of law?
Besides, the critics are likely to query his seeming aloofness to the press which saw him rarely grant interviews and discontinue, after only two editions or so, the regular media chats tradition he met when he assumed office as a democratic leader.
Nonetheless, sizzling, stirring, provocative and rich in literary sense, this book has certainly come auspiciously to set the tone and tenor of political discourse for the first quarter or even the year – a reminder of our immediate past for an appreciation and improvement of the present.
