Tag: BUHARI

President Muhammadu Buhari is in deep problem with a set of social media-savvy critics who just would not see anything good in what he does, says or refuses to say. Good intentions or not, it is one battle the President seems condemned to lose if recent events are anything to go by. By the way, this set of critics is doing everything within its reach to make sure that Buhari beats the unenviable records set by former President Goodluck Jonathan as self-acclaimed “most criticised leader’ in the world. To them, every step taken to recover stolen loot, address the gaping infrastructural deficits, strengthen the dwindling fortunes of the Naira, make government transparent and accountable or empower institutions to discharge their responsibilities without fear or favour by Buhari often manifests the crying incompetence of his leadership. That’s the illogical logic they subscribe to. If they are not attacking his policies, they swoop on his gait, his body language or even the hidden message encrypted in his traditional attire. They have become powerful leeches that not only stalk the President but also test the inelastic patience of the former no-nonsense military Head of State.

Do not get me wrong. No one is saying that the President should not be criticised, harangued or even vilified in order to make him walk his talk. Even ordinary Knucklehead enjoys doing that. What is condemnable is the disturbing trend in which criticism now flourish in the waters of mischief and banal calumny. While I acknowledge the need to caution the President against making statements that may project the country in bad light, it is despicable that certain elements who are yet to come to grasp with the reality of a Buhari Presidency would stop at nothing to grind his nose on rocky stone. It is even more dangerous when otherwise respectable individuals ingloriously peddle falsehood – all in an attempt to denigrate a man they love to hate. Like I once noted on this page, no citizen should be under any compulsion to love or hate any particular leader. However, what I found repulsive is the way and manner the characters that have coalesced to nail the President have been going about their vengeful campaign.

Buhari may not be anyone’s poster boy for oratorical prowess but he has not been found wanting in articulating his points. Slow in his pitch and sometimes drab in speech with diction that tests the wit of the most patient interviewee, Buhari has never failed to articulate his points to the best of his understanding. And so, when the social media went viral with the news that Buhari had done the unpardonable by labelling all Nigerians as criminals in an interview he granted a British newspaper, “The Telegraph”  during his last visit to the United Kingdom, I had to tread on the path of caution.

A full transcript of the interview on the newspaper’s website includes President Buhari’s statement that: “Some Nigerians claim is that life is too difficult back home, but then again some Nigerians have also made it difficult for Europeans and Americans to accept them because of the number of Nigerians in different prisons all over the world accused of drug trafficking or human trafficking. I don’t think Nigerians have anybody to blame. They can remain at home.”

At least, common sense, which is a rarity among his growing band of traducers, dictates that one ought to go through the ‘vexatious’ interview before taking a position. It is pointless to note that if Buhari had specifically described all Nigerians as criminals, as some allege, he would have automatically become the nation’s Number One criminal at the world stage. This thinking, more than anything else, fired my interest in sourcing for the full text of the controversial interview especially when the issue had become a hot topic on the Twitter handle of a serving Senator who prides himself as making common sense, oftentimes outside the Red Chamber.

In a society where tasteless rumour catches faster than wild fire, it did not take long before these ‘patriotic’ Nigerians came up with the hash tag “###I am a Nigerian, I am not a criminal” which turned out to be the greatest hoax of this year. At least, for now. And so, right before our very eyes, a silly, denigrating kite flown by a delusional relevance-seeking senator about the leader of his country resulted in the herd mentality in which common sense took a flight and buffoonery was writ large on the canvas of hatred. They were out to criminalise the President’s statements but they ended up fooling themselves. By the way, how come no one bothered to take some time off the lunacy on the social media to find out if their target of bile actually label over 160 million Nigerians criminals? Could it be because of a blind desire to see Buhari fail?

Curiously, Buhari said many things which those who would want him to roast in the sun ignored. Naturally, he couldn’t have been playing to their script when he said all efforts to negotiate the return of the abducted Chibok girls had come to naught because the security forces do not have “any evidence of a credible leadership” within the deadly Boko Haram sect as there was “conflicting information on the status of Abubakar Shekau”, it’s most prominent leader in the Jonathan era. Those answers were simply not the ones the opposition sought, to  latch on with the aim of demonise the President.  Not even Buhari’s veiled response to questions regarding the form of foreign military interventions that the country would get could elicit the kind of excitement one had expected from this band of critics. It mattered not that the President told the foreign media that Nigeria-trained soldiers now battle the insurgents with some degree of successes unlike in the past where the government hired mercenaries from South Africa and other countries. Yet, these were the same Nigerian soldiers who “had a good record across West Africa” before allocations to the military find their way into private pockets culminating in the current probe of $2.1bn arms money allegedly diverted by former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd.). As far as they are concerned, Buhari was merely ranting when he expressed regrets about “how the mighty has fallen.” Who cares if it stays fallen forever anyway?

So what exactly could have drawn their ire and led to the twist in the tale in that interview? Well, they were miffed that the President failed to tell a lie or, at most, justify the craze by some Nigerians to seek asylum abroad under the pretext that their lives were under threat back home. Asked if it was “legitimate” for this set of Nigerians to use migrant routes to the UK to claim asylum saying that their lives were under the persistent threat of the Boko Haram insurgents, Buhari retorted: “Some Nigerians claim is that life is too difficult back home, but then again some Nigerians have also made it difficult for Europeans and Americans to accept them because of the number of Nigerians in different prisons all over the world accused of drug trafficking or human trafficking. I don’t think Nigerians have anybody to blame. They can remain at home. Their services are required to rebuild the country. If their countrymen misbehaved, the best thing for them is to stay at home and encourage the credibility of the nation.”

To the senator who started it all and his twittering community, the President stands condemned for daring to deplore the criminal intents of those tarnishing an already battered image in which hundreds of our fellow citizens are serving terms for different kinds of offences. For them, common sense demands a diplomatic dribble around the question. Instead of “criminalising” all us, he could have blamed anyone else but Nigerians for risking their lives through illegal routes to get to Europe, for engaging in the dangerous world of drug trafficking, for packaging vulnerable young girls for sex slavery across the globe, for laundering billions of dollars for privileged Nigerians in high places, for engaging in shady businesses and all other dangerous ventures. As a President of Africa’s largest gathering of black people, he should have kept mum about the fact that, as at May 2015, prisons in Asian countries are swarming with over 130 Nigerians on death row over drug related offences; that the UK harbours a former influential state governor in Nigeria in its prison facility; that some are languishing in the same facilities in the United States and even in some African countries.

That, I presume, is where Buhari missed it. He is a complete failure when it comes to living in self-deceit. His greatest undoing remains his brash commitment to saying the truth. He needs to spice it up with what those who felt criminalised by his responses would rather call diplomatese – covering the lie with some sweet fragrances of untruth. Buhari needs to learn the art of wowing his audience with hollow sophistry that leads to nowhere. For now, he is yet to learn the logic in that principle as being espoused by the senator and his deluded followers. And that’s why it would take more than a denial for The Presidency to wash off this latest allegation that he criminalises a whole nation. But it is not too late to make amends. The path to self-delusion can begin as soon as the President resumes duty. When next he flies to Europe and asked questions touching on whether Nigerians have an image problem abroad, he should fire back with an emphatic “No” instead of the long-winding response he gave in The Telegraph’s interview where he said: “Certainly. But we are on our way to salvage that. We will encourage our countrymen to stay at home, work hard and make a respectable living at home.”

He could, if he wants, add that the people back at home have been salvaged from the shackles of poverty and are living like kings and princesses in an atmosphere devoid any deadly attacks by terrorists, arsonists and pure criminals. That’s the only way to assuage the fears of the pretentious lot that wax lyrical on the social media about common sense logic that they never get to live in real life. Unfortunately, it’s that sort of political correctness that has left us in this quandary as the criminals run when no one is pursuing them. Do they give a damn? Shame!