I hated General Muhammadu Buhari. Intensely.
This feeling developed in 1984. First, his non-smiling visage including that of Tunde Idiagbon, his late deputy, evoked no warmth. The apocryphal story that they wear permanent scowls because there was nothing cheerful about Nigeria’s situation at a period when South West Nigeria, encompassing his official abode, made Alawada Baba Sala the highest rated comedy show was paradoxical to me then.
I was especially livid athis War Against Indiscipline (WAI) dictum mandating Nigerians to queue for virtually everything in a country where lawlessness is deified as wisdom. I scoffed at his directive’s impracticality against the odious rat race in Nigeria, especially in Lagos. Personally, my timely arrival at all destinations is guaranteed with a good meal for balanced legs, firmly tucking my handbag under my armpits to escape Houdini-inspired pickpockets, energetically elbowing other jostling prospective bus passengers and hopping, banana jump-style onto a moving Molue bus. And I’m good.
But the orientation worked. Apart from queuing, archetypal stubborn Nigerians became excellent examples of WAI-themed orderliness and discipline in thought, behaviour and expectation through eschewing all forms of indiscipline.
Thirty-one years ago, Buhari foresaw that leaders’ ability to effectively lead is always dependent on the quality of followership behind him which Indiscipline obstructs in Nigeria.
Economically, I blamed his austerity measures for causing reduction in my pocket money despite my Economics tutor’s adulations of Buhari’s removal or reduction of national expenditure excesses, startof Nigeria’s first vicious anti-corruption war, reducing the balance of payment deficit by tightening importation and executing 15 percent cut from his predecessor President Shehu Shagari’s 1983 Budget.
Consequently, total capital expenditure decreased by 16.08 percent, capital defence expenses by 80.9 percent, while agriculture, transport and communication, education and health spending decreased by 78.7 percent, 76.1 percent, 58.2 percent and 58.7 percent respectively.
These austere policies alienated him from the elite. Probably, the country’s international airports would overflow with the rich departing Nigeria immediately upon his announcement as the country’s new president.
Again, I smirked at his tenure’s controversies. Many journalists and politicians bemoaned Decree No. 4. Human rights groups flayed him for his government’s decision to execute drug peddlers. These issues among others denigrate peoples’ fundamental human rights. My distaste grew. Recently, an American friend prodded me to soft-pedal on Buhari because interpretations of profound political events continually evolve. “Even Abraham Lincoln is still vilified in certain parts of USA today for abolishing the slave trade,” he said.
Then, a revelation from Dora Akunyili, the indomitable former Director General of Nigerian Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and former Minister of Information thawed me. She returned the remainder of allotted funds to PTF’s coffers after returning from a company-sponsored foreign medical trip while working, on secondment from University of Nigeria, with Buhari, the chairman, at Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF). The overwhelming positive impression she made on him led to Buhari’s recommendation of her when former President Obasanjo approached him for help in appointing a cerebral, bold and incorruptible NAFDAC’s DG to rid the nation of counterfeit drugs. Akunyili was Igbo and a born-again Christian. Buhari is Fulani and a devout Muslim. To Buhari, what mattered was the content of her character; he is neither a religious extremist nor a tribalist.
Still, I mocked his perennial ambition to rule Nigeria again. I wondered why him? I dismissed him as lacking today’s energy and dynamism in tackling the country’s myriad problems. However, as the nation experienced three civilian leaders since 1999 without a commensurate improvement in Nigeria, I had an epiphany. Why not him? He is very fearless, disciplined and passionate about changing Nigeria. At his age, embezzlement cannot be his political aim. And as rumours spread about his health, I noted his vigour and lucidity outshine that of some in my generation. Besides, I churlishly cherish the idea of burdening Buhari with the job since his ilk saddled us with them in the initial analysis.
Now, I love President Goodluck Jonathan. His affable persona and Mosaic dove-like demeanour is endearing. His ascension to power, never through vaulting over-ambition, but by events proudly proclaimed by his loyalists as predestined via positive happenstances provoked a fervent envy at his lot. In typical Nigerian copy-cat syndrome, the name, Goodluck, quickly became a fad. His trajectory from “having no shoes”to gaining a doctorate degree and variously occupying the topmost offices at state and national level is a record yet unmatched on Nigeria’s political landscape.
Jonathan’s unemployment panacea as contained in his Transformation Agenda especially fascinated me for the plan noted “unemployment surged from 11.9 percent in 2006 to 14.6 percent in 2007 and 21.1 percent by January 2010.” Noticing the plan’s solutions, I practically swooned.That admiration quickly faded. No decisive or profound happenings occurred to concretise the hero-worship. Granted, we cannot beckon on Utopia overnight, but after six years of Goodluck, many previously employed when he created the plan are now jobless. Reno Omokri, Jonathan’s former special assistant on social media, said over 250,000 Nigerian youths are employed. Certainly, not from the general population but probably within the rehabilitated and amnestied militants now buying warships or moving from point A to point B in luxury jets. Even, those are hardly half of that statistic.
Everythingis in shambles. Equally troubling is Obasanjo’s revelations that Jonathan squandered $25 billion left by his administration in the Excess Crude Account and depleted $45 billion foreign reserves, which increased to about $67billion under Yar’Adua, to $30 billion. The response, that the balance is now $34.4 billion, is laughable.
Feeding expenses is skyrocketing yet the Central Bank of Nigeria says inflation is less galloping now because it is at 9.50 one-digit rate and food import bill reduced from N1.1 trillion in 2011, to N648 billion in 2012, “placing Nigeria firmly on the path to food self-sufficiency.” But that statement rings hollow on any shopping excursions at Lagos’Mile 2 commodities market.
In the 1960s, Nigeria was ranked an emerging economy alongside Malaysia and Singapore. Under Peoples’ Democratic Party’s rulership within 16 years, Nigeria declined from being a low middle-income country and amongst the 50 richest countries worldwide to one of the 30 poorest. Today, Singapore has the third highest per-capita GDP globally and Malaysia’s, $14,800.
Nowadays, our bedfellows are Somalia and Syria.
Jonathan’s buck-passing is mind-boggling. He said his inheritance of Nigeria’s problems excuses his inability to provide quick solutions. But, Jonathan’s emergence and continuing candidacy is on PDP’s platform,the same party under which the nation’s woes worsened. This implicates him. It is Jonathan’s conditions of service to provide solutions to Nigeria’s problems. He willingly applied for the position. And with or without a lion-like heart, Jonathan ought to have delivered. He did not.
Not surprisingly, I am no longer enamoured with Jonathan or his continued rule.
• Ogunbayo writes from Lagos.
