With a conviction that it will be morning again in Nigeria once the mess created by years of inept and rudderless leadership is cleaned up, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari is taking the fourth shot at the presidency. In this article, seasoned journalist DAN AGBESE examines the records of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential standard bearer and why the former Head of State believes a strong leader will engender a stronger nation and transform Nigeria to a great country from being a potentially great nation.
Let us begin this brief discussion with the obvious. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, former Head of State, 1984-85, is in the presidential race for the fourth time since 2003. It is thus easy for his detractors to put it down to his consuming ambition to rule this country for the second time. I think it should now be possible for us to be fair and open-minded about him, what he stands for and what motivates him to weather his disappointments and maintain his focus towards his objective of leading a competent and dedicated national team to salvage our dear country, ravaged by termites. It has been his obsession for 31 years now.
It is difficult not to admire his courage. Three times he ran the race and three times he lost. Each time, believing that the verdict by the electoral umpire did not reflect the true decision of the people, he pursued his case all the way to the highest court in the land. In 2003, he spent more than three years trying to persuade their lordships to listen to him and do justice to him, the electoral system, the rule of law and the country. The courts failed him each time because politics trumped justice in the temple of justice. The system failed him each time with palpable injury to our collective sense of justice. Yet, he was not, to use the popular saying, even shaken. Each setback fired his resolve. It seems to me that only he could see the rainbow where the rest of us see the dark clouds of despair and lost hope. I have no intention of couching his political ambition in sacerdotal terms but a man this faithful to his cause and belief is an inspiration.
It is no longer difficult to see that the general is clearly motivated by nobler and higher objectives than his alleged greed for power, whatever his detractors might say. For one, his quest is clear evidence that unlike many, he has not lost faith in the present and the future of our country. Buhari believes that our country is not a lost cause.
Many of our compatriots have more or less given up on the country because they are convinced that like Nazareth, nothing good will come out of this lumbering giant of Africa. You cannot blame those who feel that way. Nigeria seems condemned to being a permanently potentially great country. Lesser African and other Third World countries have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps but ours seems content to hold the candle to such countries. This country has squandered its riches and opportunities and overdrawn from its bank account of international goodwill. It evokes more pity than pride. Its once loud voice in the comity of nations has been reduced to incoherent whining. Its once commanding presence in the international arena has been reduced to a black fedora at photo ops at the gathering of world leaders.
Gen. Buhari told TheNews magazine at an interview in December 2003, “I think this country is in a mess.” He has consistently demonstrated his belief that the mess could be cleaned up and it would be morning again in Nigeria. If good people run away from the mess, it would only get messier. This has been his mantra since January 1984. He told us on his assumption of office as Head of State: “This generation of Nigerians and indeed future generations have no other country than Nigeria.
“We shall remain here and salvage it together.”
The General is still in the salvage operation. In 1984, Buhari came into office as an angry General. He was disappointed that in only four years and three months or so, the politicians had managed, quite remarkably, to put the economy in serious “predicament.” Our country was “afflicted” by a “crisis of confidence.” Nigeria became a risky country to do business with. Its trading partners denied it lines of credit. Young Nigerians were checking out in search of greener pastures elsewhere.
His appearance on the political scene in 2003 was a big surprise to many, yours sincerely not excempted, who believed that Buhari hated politics and the politicians. How could he keep the company of those who worship in the shrines of untruth and who verily believe that corruption is merely a smart way of being “better pass your neighbour”? There were obstacles in his path in the shapes and sizes of some of those he put behind bars in 1984-85. They had become the party moguls and the deciders-in-chief of political fortunes and misfortunes in the country. How could they let the General on to the turf? They obviously feared that if Buhari came again, he would head them back into jail again. Time sharpens the edge of revenge.
Buhari looked beyond that and surprisingly showed that he understood the elementary facts of a presidential contest. He did not come into it as a joke. He did so with serious-mindedness. He was the only presidential candidate that year to publish his manifesto – an impressive document that lamented our lost opportunities but wasted no tears over them or indulge in a puerile and futile blame game. His manifesto detailed his appreciation of our national challenges and his informed approach to meeting and defeating them.
Twice, Buhari stood on the platform of his party – the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP), and twice the wily politicians used him as a bargaining chip with the ruling party. Thus compromised and happy with it, the politicians also made their party history. Their vengeance was to make Buhari a political orphan. By the 2003 general elections, the party had lost all but two of the seven states it won in 1999.
Buhari understood the game. He took an unprecedented step. He formed his own political party – the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), on whose platform he contested the presidential election in 2011. Was he doing all these because of his greed for power? It does not add up.
Buhari is the most misunderstood Nigerian of his generation since his whirlwind 20-month rule. Much of the misunderstanding is a product of the fear of the man they refuse to understand. He has been tarred and feathered as an alleged religious fanatic whose alleged objective in seeking power is to Islamise Nigeria. Yet, his detractors find it convenient not to remember that in his quest for the presidency, Buhari has not carried his campaigns to mosques or Muslim groups anywhere in the country. Religion has never featured in his campaigns. Political leadership is not about the god you worship. It is about serving that god by serving the people.
On the other hand, unlike Buhari, President Goodluck Jonathan is busy mining religion for his political benefits. It is no secret that he hops from one obscure church to another, seeking assurance from pastors that he is the man chosen by God. Twice, he took state governors, ministers and pastors to pray at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. I have heard no one accuse him of Christianising Nigeria.
The trouble for Buhari’s detractors is that despite their poor attempts to tarnish his integrity, they are unable to reasonably question his solid credentials: his incorruptibility and his belief in and commitment to discipline and the rule of law. Not all of us are comfortable with a strong leader. Many of us prefer a weak and jolly leader who holds the cow for the smart ones to milk. When United States (U.S) President Barrack Obama advised that Africa needed strong institutions, not strong leaders. Buhari’s quite sensible response was that you need strong leaders to build strong institutions on the continent. Just see how many of our national institutions are mothballed through a poor appreciation of the fact that nations are built and they progress on the strong pillars of their institutions.
The governor of Jigawa, Sule Lamido, was once quoted as saying, “the fear of Buhari is the beginning of wisdom.” Perhaps, that is the problem.
In entering the presidential race for a record fourth time, Gen. Muhammed Buhari could not have expected he would become a phenomenon in our national politics. He has. This fact has crept up slowly on the nation. It is not easy to explain away his transformation, partly because it is complicated and partly because it would amount to trying to unravel the mysteries of human mood swings and how the wind of the dynamics of national politics blows.If there are political psychoanalysts, they have a big task here.
Buhari is a political surprise. Nothing in his character or his professional military training hints at his becoming a man of the people, riding on the crest waves of populism where it matters most – among the poor, the dispossessed, the cheated and the despairing.
Buhari is an ascetic and a rigid military man. Populism is not his cup of tea. At least, until now that he finds himself the crowned head of a popular politician. He did not enter the race waving the banner of populism. He did so, waving his flag as a serious-minded politician. He has offered nothing but his credentials as an incorruptible and competent leader with the sole objective of fixing his badly broken country.
Normally, his sales pitch would be a no-no because we have been conditioned to expect and even demand largesse from politicians during electioneering campaigns, the only time they reach out to the people. It is no secret that there is lack of mutual trust between the people and the politicians. It is quid pro quo: Give us money, get our votes. And because Buhari, being of a spare flesh, cannot shake body, his campaign promises would be treated as airy nothings – full of sound but not the welcome sound the naira makes in the pocket.
Buhari has stood that conventional wisdom on its head – I hope for good and the good of our country. The poor flock to him in a way we have not seen since perhaps the First Republic when Chief Obafemi Awolowo and the champion of the talakwa, Malam Aminu Kano, championed their cause. The poor know he has no money and did not come into the race with a war chest bulging with dollars, pounds and naira. So, instead of asking him for money, they chip in the little they have for his campaigns. As witness the 80-year-old woman in Niger State, who gave him her life’s saving of one million naira. As witness schoolboys and hundreds of the struggling poor who chipped in their proverbial widow’s mite.
A politician funded by the people? What is even more interesting is that hundreds of the young men and women who work in the Buhari campaign at national and state levels, are volunteers. They work for free because they believe, I suspect, that the lack of money should not debar him from his noble national pursuit. It does have the grating sound of aberration.
Buhari does not rent crowds at his campaign rallies. The people flock there at their own expense. It must be a big surprise that the common people see in him the genuine and honest leader they crave for. I keep hearing something like these: “I trust him because he is honest. He had the chance to feather his own nest but he did not. He is the only politician who is genuinely offended by the brazen theft of our common wealth. I believe he is the only one who has what it takes to stop the rot and rescue our nation.We are drowning.”
However you look at it, Buhari is leading an authentic political movement of the common people for the common people. His transformation is telling evidence that victimhood could be the road to heroism. Luck, therefore, played a major part in this. Part of his luck was that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) moguls made the fundamental mistake of making him the issue in its presidential campaigns. It went after Gen Buhari in every sleazy way: questioning his qualification or even literacy; fabricating his health records and dragging the innocent members of his family into the fray. It is sordid desperate.
While the PDP foul mouths went after him this way, the man concentrated on selling himself to the various economic and demographic groups in the country. His town hall meeting with businessmen was an important step for creating an economic programme that would take this country from this country from being a true economic giant of Africa. Gen. Buhari thus concentrates on the real issues that affect the country and its teeming ordinary people. I find him usually at least one step ahead of the PDP. In response, its attack dogs lose their heads and let loose a fusillade of invectives that does nothing for their image as desperadoes. Their attacks on Gen. Buhari became a turn-off for many – and some came down from sitting on the fence and cast their lot with him.
My take is that Gen. Buhari is a surprise beneficiary of the politics of hate and smear campaigns. His political opponents have waged a relentless war in attempts to assail his integrity with loads of lies and fabrications. You would expect a short-tempered military man to respond in kind. Not Gen. Buhari. He puts himself above the political fray and focuses on the task and the challenges before him. His statesman-like response to insults has been calm, measured and cool-headed. This is part of the building block of his new persona. It seems to me that the more his political opponents attack him, the more the people are moved to protect him.
Part of the game plan of the PDP and the presidency in postponing the general election for six weeks was that Buhari would come out, the guns of anger blazing, and his party men and women would take to the streets in protests that would likely turn ugly and give President Goodluck Jonathan and his men the excuse to put into effect the plan to either postpone the election indefinitely or impose on the country an ugly contraption called interim government.
They were shocked that the General understood the game. He saw the trap. Armed with his considerable moral authority, Gen. Buhari kept his party leaders and members in line. They did not raise their voices of protestsabove those of other people who saw in the subterfuge a well-laid out plan to stop Buhari.His response and that of his party deflated the PDP and shattered its game plan. And again, Gen. Buhari emerged from it a victor, not a victim.
To recast Governor Sule Lamido’s dictum: “The fear of Gen. Buhari is the reason for some hope in our democracy.”
It could still be a bubble. It would be naïve not to make due allowances for that. The March 28 presidential election may settle it. Whatever might be Gen. Buhari’s final political fate in that election, no one would take away from him some fundamental lessons of his quest for power. Our national politics, post-Gen. Buhari, would not be the same again. Firstly, he has brought the common people into reckoning in our national politics, showing, as no other presidential candidate has done so far, that power truly belongs to the people. His common touch is genuine and his drive for an inclusive nation is sincere.
Secondly, he has amply demonstrated that politics is not a do-or-die affair and the easy resort to smear campaigns and personal insults is cheap and blasé. Thirdly, he has shown that the koboless has a chance in the contest for political power now dominated by the rich. Fourthly, his drive rekindles the faith of the many in the capacity of this nation to rescue itself and heal itself of its self-inflicted wounds.
Fifthly and perhaps, most importantly, the merger of the four parties into one formidable party – APC – owes as much to Gen. Buhari’s belief in the place of political parties as authentic platforms for democracy and national progress, as it does to the political sagacity of that truly wily politician, Senator Ahmed Bola Tinubu, former governor of Lagos State. If APC becomes a truly authentic alternative political choice, then we can look back to these times and acknowledge Gen. Buhari as a phenomenon, who, through the weight of his moral authority, helped to erect the pillars for the future of our nation and its democracy.
Agbese, a former Editor-in-Chief, Newswatch magazine, is an executive director, MayFive Media Limited, Lagos.
