Last week, Charly Boy’s “our mumudondo’ group of entertainers and Buhari’s supporters clashed for the second time on the streets of Abuja. The former is insisting President Buhari, who is convalescing in a London hospital must “return or retire”. The latter, taking a cue from the President’s Daura’s kinsmen, is insisting “it is not a crime to be sick” and that the president has not broken any law since he ceded power to his vice president as spelt out in the constitution. They went on to accuse Charly Boy and his group of being driven by other motives including politics rather than altruism. Charly Boy’s group then introduced a new dimension: Their crusade, they now claim, is not about legality but about morality. Buhari’s supporters on the streets of Abuja, shot back, insisting, Charly Boy is ill-equipped and the least qualified to speak on sickness or morality as a self-confessed President Jonathan’s confidant who along with others egged him on as he ran the ship of state aground. Charly Boy is yet to respond.
What I have however found intriguing in the exchange between the two groups so far is the politicization of the President Buhari’s sickness. In case our fellow compatriots are unaware, it is not just that anyone can fall sick as argued by Buhari supporters, but the fact that social psychologists have in fact now said we are all sick with everyone at different levels of insanity. For artists who see what the ordinary people don’t see, it manifests in form of what society consider as their anti-social behaviours such as wearing tattoos over the body and overdependence on drug which recently led to the untimely death of Michael Jackson, and Prince, two of the world most celebrated entertainers. For instance, like Charly Boy who cherishes being called a boy at over 60, Michael Jackson was locked inside the body of a boy, making it impossible for him to accept responsibilities of adulthood all through his life.
Those of us who dance to their sometimes weird music without rhyme are not left out. Part of their findings is that it takes some form of insanity to start jumping around hysterically with our hands and legs up and down. But more revealing is their findings about political leaders. Students of political psychology in international relations have in fact confirmed leaders like Hitler, Idi Amin, Mussolini and Trump were outrightly insane. As for us and our leaders, no scientific work is needed to confirm our state of insanity. The irrational actions and pronouncements of our leaders and the absurd responses of the led are all that is required to gauge the level of our insanity.
For instance, we couldn’t have suddenly forgotten the recklessness of PDP leaders who embarked on the assassination of their leading lights over spoils of office after assuming power in 1999. On his own part, Obasanjo’s declaration that he was not obliged to listen to advice of experts but to God who brought him out of Abacha’s gulag to solve Nigerian problems was sufficient proof his recklessness. And if it is remembered that one of his obsession was to have a peaceful transition from civilian to civilian, a feat he achieved through Maurice Iwu’s massively rigged 2007 election which forced the winner of the electoral contest to protest against his own victory, the strange voice that finally drove him to the third term fiasco couldn’t have come from God. Obasanjo was probably suffering from “selective perception”, or the image in our heads, an affliction which sometimes makes us deny reality. Goodluck Jonathan, his godson suffered the same affliction. In power he looked the other way as his appointees looted the nation’s resource claiming stealing government funds was not corruption. Now out of government and with billions being recovered from his associates and family members, he is still in self-denial that he ran the economy aground and that he fought corruption but for “some unplugged loopholes”. Our current leaders have been humble enough to have publicly owned up to their different afflictions: Saraki – treachery; Ekwerenmadu – opportunism, and Melaye –obsession with cars. In the case of Dogara, his estranged friends says it is “budget padding”; Buhari – stiffness and religious fundamental beliefs and love of his Fulani race, afflictions he shares with Osinbajo, his deputy.
Now let us return to corruption, the other serious challenge facing our nation. It is the greed of corrupt political elite that deprive Nigerian youths of education, drive less-privileged Nigerians with broken limbs and bones from collapsed federal roads to seek remedy not in Igbobi Orthopaedic Hospital established after the Second World War but in the Republic of Togo while the privileged with collapsed kidney arising from usage of imported fake drugs find their way to India and not UCH, Ibadan, once regarded as one of the best three teaching hospitals in the Commonwealth of nations.
Charly Boy says some of his people voted for Buhari because of their confidence in his ability to fight corruption. And that is exactly what Buhari in or out of town has been trying to do for two years. There is sufficient proof he is changing the narrative. Those who collected amounts ranging between N1b and N4b from the federal government to rig the last gubernatorial elections in the South-west, those from Charly Boy’s South-east that collected N34b of N44b budgeted for the dredging of River Niger without any work done and those from the North who ferried billions in foreign currency with truck from the CBN vault allegedly on the order of President Jonathan, are having their dates in courts.
Today the Treasury Single Account (TSA) is said to have fetched the nation about N4trillion. Those who collected N4.6b for spiritual consultation are repaying back or having their dates in the courts; $9.88m and 74,000 pounds had been seized from Andrew Yakubu former GMD of NNPC while his supervising minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke has forfeited billions in local and foreign currencies as well as choice properties in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt to government. Abdulahi Dikko former Comptroller General of Customs has forfeited $37.5m to government just as billions of naira and choice properties have been recovered from military officers. On his part, Magu, the EFCC boss has so far secured the conviction of about 200 swindlers of the nation’s resources.
The nation has not only stopped the daily loss of about 500,000 barrels of oil but has more to show for the $52b oil revenue she earned in the last two years than the $445b accruing to the Jonathan administration between 2010 and January 2015.
But Charly Boy remains unimpressed. He told Vanguard over the weekend that his “Return or Resign” crusade against recuperating Buhari will continue. With this type of mind-set, it is no more difficult to second guess whose battle Charly Boy and his group are out to wage. It couldn’t have been an accident that his crusade coincides with the regrouping of PDP and the chest- beating of ex-President Jonathan about his handling of the nation’s-economy and the war on corruption as president. But as Balarabe Musa, former Kaduna State governor said while reacting to Jonathan’s wild claims, last week: ‘Nigerians have short memories’. Charly Boy who was said to be an unofficial adviser to ex-President Jonathan, like his principal, probably believe Nigerians suffer from collective amnesia.
