Tag: overwhelmed

PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari marked one year in office without ceremony. He was right not to. Nigeria’s multifarious problems helped make the anniversary memorable and momentous. The Niger Delta is a cauldron of permanent unrest that has halved crude oil production and national revenue, thus worsening crippling low oil prices and vaulting inflation. The Southeast is in an uproar, threatening to explode in everybody’s face. The anti-corruption war is not yielding fruits as readily and rapidly as the Buhari presidency banked upon. Herdsmen have laid siege to many communities, exacting vengeance for perceived slights and offences, and hurting crop production. Dire socio-economic problems have made insecurity worse, splintered families and the society, predisposed the youths to cultism and other vices, and made hunger and frustrations more likely. In short, the country is in a lather, convulsed by a general sense of failure which the presidency can’t seem to get a handle on.
For months, the Buhari presidency had stridently blamed his predecessor for the incalculable damage done to the economy and polity. As the problems worsened, the blame game has suddenly become vapid and repetitive. Last year it was obvious to the people time would be needed to sweep the Augean stables clean. Now, the people have become restless and despondent. They do not mind waiting; but they are no longer sure the Buhari presidency even knows what to do, or how to do it. They were prepared to endure stagnation for a while; but instead they are being asked to endure much worse, perhaps retrogression. Food prices have skyrocketed, energy costs have become astronomical, and palpable fear of recession is voiced in key sectors of the economy as thousands lose their jobs. The hostile conditions are so inimical to stability that there is pressing fear that both the Niger Delta and the Southeast could simultaneously explode.
It is in the midst of all this that former vice president Atiku Abubakar delivered his bombshell suggesting that the lack of adequate and sensible response to these problems could be blamed on poor leadership. (See the piece above). President Buhari’s uninspiring May 29 speech appears to lend credence to Alhaji Atiku’s conclusions. Even more critical was the president’s general interview given to media establishments as part of his first year anniversary. The interview is doubtless well composed, even eloquent, and honest. It serves as a window into the president’s heart and thinking. But it is also frightening for its lack of profundity, generally misconceived for its facile surrender to political and economic anachronisms, and bewildering in its temper for the manner he excoriated aggressive dissent and unorthodoxies. It is good the interview was published in many newspapers; for then it should afford the president the opportunity to reflect on the questions a second time, and ponder his responses and the public’s reactions to them, again and again to see what he could do differently in the next three years. He can improve if he chooses. For, it seems, the main lesson from the anomalous answers he gave to the serious questions posed to him is that his determination to run his presidency in the unilineal and insular manner he has chosen is simply ruining his presidency.
The president has apparently set too much store by his belonging to everybody and to nobody. But in politics, rather than the diktat he seems enamoured of, he needs to bring people together, meet minds with the best in the land, cast his net far wider than his background has propelled him, make conscious effort to cultivate the trust and friendship of various ethnic groups and religions, prepare a blueprint for the reform and rejuvenation of the various sectors of the society including the judiciary, get a firm grip on the haughty and imperial police and military establishments, and sell a brilliant and pragmatic vision of Nigeria to Nigerians. He has done none of these. He has been stuck with his anti-corruption war and counterinsurgency in the Northeast because he seems to entertain the strange doctrine that nothing else could be done until both issues were dealt with.
He also responded quite bafflingly to the question on national conference by reminding everyone he never supported it, and would not support even the report of the conference. Unsurprisingly, the nation has risen in unison to remind him he does not own the nation, and must revisit the report because the present structure is simply unworkable. The public opposed Dr Jonathan’s conference because they knew it was opportunistic, half-hearted and desperate. If President Buhari does not champion the restructuring of the country in line with the people’s wishes, the country will go ahead and still do it and give him no credit.
His answers to the question of herdsmen’s attacks is disingenuous; to that of Boko Haram, apocalyptic; and to that of Biafra, insensitive and misguided. It does not matter how long the government pretends the Biafra issue is unimportant, the president must confront it dispassionately, skillfully and diplomatically. So far, he has confronted it emotionally. In the interview, he shows no enthusiasm in engaging the economists who discuss with him, let alone their panaceas for a troubled economy. All he says is that he will see how to accommodate them and their theories, seeing how they often spoke above his head. Then he finally and incredulously suggests a dose of patriotism to curb elite excesses in undermining the economy.
What is quite evident from the interview is that the president must come to terms with his past experiences, recognise the ideas that worked in the past but are no longer relevant, and urgently open up in order to receive help and advice from those competent and well-meaning to do so. He needs to forge a new nation from an old and dying nation, and he needs to set it on a modern foundation capable of sustaining its people into the next century.