The return of Buhari, the impervious hard man
President Buhari returned to Nigeria last week after 104 days of medical leave in London. Every Nigerian must rejoice at the president’s safe return, and continue to wish him a full recovery. Yet, we must not ignore the lessons of his health saga. The truth is that the president’s absence divided Nigerians, and his return did nothing to unite the people. The first was because of his handlers’ failure to strike the right balance between the private and public sides of his illness. The second stemmed from Buhari’s own failure to understand the mood of the country and to use charm offensive to douse tensions instead of the needless bellicosity that could further heat up the polity.
Let’s be clear: President Buhari deserves the freedom and the privacy to receive medical treatment anywhere in the world. Being a president does not strip him of those private rights. Yet, being a president also means that his health conditions and their impact on his job cannot altogether be a private affair. For instance, the nature of the president’s illness and whether he is still fit to govern effectively are matters of public interest. Yet, despite spending only 78 days in Nigeria this year, Buhari’s illness remains mysterious. And, sadly, when some Nigerians took to the streets, in a peaceful protest, under the slogan #ReturnOrResign, to vent their frustration over the president’s prolonged absence, the government sent the police to tear-gas them!
But, while protests about Buhari’s absence were being suppressed in Nigeria, Western media were speculating about where the president was receiving treatment and whether he was directing the affairs of Nigeria from his hospital bed. In a story captioned “Swathes of Africa ruled by leaders in foreign hospitals”, the London Times speculated that Buhari was “holding firmly to power at home” while being treated “at the Princess Grace Hospital near Harley Street”. The paper argued that President Buhari “has refused to delegate fully to his acting president”, suggesting that “the presidential jet has been on standby for months so Mr Osinbajo can fly to London consult him”.
Now, most of these were probably mere speculations. But, for a western journalist, indeed, for any journalist, such facts are matters of public interest. And, in a democracy, the people are entitled to such information. However, secrecy trumps accountability and transparency in Nigeria, and the handling of the Buhari health saga proved that beyond doubt.
But, as I said, we must rejoice that the president is back. Except that his return has also sparked controversies. In one sense, the issues are hilarious, in another, they are serious and ominous. First, on the funny part! Buhari’s spokesman, Garba Shehu, said the president would work from home, at least for the next three months. Why? Well, because rodents invaded his office while he was away and damaged the furniture! I like how the London Times reported the story in a piece titled “’Rats ate my office’, says absent Nigerian leader’”. The Times wrote that “In the annals of excuses”, the reason given for the president’s home working, “might rival ‘the dog ate my homework’ for sheer inventiveness”. Of course, a president that has just returned from a long sick leave should be allowed to take it a bit easy when he gets back to work, even if that means working from home. It would seem, though, that this was just an ingenious excuse for the president to resume his old habits. After all, even before his recent medical trip, he rarely went to the office or attended meetings of the federal executive council. Yet, one can’t fail to see the funny side of rat story or, as the Times puts it, its “sheer inventiveness”!
However, if the rodent story was funny, President Buhari’s address to the nation was not. It was as if the president returned to Nigeria to read the riot act to those he said “crossed our national red lines by daring to question our collective existence as a nation”. The president repeated his hackneyed statement that “Nigeria’s unity is settled and not negotiable”. Now, I take the view that President Buhari must necessarily repeat this statement. After all, no leader would say that his country would disintegrate under his watch. I remember the Queen’s reaction to the Scottish referendum result in 2014. The former British prime minister, David Cameron, let it slip in a TV interview that the Queen “purred down the line” when he told her that Scotland had voted to stay in the UK. The Queen was delighted the UK stayed together, as, presumably, President Buhari would be for Nigeria to remain as one.
Yet, two things strike me about Buhari’s soft-repeated statement about Nigeria’s unity. First is the seeming political opportunism; and second is how the president wants to achieve that unity. Let’s start with the opportunism. As we know, events leading to the 2015 general elections provoked apocalyptic predictions about Nigeria’s disintegration, which caused the unprecedented focus of the world, from the UN to the US and EU, on Nigeria. Yet, it was Buhari’s supporters, and, of course, Goodluck Jonathan’s, that created this atmosphere of impending cataclysm. Buhari said nothing about Nigeria’s unity being non-negotiable at the time, but was even accused of fuelling the doomsday scenario with alleged inflammatory statements. When President Jonathan conceded defeat in that election, Buhari thanked him for “saving the Nigerian state”, the implication being that had Jonathan not conceded defeat, the future of the Nigerian state would have been in jeopardy.
So, why was Nigeria’s unity seemingly negotiable in 2015 when it seemed that Buhari could be robbed of victory in a pivotal election, but not negotiable now that he is president? I am not questioning President Buhari’s commitment to Nigeria’s unity; after all, he fought for it as an army officer. My point is that there were few times in the recent past when he himself seemed unsure about that unity, or was at least less gung-ho about it than he is now!
The second thing that strikes me about the president’s seeming zealousness is his constant invocation of military force when talking about Nigeria’s unity. According to one newspaper, “Buhari orders security chiefs to ensure Nigeria remains one”. Really? Why is Nigeria’s unity only achievable through military means? Why not through negotiations and dialogue? But, as the president once said, he did not believe in national conferences. Even when he acknowledged in his speech that there were “legitimate concerns” and that “every group has a grievance”, he said “The National Assembly and the National Council of State are the legitimate and appropriate bodies for national discourse”. Again, forgive my cynicism! But if the National Council of State is such an important forum for solving the country’s problems, why did Buhari refuse to attend its meetings for nearly 16 years under the PDP government? Why was he not attending to help “solve” Nigeria’s problems?
The truth is that sovereignty belongs to the people. Even in the UK, where there is the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy, national discourse and referenda are the means for achieving political and constitutional settlements. Some people have described the president’s speech as a missed opportunity. I agree. While Buhari was away, his party set up the restructuring committee and promised to consider the reports of the 2005 and 2014 national conferences. President Buhari should have publicly endorsed his party’s action, and announced his government’s plans to fulfil its manifesto commitment on restructuring. That would have doused ethnic tensions instead of his “fire and fury” threat, a la Trump!
The president invoked the late Ojukwu in support of his statement about Nigeria’s unity. But in his book, “Because I am involved”, Ojukwu was deeply unhappy about Nigeria’s flawed structure, and talked about two types of unity, “the unity of Jonas inside the belly of the whale” and “the unity of marriage”, adding that “the unity we seek is the latter”. But, as we know, the unity of marriage can only be achieved through negotiation and agreement, not through bullying, threat or use of force!
Olu Fasan