By Ugo Onuoha
The abuse has been on since May 29, 2015. First, it was Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, an elderly retired officer of the Nigerian army who acceded to the presidency after three previous failed attempts. His political party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), achieved a feat by ousting the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) from the central government in Abuja. By then the PDP had ruled for 16 years with a vow to remain in office for an additional 44 years at the minimum. That party had claimed it was the largest political party in Africa, and touted its invincibility. Today, the PDP is in tatters, so much so that it is losing its heavyweights, including councillors, national and state lawmakers, state governors and presidential running mates, among others, to the ruling party. One of its apparatchiks and once its primary funder, Nyesom Wike, is serving in the ruling party, APC, as the governor (really, minister) of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). First, Wike corralled two other governors to mount an insurrection within the PDP when he lost the presidential ticket for the 2023 election to the eternal contestant, Atiku Abubakar, in the primary election contest. He has become the nemesis and the nightmare of the floundering party. For now, there’s no indication he’s planning to leave the party and fully join the APC, which he had in the past severally described as a political party suffering from stage four cancer. But he will not let the party be. And for whatever reasons, the party leaders appear to be scared to expel him. Indeed, it has been severally claimed that Wike is the godfather of the acting national chairman of the PDP, Iliya Umar Damagun, and the embattled national secretary, Nnaemeka (Samdaddy) Anyanwu. The truth is that Wike is like “odudu bere n’amu” of the PDP – a tsetse fly that perches on the scrotum. There’s a danger in smashing to kill it. There is also a greater danger in leaving it to its devices.
But we digress. Back to the elderly abuse and other malaise. Buhari was an old man when he reportedly won the presidency. There’s nothing wrong with being old. On the contrary, it’s a blessing and almost everybody prays to be old. So it was not a disqualifying factor. But he was sick, very sick, to the extent that the former governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose, took out a full-page advertisement in a national newspaper that suggested that Buhari may drop dead at any moment. He did not die in office like former President Umaru Yar’Adua of the PDP. But he was debilitated to the point of being incapacitated. Indeed, at a time during his presidency, Buhari spent 103 consecutive days hospitalized in London. By the time he returned to Nigeria, he publicly confessed that he had not been sicker all his life. Again, sickness is not a crime but it should be a disqualifying factor for those aspiring to lead a country that was, still is, in dire straits, and longing for fast-paced development. And a President who is present. Buhari was not, and now Bola Tinubu has not been either. To be present is beyond physical presence.
Because Buhari was sick for much of his presidency, and also because he was an old man, the country suffered immeasurably. His two terms of eight years became the years of the locust. An economist who was once governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said that the eight years of Buhari took the country back by 30 years. His statement was not made in a void. It was not whimsical given that this latter-day critic was an avid supporter and promoter of the Buhari presidential candidacy in 2014/2015. In 2019, this supporter pulled back citing an Islamic injunction that said something to the effect that it would be more beneficial to the people for a not-too-pious person to assume leadership position than for a man who is perceived to be pious but totally clueless to lead. His statement about Buhari taking Nigeria’s economy back by at least one generation was backed up with sobering and damning data. Buhari’s deputy, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, a relatively younger person, was, for all intents and purposes, castrated and sidelined. He was put in charge of visiting public places to hand out cash in the name of ‘Tradermoni’ and ‘Marketmoni’. These were the best strategies that the regime could design to supposedly lift Nigerians out of poverty. The poverty of those contraptions was debilitating. That regime’s brain boxes ensured that television cameras were trained on the professor of law Vice President whenever he was in the markets handing out petty cash to traders, some handouts as meagre and miserable as N20,000 only. Osinbajo was deliberately ridiculed, demeaned and diminished. That probably partly explained why, when he contested in the APC primary election for the presidential ticket in 2022, a party chieftain who is now the country’s vice president, Alhaji Mohammed Kashim Shettima, said that Osinbajo would be more useful to himself and the country if he were to aspire to be an ice cream vendor.
So Buhari was crippled by old age and ill-health, and Osinbajo was shackled by the cabal in Buhari’s presidency of 2015-2023. The ship of state became rudderless, and the country drifted. The young crooks in that regime took full advantage and introduced what has become known as ‘elderly abuse’ to the presidency. In broad terms, elderly abuse will involve physical mistreatment, emotional harm, financial exploitation, neglect, psychological and sexual abuse of an elderly person. But in the case of the Buhari presidency, it was the usurpation, use and abuse of presidential powers by well-placed aides without the knowledge and approval of the president. Often, such powers are deployed for personal benefits. Members of the kitchen cabinet who were mainly from the northern parts of the country, and who were mostly Muslims went rogue. They were not elected but they wielded enormous life and death powers of the president. The common refrain from Buhari while he reigned and his aides ruled while things were happening around him was: “I am not aware”. It was common then to hear and read about resistance to Osinbajo’s leadership by ministers and sundry top officials during the frequent foreign trips of Buhari. The situation did not improve much even during the rare occasions when Buhari formally transmitted presidential powers to the vice president. One of the highpoints was when Osinbajo, as acting president, effected changes in the leadership of the secret police. It was resisted, and eventually reversed when Buhari returned. It was a sad spectacle and a take down of the vice president who was acting as president.
When last week in this column we described the current vice president, Shettima, as a ghost worker, it was in relation to the lingering treatment of a vice president as a non-person by the regimes of the APC. The president, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has never felt obligated to formally or informally transmit presidential powers to Shettima. Even with his official age of 73, Tinubu is an old man in a country where life expectancy is barely 55 years. As we said earlier, growing old should be coveted. Like Buhari, Tinubu also cannot be said to be in excellent health. Before he was declared as the president in 2023, France was said to be his preferred destination for medical tourism. In less than two years in office he has been to France at least six times. If my recollections are correct, one was a state visit, another a private visit, while others were dubbed working visits. None was listed as being prompted by health reasons. So, again Nigeria is saddled with an old man as president whose health condition is shrouded in secrecy. But he is widely believed to be infirm, and a younger vice president who has been made a ghost. And the country is experiencing a deja vu or Buhari 2.0. Though Tinubu is touted to be an astute politician, the refrain in town is that again, presidential aides have seized the presidential powers, and are wielding them for personal benefits. It has been suggested in many quarters that in spite of his obviously exaggerated political sagacity, Tinubu has since become another victim of elderly abuse by his aides. They do things in his name including appointments which he may not be aware of but lacks the candour of Buhari to publicly admit his lack of knowledge of such things. And often his aides abuse and bungle relatively simple use of presidential powers. But in spite of obvious elderly abuse Tinubu owns everything that’s happening in his presidency, warts and all.
What this means is that for about 10 years the country has been ruled and ruined by cabals. In addition, for so long also we have had, still have, presidents who longed and lusted for power for power’s sake but have been incapable of being present for the people. For 10 years Nigerians have not been fortunate to have a president who is readily available to listen to their concerns and needs; who engages with them, understands their issues, and actively works to address them; a president who is accountable, transparent in decision-making, and responsive to the people’s needs; a leader who demonstrates genuine empathy, acknowledges their struggles and challenges; and, a president who provides effective leadership, and makes informed decisions that benefits a majority of the people. The implications of a presidential presence is that the people are more likely to trust such a leader and his government which will help the president to make informed decisions for the good of the vast majority. A president being present for the people will ensure that his leadership will enjoy increased legitimacy, build trust, promote good governance, and ensure that the government serves the needs of the citizens. Presidential presence has been absent for 10 years in our country. And it is not about to end. It has been a tortuous decade. And a nightmarish one at that.