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There is no shortage of words to describe the pain, the sadness and frustration in Nigeria today under the watch of President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress. Everywhere you look, grief has taken over. It’s like midnight, a nation without a government incharge. The pain of how we have come to this miserable point, is something that troubles the mind. But it’s not hard to locate the crux of the matter. It’s all about failure of leadership. More than ever before in our democratic dispensation, hope is fast fading in Nigeria. Pessimism has supplanted hope. It’s never been this bad. Fear and anger have set in, eating deep like an acid. Insecurity has squeezed everyone to a corner. Terrorists are steadily overrunning the country.
Last week, the Senate, in a bipartisan manner never seen in a long time, rose from its slumber threatened to move an impeachment against President Muhammadu Buhari. He was saved by the gavel when Senate President, Ahmad Lawan shut down the minority leader, Sen. Philip Aduda from making the point in the plenary. But there is a gathering clouds of discontent coming which Sen.Lawan may not stop. The newspaper headlines last Thursday summarised the anger in the land. Insecurity: “Senators chant ‘Buhari must go’ (The Guardian), “Senators give Buhari six weeks to end terrorism or face impeachment” (New Telegraph), “Presidency frets as senators threaten to impeach Buhari” (Daily Sun), “Senators stage walkout, sing ‘Buhari must go’ (Nigerian Tribune).
But, does the President care? Does he listen to the pain cry of Nigerians? His aloofness and imperturbable disposition when action is urgently needed, is not the stuff of an effective leader. From my point of view, Buhari does not have that ‘spirit of leadership’ – that effective mind of a good leader to connect with the people and shape their aspirations. Neither does he have what it takes to overcome daunting challenges of immediate sort. It’s not part of his gifting. All through his presidency, this man has never stood as a pillar of strength in the midst of pains, the sufferings and windblown confusion that are ripping apart our country. He has never been a beacon of hope in the midst of despair. As his presidency is reaching its sad end, there’s no doubt anymore that he will leave Nigeria far worse than he met it.
Truth be told, genuine leadership starts with the attitude of the mind. That’s absent in Buhari right from his brief stay as military Head of State. This is the evidence: power reveals. What we have seen of this President is that of a man with no real agenda to use power for great purposes other than to fulfill a life ambition and bend people to his will. That’s not the stuff of a true democrat. His drive for power is inseparable from what he has always wanted power for: the desire for more power to accomplish personal goals. And now that he has got it, there’s nothing else to fight for. As historian Robert A.Caro puts it, “when a leader gets enough power, when he does not need anybody else (because he’s not up for another election)…then, we can see how he has always wanted to treat people by watching what he does with power, what he wanted to accomplish all along”. Doesn’t that reveal to us the innermost heart of a leader who has abandoned his duties of protecting his citizens and has left them in the wilderness of confusion?
It’s the same pain that another ‘Pharaoh’, Emi lokan, is angling to do in his quest to become the next president. Nothing else but to fulfill, in his own words,”a life ambition”. All that is unravelling now with regard to the frightening insecurity, is simply the nature and complexity of men who sought power not to accomplish great things, but for personal, selfish reasons. Gen. Ibrahim Babagida and late Sani Abacha did the same thing. Chief Olusegun Obasanjo attempted but failed to extend his tenure in office, even though he denied it. What does all this tell us about our leaders and power? It’s the failure of not realising what the office they seek entails. According to Donald Regan(who served as President Ronald Reagan’s Chief of Staff), a President is a matter of luck and courtesy, not by any divine rights. That’s why, in his words, “Presidents are not judged like other men”. That’s why we hold the President to account when things go wrong.
But, what can the impeachment threat really do or achieve? Can members of the National Assembly have the courage to pursue that process to its conclusion? I doubt. It will fizzle out in the next six weeks that they have given the President to take action against terrorists or face impeachment. While the impeachment looks good, and indeed, overdue, removing Buhari from office, less than ten months for his tenure to run its full course, does not worth the trouble. It may make him look like a hero when indeed he’s a wimp and almost cataleptic. Nigeria is already maimed and broken. Removing him from office doesn’t worth a pitcher of a warm spit. It will heat up the polity further and divert attention from other equally serious issues staring us in the face.
From my little research, anyone who wants to understand where Buhari’s administration has taken Nigeria, needs to go back to history, to know the nature of men who ran aground in the highest political office in their countries. History teaches that such men began by confusing their own destiny with that of their nations. They had a hardness of heart, of character and a willfulness to punish their own people. They were also impervious to sound advice, they only listened to their “yesmen” and sychophants telling them that “all is well,Mr. President”. This contrary to the what the rest of the country is feeling. That’s what is happening with all the President’s men. they say. For instance, the statement by terrorists to kidnap the President, Lai Mohammed said last week “is laughable”. That’s what the President wants to hear. But, don’t take that as a joke.
Underneath all this is a feeling of self-esteem. The truth is that this President has squandered public trust. His government has almost always, permitted the cynical and sleaze going on under his watch, but gleefully overlooked issues that call for his urgent attention. Rather, he has punished the trivials. That’s what Robert Putnam, the American scientist calls, “a vanishing bowling point”, a metaphor for disappearing togetherness of a country. Is Nigeria better off today than seven years ago? Is the country not more polarized today than it was seven years ago? Is the economy not worse today than it was seven years ago? Do you need further proof that our country today is on brink?
The crux of the impeachment threat is not about issues bordering on moral faculty lounge where you debate the weight of your principles. It’s about issue of transcendent importance – security and welfare of the people – which the Constitution specifically, in Section 14(b) says “shall be the primary purpose of government…”. The question is: has this government been up and doing in meeting this requirement? For any President who feels the pulse of his citizens, nothing is more important than meeting these requirements. The president’s men, we know, will respond forcefully that he has tried his best, that he means well for Nigeria. Who says he means evil for his country? Words are not enough. Action, they say, speaks louder than words. Taken together, APC has failed this country largely because, soon after it acquired power that it so desperately sought, it suddenly discovered that it’s easier to win election than to govern.
Every so often, the President has overreached his powers. He doesn’t know when to invoke the prestige of the presidency and when to hold it in reserve. When action is needed, he retreats, calls a meeting with the service chiefs. Do they really listen to him and comply with his orders? A president should not behave like a stranger in the seat of power. That was where Late President Umaru Yar’adua and Goodluck began to fail. I believe Buhari is often concerned about fear of failure. And when a leader is preoccupied with this morbid fear to fail, historians say, the more he’s likely to fail.
Now that the impeachment stick is dangling around his neck, whether the process will work or not, for the President, it should serve as a moment of reflection, a moment to honestly look into his own soul and ask: what should I do to regain the confidence of Nigerians? Should my legacy be that of leaving behind a dismembered country, overrun by terrorists or to preserve it? He needs reminding that some of his diehard followers are deserting him. What that means is, he should have the ability to look facts – even very unpleasant facts- in the face and not let himself be deluded any longer by wishful thinking. Because history beckons.
