By Farooq Kperogi, Ph.D. Twitter: @farooqkperogi People who say I am too hard on President Buhari like to point out that I am expect...
By Farooq Kperogi,
Ph.D.
Twitter:
@farooqkperogi
People who say I am too hard on President Buhari like to
point out that I am expecting too much from him and that I haven’t come to
terms with the fact that he isn’t perfect since he is only human. That’s wrong.
The very first paragraph of my May 16, 2015 column titled “6 Reasons Why Incoming Buhari Government Fills Me with Hope” reads: “The
incoming Muhammadu Buhari administration won’t be perfect by any means. It will
disappoint us in some areas, betray us in others, even annoy us sometimes, but
I am confident that, after all is said and done, this incoming government will
represent a qualitative departure from the legalized banditry that has passed
for governance in Nigeria for so long.”
So I never cherished the illusion that Buhari would be
perfect, although I was guilty of naïve, misplaced confidence and optimism
about him based on his symbolic, pre-inauguration moves. I had hoped that even
if Buhari wasn’t a stellar president, he would at least not lower the bar. But
that is precisely what he has done. He has set the bar of governance so low
that all it would take for any president who comes after him to impress us is
to:
1. Constitute his cabinet within a few days of being sworn
in. It took Buhari nearly six months to appoint his cabinet, which is the worst
record in Nigeria’s entire history. It slowed the country and hurt the economy.
On September 17, 2015 when France 24’s François Picard asked him why he hadn’t
named his ministers months after being sworn in, he said ministers are
worthless and just “make a lot of noise.” That was a low point. And the cabinet he took months to
put together turned out to be one of the most colorless and lackluster in
Nigeria’s history.
2. Appoint members of governing boards of government
agencies in the first few months of being in power. It took Buhari nearly three
years to do this. Since government agencies can’t legally function without
governing boards, governance basically halted for more than half of Buhari’s
first term. That’s why I once observed that while previous administrations were
guilty of misgovernance, Buhari is, for the most part, guilty of “ungovernance,”
which is worse.
3. Not be so incompetent as to appoint dead people into
government—and living people without first consulting them.
4. Periodically speak to Nigerians through the domestic
media, not when he is abroad.
5. Personally visit sites of national tragedy, show emotion,
and make national broadcasts to reassure a grieving nation. In my March 18,
2017 column titled, “Why Buhari Should Learn from Osinbajo,” I wrote:
“In a tragic irony, it took Buhari’s sickness for Nigeria to
get a chance at some health. It also took his absence for the country to feel
some presence of leadership. Why did it take the ascendancy of Osinbajo to the
acting presidency for this to happen? The answer is simple: symbolic presence.
Buhari lacked symbolic presence in the 20 months he was in charge.”
6. Have an economic team made up of economists and not, as
Buhari has done, appoint a diplomat as an economic adviser and then push him to
the gaunt fringes of the Vice President’s office.
7. Reflect token religious, regional, and national diversity
in appointments. Buhari won a national mandate, but his appointments are, as I’ve
pointed out in previous columns, undisguisedly Arewacentric. His personal
example shows that he doesn’t believe in one Nigeria, yet he often insists that
Nigeria’s unity is “non-negotiable.” That’s unreasonable.
8. Not lie shamelessly about self-evident facts.
9. Not budget billions for Aso Rock Clinic and yet starve it
of basic medicines (so much so that his own wife and daughter would complain
openly) and then fly to London for medical treatment at the drop of a hat even
for “ear infections” and “breathing difficulties.”
10. Not have a compulsive runawayist impulse that ensures
that he travels out of the country at the slightest opportunity and for the
silliest reasons.
11. Even pretend that the whole of Nigeria is his
constituency—including those who gave him “97%” of their votes and those who
gave him only “5%” of their votes.
12. Add to the list
Sadly, these are really basic things that shouldn’t attract
any praise. There is no greater evidence that Nigeria has regressed really
badly in almost every index in Buhari’s less than 3 years of being in power
than the reality of these grim facts.
And he wants you to extend this national tragedy for another
4 years in 2019? Well, it’s up to you. If that's what Nigerians want, who am I
to deny them the "luxury" to inflict self-violence on themselves?
But what I won’t take is the narrative being promoted by
apologists and beneficiaries of the government that there is no one better than
Buhari at this time. On the contrary, it’s actually practically impossible to
be worse than Buhari because he has brought Nigeria to the ground zero of
incompetence, so almost anybody would be better than him. He descended from the
zenith of “Sai Baba” to the slope of “Baba Go-slow” and finally to the nadir of
“Baba Standstill.” It can’t get worse than that.
Crybabyism as Governance
Buhari and his administration interminably gripe about how
much Jonathan bankrupted the nation (never mind that Buhari and his
administration are actually doing worse now) and how the hurt Jonathan
inflicted on the nation is still responsible for our woes.
But Buhari is president today precisely because the vast
majority of Nigerians thought Jonathan was incompetent and that it would take a
Buhari to redress the harm Jonathan brought to the economy. If Nigerians
thought—or knew—that Buhari was not capable of turning our fortunes around,
they would have stuck with Jonathan.
Buhari’s endless crybabyism about Jonathan’s damage to the
economy reminds me of my days as news editor of the Daily Trust. During one of our editors’ meetings in 2001, many
editors expressed concerns about the painfully poor quality of the grammar and
reportorial skills of some of our reporters and correspondents. But amid our
self-righteous angst, our business editor, Aliyu Ma’aji said, “Let’s realize
that we wouldn’t have had our jobs if there were no reporters with terrible
grammar and less than perfect reporting skills. So stop complaining!” We all
laughed at his creative humor, but he was right.
Buhari got the job of being president because Jonathan
sucked at it. If Jonathan was a great president, Buhari won’t stand a
snowball’s chance in hell to be elected. In any case, he had tried to be
president many times in the past and failed because the depth of hopelessness
that Jonathan instigated in Nigerians in 2015 didn’t exist in 2003, 2007, and
2011. Although Obasanjo wasn’t exactly the archetype of a great leader, his
policies birthed Nigeria’s robust middle class.
Buhari should quit the crybabyism and self-pitying
lamentation and correct the wrongs that Jonathan did. If he can’t do the job,
he should be honorable enough to resign. Ceaselessly reminding us that he
inherited a bad economy (while making it infinitely worse than he met it) is
now unbearably trite and tired. He wouldn’t be president if everything was
great under Jonathan.
We elected a
commander-in-chief to solve problems, not a complainer-in-chief to wail in
self-pity about problems.
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