Does Buhari have the courage to change Nigeria?

Among many other things, the recently launched authorised biography of President Muhammadu Buhari, entitled, “The Challenges of Leadership in Nigeria,” strives to humanise its subject and make him look too good for Nigeria. But that is not all it is to effective leadership.

In line with that strategy, the book refreshes our memory about Buhari’s ouster as head of state in 1985 although it is not the first time the story would be told.

Buhari once confided in Thecable.ng that he had intelligence about the coup. On receiving these hints, Buhari said he called Gen Ibrahim Badangida, “sat and discussed it with him in my office. He was the chief of army staff and I was the head of state. He brought the news that he went to Kano and people complained that I pulled a pistol during a council meeting… I said Ibro ─ I called him Ibro because I was just senior to him by a few months ─ I said whoever wants to sit on this chair, let him come and sit here. And he decided to do it.”

This book explains that the President did nothing about the coup threat to avoid shedding blood. But is that the only way to stop a foretold coup?

Here, Buhari, leading a government widely touted to have been on a mission, was negligent and that cost the nation dearly. Consider the number of military officers sentenced to death under Babangida’s watch for the same reason for which Buhari spared him; we would never have had the June 12 annulment and the unspeakable carnage that followed were we spared of the Babandiga coup; Nigeria would not have had to deal with a Gen. Sani Abacha and the savagery of his rule.

Without the years in which these buddies passed us around and held us by the barrel of the gun, I wonder if Nigeria’s notoriety for corruption and arbitrariness would be this grave. So added together, incidents like these, raise questions about whether Buhari can appropriately prioritise the country’s challenges and take the right decision on the dot.

Now, essential to the skill for timely and sound decision making is courage. It must be admitted though that the shortage of plain courage is hardly discernable, since careless audaciousness, which is commonplace, sometimes masks as courage. But these are two mutually exclusive tendencies. One is noble in its motive and enduring in impact, transcending the hasty and momentary, if not eventually deleterious effect of the other.

Decisions emanating from courage are well thought-out, almost always temporarily hurtful but leading on to the general good. Courage rides on the back of the rare vision of leaders but the other is not the same; resulting from one or all of veiled incompetence, characteristic rashness and most often leading to regrets and reversals.

I do not think that Buhari has shown much courage in his 17 months in the saddle and I will expatiate.

For months after he became President, he dallied on some vital economic decisions, in spite of expert advice. He said he feared for the well-being of Nigerians but it was a bullet that the people had to swallow anyways.  By the time he decided, things were totally out of control and the jeopardy on the people had doubled.

Had he summoned the courage to face Nigerians in the first few days of his administration, we most likely would have been spared a lot of the sabotage that brought us so downhill.

Even as the administration battles to resolve the economic challenges taking the shine out of the lives of many Nigerians, there are two very important areas in which the President needs to put a demand on courage, do the nation good and prepare a worthy legacy for himself.

The first is the very urgent need to unite the country. Buhari clearly met a divided country in which the North mainly delivered to him while Dr Goodluck Jonathan, his strongest opponent, feasted on the patronage of people from the South-East and his native South-South. But for the South-West whose leaders preferred opposition politics, it was a country split down the southern- northern lines. Elections won therefore, the elected leader needed courage to put the country back on the path of harmony.

Sadly, President Buhari has not provided much leadership on this front.

From his first sets of appointment, to some of his initial utterances, the ethnic gulf in Nigeria has deepened. This is even bound to become worse if the current scuffle between him and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu who mobilised the South-West to his side, festers. Buhari would then be dealing with a totally polarised country and no matter how you try, development is antipodal to conflict.

The President should find the courage to break loose from all forms of ethnic custody and make genuine efforts to reach out to other parts of the country including the Niger Delta where activities of militants make nonsense of all governmental projections.

He needs to give people of the South-East a true sense of justice and fairness, assure the South-West that he is not about to shortchange them and get on the table with northern Christians who have complained of marginalisation. No leader can face the battle of national recovery with a divided house and hope for victory. Buhari must realise that he needs all hands on deck.

He needs to know that he cannot change Nigeria all by himself. Enough has been done to sell him as the most forthright human walking the surface of this country but campaigns are now over and Buhari is just a man who needs and must learn to take help. He must avoid situations like last week’s drama where he contradicted his media team on whether he joked about his wife’s comments criticising him or not; such spectacles diminish him and no one else.

Although the buck stops at his table, the President must own up to his limitations on issues of modern day governance and learn to build internal support in his three thematic areas of security, economy and fight against corruption, out of which only the first could be said to have shown any apparent  result.

Democracy is about building mass movements of support and empowering members to express disagreements and collaborate on solutions. Consensus building leads to informed decisions; it motivates parties to own the idea since the process would have exposed them to the sense of decisions. Ultimately, it accelerates results.

Finally, the President needs to work towards rebuilding national institutions. Antecedents of the President show that he believes in the ability of strong men but this is hardly sustainable. What we need are strong institutions which are backed by laws to which everyone, including the executive is subject.

The President needs other arms of government to rebuild our electoral system, law enforcement and a variety of regulatory systems and free them of interference at all levels. He should consider working with the National Assembly and state governors to split the offices of the attorney general and minister/commissioner for justice. This will be one of most effective ways to entrench his avowed fight against corruption.

Democracy thrives on the independence and effectiveness of institutions and a country is happy when state institutions subject themselves to the will of the people and not the will of those in government.

Unless President Buhari takes a cue from the untimely end of his initiatives 30 years ago and work towards institutionalising his efforts, his current labour will only just fade away with his administration whenever it sends.

In writing his name in gold, the President needs the support of all Nigerians but he must earn it. He needs the courage to move Nigeria forward no matter whose ox is gored and the courage to see that not just the ox of his personal or acquired adversaries are gored but that of his erring friends should not be left out.

Buhari has a unique chance to positively affect Nigeria but to assume that only he has all it takes is comparable to leaving mere delible footprints.

Walking the journey alone is why Buhari, his party and supporters have only tedium songs of how colossal the road to change is. That is not leadership and it certainly will not change anything sustainably, only a journey that takes the people along will endure; that is what Buhari needs.

Twitter: @niranadedokun