A presidency at war with everybody

I think one of the reasons the Muhammadu Buhari administration currently seems overwhelmed and isolated is because the honcho and those close to him bought the hype that he was the only man that could change Nigeria.

There is no doubt that a man, especially one widely touted to be of exemplary disposition can lead a revolution to change the lives of a people irreversibly but it is delusionary for anyone to imagine that only him and a select group of people around him are enough to change a country. It is a fallacy that democracy will never accommodate. Change that endures can only occur when the people buy into the vision and pursue with vigour as their leader. And the measure of effective leadership is how much you succeed in transiting your vision to others, it is only then that change can be achieved.

One of the most phenomenal stories of the rebirth of nations this century is that of Singapore under the leadership of the inimitable Lee Kuan Yew.

Although the father of Singapore sometimes tended towards benevolent dictatorship, he never allowed himself the indulgence of being seen as the lone motivator of the improvements that visited his country under his watch. He, in fact, used every opportunity he had to speak about his deliberate efforts at raising social consciousness and gaining the understanding and support of his people through mass mobilisation in every major reform attempt. For Yew, his government’s “greatest asset was the trust and confidence of the people.”

That is one skill at that which Nigeria’s leadership is deficient. From what we have seen, this government believes that not many people possess the morality to join the president in the very urgent task of turning Nigeria around. And they would go any length to establish that.

For instance, behind Buhari’s acquiesce to the cheeky suggestion of former British prime minister, David Cameron that Nigeria was a fantastically corrupt country was from a deep sense of self-righteous contempt for the people.

Not even members of the federal cabinet seem to have the benefit of the president’s absolute confidence as he once referred to them as mere “noise makers” ahead of their appointment. This would also be why most ministers are said to have access to the president only during the weekly meeting of the federal executive council.

But members of the executive at least have it relatively good with the president. Until last week, when the secretary to the government of the federation, Babachir David Lawal was suspended from office, no member of the executive could be said to have tasted of the president’s obvious distrust of the average Nigerian public office holder. This has been copiously demonstrated with the other arms of government.

Take the national assembly, set up by the 1999 constitution (as amended) to make laws for the good governance of the country as well as check and balance the activities of the executive. As it were, it would be impossible to achieve any serious transformation without the collaboration of this group of men and women and the president. But what have we had for the past two years? A battle, first over sharing the booty of the electoral victory of the ruling All Progressives Congress.

Rather than utilise the first 100 days of the administration to cultivate the legislature and lay the foundation for collaboration, the Buhari Presidency alienated the legislature and then finally went into a full war to impugn the reputation of not just the leadership but the institution. The result is an almost irredeemably damaged relationship between the two arms. This accounts for the delay in the passage of the government’s two budgets so far and the refusal of the Senate to even consider the list of prospective Resident Electoral Commissioners.

The executive has also succeeded in bringing the National Assembly into disrepute in the reckoning of a lot of Nigerians. The people do not only see their representatives as corrupt, they also consider them as inconsiderate and selfish. As a matter of fact, the national assembly is literarily the synonym for everything anti-people currently such that two or three members have almost lost their lives to mob actions lately. The system has sown the hate seed in the people. However, a legitimate question to ask would be what exactly has the national assembly done against the Nigerian people that members of the federal executive have not?

The next group that has been targeted by the government is the judiciary. Before last September’s midnight visit to seven senior judicial officials by the Department of State Services on allegations of corruption, the President had mouthed the lack of cooperation from the judiciary in the war against corruption that Nigerians already labelled the judiciary, “enemy of the people number two.” Then, the arrest and the final disrobement of the judiciary of the little honour left happened that September midnight. These days, virtually all judgments emanating from our courts, especially once they do not favour the executive, bear the sign of judicial compromise in the eyes of Nigerians. It is a very untoward place for the judiciary of the nation to be and we have the executive to blame for it.

And now, the fourth estate of the realm is coming under attack. It would have been possible to dismiss Monday’s inexplicable expulsion of Lekan Adetayo, correspondent of The PUNCH from the presidential villa by the chief security officer to the president, Bashir Abubakar, as the mere exuberance of an over-indulged officer but the revelation that he had called State House reporters to a coaching session a few days before this action indicates that the presidency may be succumbing to temptation for paranoia and intolerance.

It is true that this is an isolated case; it is also true that Buhari’s media office has clarified that he would not approve the harassment of any journalist, but who needs this president’s approval here?

Two things show that the president would need to quickly clip the wings of his overzealous staff and, by all means, avoid a repeat of this sad event. The first is that the CSO did not see wisdom in discussing his summary expulsion of the journalist with the media office. And the second is the insinuation that the reports which incurred the wrath of the security man were sponsored by politicians apparently seen as hostile to the president’s interest.

If the CSO could, for 2019 projections, treat a journalist this way, at this time when his principal is still struggling to fulfil the promises he made for his first term, what will he do as the 2019 elections get closer and allegiances become clearer? In any case, nothing can be more injurious to these folks’ 2019 calculations that the antagonism inherent in picking on democratic institutions and whittling down their influence and reputation serially. No one wins a war against the people, not even the military and President Buhari of all people should know that.

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