President Muhammadu Buhari
Act
1, Scene 1: Pre-presidential elections of March 28, the word on the
street was that Chibuike Amaechi, immediate past governor of Rivers
State, would be President Muhammadu Buhari’s Secretary to Government of
the Federation. So also was Babatunde Fashola, immediate past governor
of Lagos State, being touted to be the Chief of Staff to President
Buhari. Similarly, Ogbonnaya Onu, ex-chairman of the All Nigeria Peoples
Party that dissolved into the All Progressives Congress and Chris
Ngige, a senator and former APC governorship candidate in Anambra State,
were on the way to being SGF and Minister of Works respectively in the
APC-led government, if initial permutations were anything to go by.
These strategic political positions which
were assumptions made with the mindset of all things being equal, are
like gold, if weighted for their political values. With such
lofty
promises which reflect equity in national power balancing in their
sight, you can imagine that all hands would be put on deck by the
South-South, South-West and South-East supporters to deliver Candidate
Buhari, the change agent in the presidential polls, so that their dreams
could come true.
Act
2 Scene 2: Post-presidential election and over 100 days after Buhari
took over as President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic,
most of the aforementioned expectations have not been met as David Lawal
got the job earmarked for Amaechi and Abba Kyari occupies the seat
envisaged for Fashola. The jury is still out on Onu and Ngige since the
federal cabinet has not been formed.
The scenarios above reflect the
prevailing atmosphere between the APC and its teeming supporters and
also confirm the existential contradiction of the dictum, “All things
being equal”, because the reality is that things never remain equal,
especially with the passage of time as evidenced by the past 100 days in
office of President Buhari.
In my considered opinion, the reason
there is a wide gulf between expectation and reality is that while
ordinary folk on the street are motivated by the idealism of equity and
justice, when it comes to implementation, politicians are driven by
other values which are not easily discernible to the ordinary eyes as
they are compelled to align with practical reality in the course of
balancing political power. It is such inconsistencies that give credence
to the notion in some quarters that politicians are liars and not to be
trusted.
Before we dig into the plausibility of
the notion of the politician as a liar not to be trusted, let’s first of
all put things in context by recalling that President Buhari is
believed to have won about 12 million votes in the last two presidential
contests (2007 and 20011) which he lost, from the northern part of the
country only, and received a very paltry number of votes from the
South-West, South-East and South-South.
Incidentally, in the 2015 election which
he won, President Buhari only added a little over two million votes to
put his total votes in excess of 14 million, but this time, the votes
were nationally spread in fulfilment of the constitutional requirements
of winning 2/3 majority of votes nationwide for a candidate to be deemed
to have won the Presidency.
To achieve the feat, President Buhari
needed to reach out to politicians in the zones where he won little or
no votes in his previous quests for the Presidency and this gave rise to
the merger of three legacy parties, his Congress for Progressive
Change, Bola Tinubu’s Action Congress of Nigeria and Onu’s ANPP in
addition to Atiku Abubakar and Amaechi-led Peoples Democratic Party
splinter group.
Having identified and bridged the gap
that resulted in the vote deficits that he suffered in previous attempts
via merger of regional parties, Buhari in his 2015 bid for the
Presidency, vigorously wooed politicians from the zones where he
previously underperformed like precious and beautiful brides.
Notably, politicians like Amaechi of
South-South, originally of the PDP stock, were the first to jump on the
Buhari change train, so also was Tinubu-fronted by Vice-President Yemi
Osinbajo/Fashola of the ACN in the South-West and Onu of the ANPP who
embody the interest of the South-East.
Working together under tumultuous
circumstances arising from the stiff challenge put up by the then ruling
party, the PDP, the seeming impossibility was made possible by the
sheer grit and brinksmanship of the politicians symbolised by the
personalities earlier mentioned hence they were penciled down for the
juicy offices by their supporters based on equity and justice.
As it has now turned out, those initial
permutations were mere wishful thinking because as the saying goes, “If
wishes were horses, beggars would ride”.
Left with bitter tastes in their mouths,
the teeming supporters of the proposed President Buhari’s “dream team” (
Amaechi, Fashola and Onu/Ngige) are miffed by the unsavoury tastes that
they have been made to swallow and shattered dreams that they are
compelled to endure thus far, at least.
So, with or without the prodding of their
principals, but in sympathy, they went back into the trenches or is it
online platforms to savage their erstwhile hero (Buhari) for the let
down. In the process, all sorts of unprintable names have been ascribed
to the APC and President Buhari.
In panic, the trio of Femi Adesina, Garba
Shehu, Presidential spokesmen, and Lai Mohammed, the APC image maker,
entered the defensive mode and muddied the water by claiming that the
President never promised anything in 100 days.
To say the least, the denial of ascribed
promises was uncalled for because the hype preceding Buhari’s election
created the platform for the high expectations as all sorts of magical
feats were attributed to Candidate Buhari who was adorned with the toga
of a super human and had the mien of an incorruptible messiah. In fact,
Buhari consolidated his inviolability in his inaugural speech by
emphasising his neutrality when he said, “I belong to nobody and l
belong to everybody”.
No matter how vehemently Buhari campaign
promises are denied, from the prism of an average Nigerian, he and the
APC have violated their promise of neutrality since in their view,
equity and justice which are supposed to be the fulcrum of the party are
not being observed in the allocation of offices so the Buhari myth is
being shattered.
The push back has been very damaging and
it has taken a heavy toll on the pristine integrity of Mr President and
the APC. So, the shape and colour (in terms of the character, content
and ethnic balancing) of the candidates for the cabinet office which
Buhari presents to the Senate this month for clearance would determine
whether the goodwill quotient of this administration remains robust or
suffers early death.
Somehow, the APC and Buhari must have
anticipated the potential backlash of the high expectations of Nigerians
if they fail to keep campaign promises when the President in his
Acceptance and Thank you speeches advised Nigerians to tone down
expectations as he had no magic wand to wave so that all the
imperfections of governance in Nigeria would vanish over night.
While Mr President’s admonition had yet
to sink in, the firestorm which engulfed the legislative arm of
government, when principal offices were allotted or when power was
seized, as the case may be (sometimes power has to be seized not given),
the APC lost focus of its initial task of dousing the high expectation
of Nigerians.
To be concluded on Tuesday
- Onyibe, a development strategist and former commissioner in Delta State, is an alumnus of Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Boston, USA
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