Buhari Has Proved His Critics Right ‪In Just 100 Days In Office (READ)

My friend Nnaemeka (real name) is a one-man riot squad: energetic, spirited and follows his convictions. In 2011, at the peak of former President Goodluck Jonathan’s massive national goodwill, Nnaemeka and I had concluded that a vote for Jonathan would be a mistake too costly for Nigeria. So, as that year’s presidential election approached, we embarked on intense sensitization, urging family, friends and enemies alike never to throw Nigeria into harm’s way by permitting Jonathan remain in Aso Villa after serving out late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s tenure. Our perfect assessment of the man explains why, for the years he presided over the heist on the nation’s treasury – now to his embarrassment – our focus was on doing more to ensure that a second time of Jonathan never happened. During the last campaign, Nnaemeka, from Abuja where he is resident, made countless calls, knocked on doors, preached in churches and argued in beer parlours for the election of Muhammadu Buhari.

He did this without noise, without seeking any personal benefit and without belonging to any political party. He neither knows Buhari personally nor the man’s friends or relatives. He has a good job and for his age, is financially stable. He only was acting out his conviction: that retired General Muhammadu Buhari was the last chance Nigeria had at healing…and progress.

Then two months later, after our dream of a President Buhari came through, Nnaemeka called me, with distress laced in his voice, disappointed in his tone. ‘’Have you seen that video?’’

I knew what that was about. I’d seen the video. It was, to say the least, troubling.

The video was a clip of the president’s July visit to the United States. In one of his interactive sessions with an audience of mainly, I should think, journalists, the president responded to a question about his plans for amnesty, curbing oil bunkering and government of inclusiveness in the Niger-Delta, with an answer that had my stomach roil. Without any struggle, the president moved swiftly to address the question on inclusiveness and then his response went; “Going by election results, constituencies that gave me 97% cannot in all honesty be treated, on some issues, with constituencies that gave me 5%. I think these are political realities.’’ And then he struggles to think, then stutters and add; “While, certainly there will be justice for everybody but the people who voted, and made their votes count, they must feel the government has appreciated the effort they put in putting the government in place. I think this is really fair.“

Many who loudly support him on social media struggled to defend that unfortunate gaffe. I am one of his very loud supporters, but I refrained from offering any defence for such unstatesmanly presidential utterance. You see, it is bad enough that a candidate you worked for has acted improperly, but it’s even worse that you want to shut up people who feel genuinely bad about your candidate’s impropriety. You can’t beat a child and force him not to cry.

My take is simple: You are not permitted to think in certain ways if you are a leader. In fact, if you are fair in your dealings, there are certain ways you are not expected to think. I shouted myself hoarse during president Jonathan’s time when his body language suggested the insurgency in the North was a them-against-us situation. For the humanity we share, nobody’s pain should be glossed over. A private citizen can afford to make light of people’s sufferings, a public figure is not permitted that luxury. As an individual, there are certain thoughts you don’t let creep into your head because you should consider them inappropriate. And close friends know I take strongly conversations that conveniently seek to tar groups with a certain brush of predetermined behavioural pattern. Igbos love money. Yorubas are cowards. Hausas are lazy. Tivs love sex. Ogojas love meat. And all other shades of disgusting stereotyping.

My suspicion is that, being his first direct response to that question, President Buhari must have been brooding over the fact that the whole of Nigeria did not vote him. I mean, our president thinks everybody in this country should have believed in candidate Buhari. That thinking, that citizens don’t have the right to prefer candidate A for candidate B, troubles me. And that the exercise of that right has the capacity to attract them retribution even scares me. People may not have voted you, but you are their president anyway, and you are under oath to WORK for every one of them! The summary of that response was like, look, political reality dictates that I don’t treat all Nigerians equally.

Which is why I refuse to hinge the diversity-deficient appointments of the president so far on the argument of competency and capacity. Clearly, there appears to be a nexus between that infamous reply to the Niger-Delta question and the appointments we’ve seen so far. Again, my fellow Buharists have been all over the place, mouthing ‘’qualification, capacity, competence’’ and all the technical jargons that can help in forcing the conversation out of where the president unwittingly (or even wittingly, who knows?) centred it. It appears it’s about those who voted more for him.

At this point, I have no need to prove to anybody that I am detribalized. Those who will not be happy with this essay will haul stones at me, orally, I hope. In fact, I expect people to come at me with the charge; ‘’We know you’ve been pretending before now! Time has laid you bare! You are a…err…that word again…bigot!!” Such is what comes with the terrain. But I really wouldn’t care. Unlike the president who now has to prove that he is not sectional, I have nothing to prove.

Now let’s get it. There’s a reason President Buhari should have searched for competency and capacity in other parts of Nigeria before making those appointments. And I’m afraid that he has lost that chance, because, the other appointments come with constitutional compulsion to choose from each state. It therefore can be argued that appointing ministers from the South was done because the president was left with no choice. I am from the South East and I know lots of Southerners who worked really hard for President Buhari’s emergence. Agreed, they are in the minority compared to many more who were comfortable with the extension of Goodluck Jonathan’s tenure. During the campaign, while we bragged about candidate Buhari’s anti-corruption credentials, many of these people who didn’t want him insisted that the retired general was clannish, that he was running on an ethnic agenda and that they’d rather have another Northerner than Buhari; in the absence of which they’d stick with Jonathan. I’m sure a lot of other Buhari supporters were told this too. And, candidate Buhari, who I hear has a history of reading the dailies first thing every morning, must have been aware of this perception of him in the South.

His first duty was to burst that perception. And this is worth emphasizing. President Buhari’s first task as a president was to change the perception of him seeking Northern domination. And that should have happened with the very first set of appointments he made. If that diversity wasn’t going to reflect in his appointments then, he should have held on until he has all the names ready so he releases them the same time. His first job is not to fight corruption. His first job is to unite a divided country and assuage the fears of a section which feels conquered. I do not suggest he does this on the alter of federal character or whatever constitutional or conventional arrangement. The president should do this to change the strong negative perception of him in the South.

Nnaemeka’s call was the first of a deluge of calls I received after the president’s United States ‘97% votes’ gaffe. His supporters and critics alike call me to register their disappointment after each perceived insensitive action. Somehow, the president’s supporters who call me tend to seek assurances that they hadn’t made a mistake, while his critics mock me for having been blinded by patriotism.

I honestly don’t think our choice of this president was wrong. With Buhari leading, I’m hopeful about the prospects of a rejuvenated Nigeria where impunity – and the penchant of public officials to cut deals – will be gone for good. I think the president will do well, especially when he begins prosecution (not this media anti-corruption fight we see on the pages of newspapers) of those who pillaged our resources.

In his first hundred days in office, President Buhari has not disappointed the election and pre-inauguration political divide. His supporters knew him as an anti-corruption champion and elected him to stab the monster in the heart. It’s looking like he will certainly defeat that Nigerian cancer. His critics distanced themselves from him because they saw him as an ethnic and regional champion. So far, his appointments – those that do not constitutionally compel him to pick people from every state in the country – have vindicated those critics. ‘We told you!’’, they’ve continued to gloat.

Now his genuine supporters want him to disappoint the critics by showing a bit more sensitivity to the nation’s diversity. A Babangida wouldn’t need to do this. An Obasanjo wouldn’t need to do it. They both have a history of reaching out to all parts of the country in appointments. A Buhari must do this; because he has something to prove.

There’s a reason I’m writing this publicly: we – the president’s supporters – should not destroy President Buhari with sycophancy. We saw what that did to Jonathan. We can’t let that happen to Buhari.

Another friend who was an aide to a former South Eastern governor of the Jonathan-must-be-returned tribe was in near tears when, about 10 hours before Buhari was declared by INEC, I had told him, based on the information I gleaned from the projected result my APC friends had sent me from their situation room, that Buhari had won the election. The projection was certain that, worst case scenario, Buhari would win with some hundred thousand votes. My friend had worked for Buhari’s victory secretly, telling me the idea of a Jonathan re-election appeared repugnant to his conscience after the former president allowed 59 boys butchered in Yobe state and Chibok girls kidnapped the next month. He said the love he had for his kids at home wouldn’t let him support such a president.