Nigerians never mattered to Buhari. He wept on April 14, 2011 because he thought that his lifelong dream of ruling Nigeria as a civilian president had just walked out of the door. And it almost did until Nigerians allowed themselves to be defrauded by his crocodile tears.
By Ikechukwu Amaechi
On April 14, 2011, two days before the April 16 presidential election which President Goodluck Jonathan won on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the then opposition candidate, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, who contested on the platform of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and lost, organised the grand finale of his presidential campaign at the International Conference Centre, Abuja.
Though the election which was postponed from April 9, 2011 was yet to hold, it was obvious that Buhari had lost given the fact that his candidacy lacked national appeal. But rather than face his imminent defeat stoically, he decided to stoke the embers of national discord.
First, he whipped up sentiments amongst his fanatical supporters by announcing his retirement from politics.
In his address titled, Creating Hope for the Future, Buhari said: “Today is exactly 18 weeks since I declared my intention to contest the presidential election; and I must say it has been a very memorable period of time for me. As always, being on the campaign trail has been for all of us a most educating experience.
“For me this campaign is doubly significant. First, because it is an election in which more clearly and more unambiguously than the previous two in 2003 and 2007, our victory is assured, as evidenced by the unprecedented turnout by the people and spontaneous popular acclaim all over the country.
“And, second, because this campaign is the third and last one for me; since, after it, I will not present myself again for election into the office of the president.”
Of course, he lied. He knew he was not retiring from politics. It was an emotional blackmail which he disingenuously deployed in psyching up his rabid followers on the outcome of the election.
Second, Buhari used the opportunity to, once again, make a baseless and outlandish allegation that he had already been rigged out of the election and urged his supporters to do something. He had absolutely no doubt in his mind what he wanted them to do. He was also sure of their capacity to do just that – maximum mayhem – and they didn’t disappoint him.
“You must maintain your presence during the counting and collation of the votes and the announcement of the results. Because you haven’t done this in all cases, they have already started turning your victories into defeats,” he gravely intoned.
Whether rigged or not, Buhari was in no position to win the 2011 presidential election, not with an ultra-conservative party he cobbled together in 2009, which had no appeal, mass or otherwise, beyond the North. Even in the North, the elite that had always been distrustful of Buhari’s politics distanced themselves from the political party.
Yet, after losing the election fair and square, violence broke out in the North, where more than 800 people, including National Youth Corps members, were gruesomely murdered and 65,000 others displaced in just three days. The protests that greeted Buhari’s defeat quickly degenerated into violent riots and sectarian killings in Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Niger, Sokoto, Yobe, and Zamfara, thus making an election adjudged locally and internationally as one of the fairest in Nigeria’s history, the bloodiest.
So riled was Corinne Dufka, senior West Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch, that she charged the Jonathan administration to “quickly build on the democratic gains from the elections by bringing to justice those who orchestrated these horrific crimes.”
Expectedly, Jonathan did nothing and nobody was brought to book. Instead, those who orchestrated the mayhem were rewarded with power four years later.
But beyond inciting his supporters, Buhari also orchestrated a drama that never fails. He wept. Vanguard’s report of April 14, 2011, tiled “Buhari weeps over nation’s problems,” said: “It was a solemn moment as the presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), and former Military Head of State, General Muhammadu Buhari, broke down in tears while lamenting the problems confronting the country … Buhari broke down in tears at the event organised by the party to mark the end of its presidential campaign.”
The newspaper went further to say, “Vice presidential candidate of CPC, Pastor Tunde Bakare, former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, ex- Secretary of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Col. Hameed Ali (rtd.), who were on the high table as Buhari sobbed in between words were also moved to tears as they used their handkerchiefs to control tears. Ife Oyedele, a member of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the party, however, wept profusely throughout the period Buhari spoke.”
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So emotionally charged was the atmosphere that the question and answer session was aborted.
Buhari used that occasion to hype his fabled incorruptibility. “After being head of state, I am sure I could easily have retired into a life of comfort and ease as an elder statesman, as a contractor or as a beneficiary of anyone of the nation’s many generous prebendal offerings.
“But that is not what I wish to do with my life. And so, if I don’t take any of these alternative courses of action, it should be clear that I am not in this for the love of office or for pursuit after personal glory or in order to achieve some personal goal. Far be it from me that this should be.
“I need nothing and I have nothing more to prove. I am in this solely for the love of my country and concern for its destiny and the fate of its people … I have decided to dedicate the remainder of my life to fighting for the people of this country until their right is restored to them,” he said.
Buhari articulated most eloquently what the issues were and what he would do as president.
“As a Nigerian, I already know as of fact that for a vast majority of our people electricity and potable water remain unavailable and unaffordable. I have been told of how uncountable numbers of children drop out of schools because their parents cannot afford to pay their school fees and how many more go without school all together.
“My primary mission in the service of Nigeria as president is to provide the requisite leadership for the actualization of our collective vision – by example, by action and by sacrifice.
“To actualize this vision and achieve the mission, I will be guided by the following three principles: creating opportunity for all Nigerians, demanding responsibility from all Nigerians, and forging a strong and virile communal spirit among all Nigerians.”
Four years later, Buhari reneged on his promise, contested once again, and this time, having built a broader coalition with the help of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, won.
Seven years down the road, the question is: What happened to those lofty ideals espoused by Buhari in his teary speech?
Did he cry because he was ruing what he thought then was the end of the road for his presidential ambition or he was genuinely grieved that his quest to bequeath Nigeria a worthy leadership legacy had become a mirage?
Why exactly did Buhari weep in 2011? The more I ruminate over this question, the more I am convinced that Buhari deliberately set out to defraud Nigerians with those teary eyes on that fateful day. Those were crocodile tears from a man who pretended to be saddened by the parlous lot of his country and sympathized with fellow citizens when in fact he never cared about them.
All the things he lamented about in that speech are worse today. Rather than restoring the rights of Nigerians as citizens, he has taken away from them even the most basic.
Under his watch, the number of out-of-school children have tripled due, mainly to the violence in the North. The number of parents that can no longer afford to pay their wards’ school fees under Buhari’s watch have quadrupled.
Under Buhari’s watch, the energy sector is in ruins. As the Minister of Petroleum Resources, adulterated petrol is imported with dire consequences for the economy. As I write, most parts of the country are in total darkness with the national grid suffering a second collapse within 48 hours. University lecturers are in the second month of their national strike with the future of Nigerian youths hanging in the balance.
A loaf of bread that used to sell for N150 before Buhari became president now sells for more than N850.
His political party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), is embroiled in a leadership struggle where the combatants are taking no prisoners.
It is simply poetic justice that life in Buhari’s Nigeria typifies the Hobbesian state of nature – solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
Meanwhile, the President is in London on medical tourism. His wife, Aisha, is a permanent resident of Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from where she visits Nigeria.
Imagine the much-maligned wife of former President Jonathan, Patience, relocating to a foreign country where wives of governors would converge to celebrate her birthday. The country would have crashed on her head.
The truth is that Buhari does not care. He is contemptuous of Nigerians. He has always been. That is why his famed body language is suggestive that Nigerians should be grateful to him for being their President. His lifelong ambition was to be a civilian President, equaling former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s records and surpassing that of his nemesis, General Ibrahim Babangida. It is not an ambition borne out of selfless service to country and fellow citizens. No! It is self-serving. And having become President, the only other overarching ambition was to be in Aso Rock for eight years. That is why all his security architecture is built around regime protection.
Nigerians never mattered to Buhari. He wept on April 14, 2011 because he thought that his lifelong dream of ruling Nigeria as a civilian president had just walked out of the door. And it almost did until Nigerians allowed themselves to be defrauded by his crocodile tears.