By Emeka Alex Duru
(08054103327)
There was a joke in the social media two years into President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration that spoke much on how he was held by the people. In it, a certain admirer of the President had run into his fellow enthusiasts, who went into wild celebration the moment he aroused them in their trademark “Sai Baba”, greeting pattern.
Six months later when he passed the route, the tempo of the ululation when he saluted his colleagues, had gone down tremendously. After a year into the administration when he encountered the same people and tried to engage them in their usual mode of greeting, he narrowly escaped being lynched by the thoroughly disenchanted group.
Now in the fifth year of the President, it is not likely that the young chap or any person for that matter would try such blue joke even in the premises of the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Secretariat and get home intact. This is the extent the rating of the President has gone down among the people. Even as State officials may wish to sweep this under the carpet, the truth remains that the pre-2015 Buhari who was aspiring for the Presidency of Nigeria, is no longer the same, five years after.
I always recall with deep concern, the event of February 6, 2015, when Buhari took a trip to Maiduguri, Borno State in course of his campaign as presidential candidate of APC. The city and other towns in Borno and by extension, the entire North East, were then in a near state of war, on account of Boko Haram insurgency. Security agents, who had been dispatched to quell the insurgency, had clearly been overwhelmed by the terrorists. Thus, when the retired general embarked on the trip, it appeared a suicide mission of sort.
But Buhari was not deterred. If anything, the turn-out by his supporters, was tumultuous. And the security agents stationed at the Maiduguri Stadium, were overwhelmed. A national daily, Leadership Newspaper, which captured the visit, had reported, “At a point, the apparently exasperated soldiers and policemen were forced to shoot into the air and release some canisters of tear gas in a failed attempt to keep the crowd at bay.
“The crowd went wild when Buhari had to walk through the elevated isle of the mega podium. Fans went out of control as they broke through the iron barricade that fenced them out and rushed towards the stand. The friendly show of support and love for the APC presidential candidate suddenly became a threat as all pleas for them to calm down fell on deaf ears. Sensing that it would amount to a waste of time if he should insist on speaking, Buhari took the advice of his aides and quickly allowed them to whisk him out of the venue.”
In a piece I did then, I situated the event as the Buhari phenomenon – a mystique, indeed. But in a curious twist, the president was in the same Maiduguri last year and his convoy was reportedly booed by angry and disillusioned residents. Borno, Kano and Bauchi were among the states in the North where the president commanded near cult followership. In any of these states, aspirants for various offices on the same political party with Buhari, needed not bother going on campaigns. Mere embossment of their pictures on his posters was all they required to be seen as acolytes of Mai Gaskiya (the Honest One), and their victory guaranteed. But that is fast changing. While Buhari won the largest number of votes cast in the states in the last election, the margin had gone down considerably. His party won in Borno, retained Kano in controversial circumstances but lost Bauchi to the rival Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). That speaks a lot on the president on his standing before the people.
Of course, his rating in the South, particularly in the South East and South-South, even in the best of time, has not been exciting. It was in the South West that he had measured acceptance. But that is increasingly going down.
What really happened? Why is the Mighty going down? Five years in the saddle, the President should be counting his gains and riding high in the estimation of the people. His officials have not come short in advertising the attainments of the administration in giving the insurgents the fight of their life in the North East. They easily talk of how he has dealt with corruption, revitalized the economy and reinvented the infrastructure base of the nation especially in road networks and rail lines. These are feats that Buhari can lay claims to, considerably.
But on the intangible side of governance – that which triggers patriotism on the generality of the people and commandeers their loyalty to the nation, the president totters. If anything rather, he has failed in living up to his pledge of belonging to all and to none. In his five years, he has created a more divided Nigeria than what he met. His proclivity to provincialism is yet to be matched by any other leader in the country. By his postures, policies and appointments, he has shown to be more of a President of Northern Nigeria than that of the whole country.
When therefore, the likes of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, erstwhile Kaduna military governor, Col. Dangiwa Umar, cry out that the President is doing himself and the country grave harms by his inclination to the Muslim North in his actions and outings, they are being truthful to him. His path in the last five years is a direct opposite to that of a leader in genuine love for the country.
The remaining period of his administration should therefore serve as moment for reflection and atonement. Great leaders are not ones who did not make mistakes but those who learn from their errors and make good. The President needs to change the opinion of informed Nigerians on the direction of his administration. The tendency of fixing his entire gaze on one part of the country, with occasional tokenistic glance on the others, should no more be the case in the remaining three years of his term. He should be the statesman that many had thought he was.