By Fola Ojo
She defied the bitingly cold weather of the US Midwest Coast as she came visiting from Nigeria for Christmas. After the Sunday worship service, she waited to talk. It was a lengthy chat and mostly about Nigeria’s many intractable problems; the complexity of her politics; and the generalised flummox of the landscape. She didn’t stop at Orji Uzor Kalu’s bewildering 12-year cooling in the calaboose. The new railway network from Lagos to Ibadan didn’t escape our gruelling rhubarbs. And the President, Major Muhammadu Buhari (retd.)’s corruption donnybrook with beasts of thievery (whoever they are) drew in much contretemps. Our talk was all over the map digging into the mess created by Nigerian politics and its brand of democracy.
Anytime Nigeria comes up for discussion among Nigerians and non-Nigerians alike, it’s always a mouthful that may lead to a heartache or heartthrob. While you are nibbling on one boneheaded brouhaha, another silly topic is delivered in the labour room of ridiculousness. On and on, the Nigerian melodramatics and theatrics spin on. And you get tired from all the unprofitable discussions that do not move the needle of progress for Nigeria or Nigerians.
In spite of that, Nigerians continue to get enmeshed in romps of chitchats everywhere, every time, and about everything. My friend had a lot to say about Naija.
“I have always thought that Nigeria can survive as one nation; but now, I am sure we can’t. Things are falling apart. Buhari has made things worse in Nigeria. The country has never been this bad and divided. We can’t stay too long together. We will soon go our separate ways. That man hates everybody who is not Fulani”. We have all heard the streams of billingsgate against Buhari for eons. We have heard of his alleged discrete Islamisation agenda intended to coerce all Nigerians of all persuasions to worship Allah. Even among learned Nigerians, the talk is widespread and believed as truth. I heard of a big Lagos pastor who became a disciple of the ‘gospel’ after he visited a former President who is also a believer that Buhari is selling Nigeria out to the Mujahedeens. And Nigerians who believe that Buhari is a bigot are hardcore believers in the nauseating narrative.
For decades, and like the mulish shadow, the imputation has always trailed Buhari. The stigma just won’t go away. The gossip is that he is a surreal sectarian and an unrepentant and irredeemable ethno-Fulani irredentist. Unfortunately, his plodding, drudging, and lack of interventional legerity in ethnic entanglements regarding appointments have given freebie fiery ammunition to people like my angry friend.
The next day after our fiery debate about Nigeria, my friend sent me a social media opinion to buttress her points that Buhari is a bigot.
“Finance, Customs, Immigration, FIRS, NPA, NNPC, AMCON, NDIC, Federal Mortgage Bank, are now firmly in the hands of northerners! Executive, Legislature, the Judiciary, Police, DSS, Armed Forces, minus the CDS, Oil, Airports and Seaports, are all in the hands of northerners. The rout is complete. Chief of Army Staff tenure is over. He is still in office. Chief of Naval Staff tenure is over. He is still in office. EFCC acting Chairman’s tenure is over. He is still in office. But FIRS boss, Tunde Fowler’s tenure expired today and he is already replaced”.
I personally never gave a thought to the perspective highlighted in the social media opinion. Nigerians who pile on Buhari believe he is a leopard that will never change its skin. The more he and his surrogates try to shove off the impression of ethnic tendentiousness, the more the wild allegation sticks on him like a stubborn tick and sticky stigma. And the stigma won’t go away.
Before I decided to write this week’s opinion, I sought the opinion of another friend who hails from Kano. He wrote this in response: “Sir; I can’t declare him (Buhari) an ethnic jingoist, per se. It has to do more with his intellectual insecurity. He feels more at home with people he sees as ‘his’; who are comfortable with his shortcomings intellectually. People think he is an ethnic jingoist because of his incapacity to relate with ‘his people’ in no other language than his native Hausa language”. A lady-friend from Bauchi also waded in: “I think he is too communal. He isn’t as exposed as, say IBB. He is more like a rural person”. I know even many Buharists who hold the same opinion as his accusers. A few of them work for him.
A friend from Ekiti once wrote: “Nigeria is a complex country. Our historical past appears to have complicated our character. No one trusts anyone anymore. Buhari recruited his cabinet based on party recommendations, we complained that those thrown up by party machinery are thieves. He used other considerations; he becomes nepotistic. If all the members of his cabinet are Fulani who could re-engineer Nigeria, fix light, road, inflation, unemployment and other institutional decay, I care less. For me, Buhari is not an ethnic jingoist more than any other living Nigerian”.
Disrespect for the rule of law is another big smudge on Buhari. A former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.) was arrested for alleged illegal possession of firearms and money laundering in December 2015. Dasuki sat in prison for four years after being granted bails five times and ordered released on self-recognition by a competent court of law. The Buhari regime refused to let the opposition party bigwig go. The story around Dasuki and the alleged splurging of our patrimonies on his fraudulent party men when they were in power is disgusting. Justice must be served; and somebody should face a comeuppance. But in true democracy, no matter how guilty you think a man is, governments must operate strictly under the authority of the Law. In this case, Buhari’s regime took the law into its own hands. It is jungle justice and a threat to democracy. This regime and those who rallied it to disobeying the court will not be in power forever. They have set a disgraceful puerile precedent. And the precedent may turn out to become a déjà vu to which they too may become casualties in the future. Dasuki did not change legal strategy since he was confined. But a few days ago, the prison doors opened for him. What changed? The hearts of men in power who must remember tomorrow that power in human hands does change hands. Today’s snake kept as pet will bite the former owner tomorrow when ownership changes.
Whatever Nigerians’ grouses are with Buhari from Daura, they are stuck with him until the end of his term in office. My personal concern is his insensitivity to talks about ethnic jingoism and flagrant flout of set rules. Appointments till date still chart the same course without consideration for ethnic balance. A few Nigerians are behind bars today without fair trials. Buhari has left a big room for his traducers to have a field’s day tattooing the stigma on his legacy.
Ethnic intolerance is the Red Sea Nigeria has been unable to cross into the Promised Land of peace and prosperity since the amalgamation of 1914. I pray that hearts and minds of men (not just people in power but all) will begin to change as the season changes in a few days leading into 2020. Will Nigeria ever change? I hope so; but not until Nigerians change their mindsets about ethnic interconnectivity and respect for the rule of law. Will Nigerians change? This is the two-thousand-and-twenty-dollar question. Who knows the answer?
