Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

Issues

ISSUES | Buhari and the Next Conversation – By Segun Adeniyi

By Segun Adeniyi

‘Against the Run of Play’ brings into sharp focus the centrifugal forces that took Nigeria to the brink in the 2015 election. Thoughtful, intelligent and rigorous, this book trains an unerring eye on recent history, and calls us to remember. In this story of politics marked by intrigue, ambition, tragedy and farce, shines through a nation’s miraculous ability to remake itself—Molara Wood, Writer & Journalist.

===================================================================

When I set out almost two years ago to interrogate how and why President Goodluck Jonathan lost the 2015 general election, I was more interested in the nuggets of insight that would be useful for the future of our democracy than just revisiting the past. My interactions with many of the principal political actors between 2010 and 2015 have proved to be very productive in that direction. But what makes the effort even more poignant is the timing, especially given the experience of the last two months, following the extended vacation in the United Kingdom of President Muhammadu Buhari, which ended as a medical expedition.

Incidentally, I missed the opportunity of an interaction with President Buhari because he left for London before my appointment with him. But I spoke to other people who matter within the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), including Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and many of their governors from the North. On the other side, I also had extensive interview sessions with Presidents Jonathan and Obasanjo as well as several other political actors of recent years. As it would happen, I signed off on the copy last Saturday so it could go to press, 24 hours after President Buhari returned to Nigeria with hints that he would need further medicals abroad in the coming weeks.

Although each of the actors interviewed for the book, “Against The Run of Play: How an incumbent president was defeated in Nigeria” spoke from their own perspective, it is easy to glimpse from their narratives the political dynamics at play in the weeks and months before the 2015 general elections. In the final analysis, there are several lessons to draw, not only for the beneficiaries of Jonathan’s defeat who are now travelling on the same hard road, but also for those who seek to understand the pitfalls of power within the context of a multi-ethnic and multi-religious African country.

Meanwhile, the book will be unveiled in Lagos on 28th April by former Cross River State Governor, Mr Donald Duke at a public presentation that will be chaired by former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar. Copies will go on sale immediately after the event, including online. My hope is that the book will serve as a catalyst for the much-needed national conversation on the governing process in our country, the place of ideas in an environment such as ours and the role of political parties in offering the electorate real choices in the process preceding the emergence of leaders at all levels.

 It must be said that President Buhari has been a model when it comes to fidelity to the Constitution and the rule of law in the way he has managed his office when he needed to travel out of the country. But now that he is back home and has resumed work, it is expected that there will be speculations in the coming weeks about whether or not he will seek re-election in 2019 and what his decision, one way or another, means for his party and the country.

 Ordinarily, there should be no problem with that. Even while political science is not the same as astrology, there is always a pre-occupation with the future. That has always been the case even in the old societies of kings and priests in the history books. What is peculiar about Nigeria is that we have become a nation in perpetual transition such that what ordinarily should be a means has unwittingly become the end. In our own case, most of the discussions among the political elite often centre on where the next president should come from rather than on what such a candidate has to offer the people.

 Yet, we are at a most critical period in the history of our country when we can no longer afford to play the same old politics that is devoid of ideas. Right now, millions of our children are out of school; there are reports of famine in a section of the country that has been ravaged by insurgency; the national currency has for months been on a freefall; many states cannot pay the salaries of their workers just as private companies are closing down with the few still in business laying off most of their workers. All these at a time of dwindling revenue due to increasing convulsions in the Niger Delta while many of our emigrant citizens are being deported back home to a situation of seeming hopelessness, leading to an upsurge in violent crimes across the country.

While these challenges may not be peculiar to Nigeria, because we have allowed individual ambitions to overpower the system, they are hardly the issues that preoccupy the minds of those who seek power and those who seek to replace them. Indeed, if Nigerians were in any doubt that what we have is pseudo-democracy–in which those in political offices as well as those who seek to replace them spend most of their time scheming for power rather than on how to better the lot of the ordinary people–former military President, General Ibrahim Babangida laid that to rest last Saturday. He regaled his audience of visiting Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leaders with tales of how a cabal of former retired generals became the “military wing” and the guardian angels of the party right from its formation in 1998, with the sole aim of being in power for 60 years.

By that logic, the raison d’etre of PDP was not to advance the interests of the Nigerian people but simply to stay in power, essentially so that its leaders could also retain their privileges. Unfortunately, we are well aware that this has been the story of Nigeria, even before Babangida’s Freudian slip. The sad bit is that the situation is not better in the ruling APC that came to power not only by exposing the ineptitude of the previous administration but also by selling to Nigerians their “cut and paste” promises that were easily disowned by President Buhari the moment he was elected. That explains why even to fill important vacancies has become a problem. But it is not their fault.

As I stated in my coming book, Jonathan started out as Deputy Governor of Bayelsa State before the misfortune of his then boss (late DSP Alamieyeseigha) catapulted him to the governorship seat. In similar fashion, he moved from being Vice President to Acting President and finally to becoming the President. So, his route to power, in the Nigerian folklore, has more to do with his first name, Goodluck, than by any conscious effort or preparation. In the same token, Buhari’s emergence can be traced to three principal factors. One, he was a major beneficiary of the geo-political consensus that defines the presidency of Nigeria. Two, he had a fanatical support base in a section of the North that needed no campaign to mobilise. Three, tired of the inability of the incumbent to meet popular expectations even in simple matters, many Nigerians were ready to try any alternative. What that suggests clearly is that Nigerian leaders most often arrive their duty posts more by accident (and luck) than by any vision nurtured by ideas or ideals.

However, we cannot continue to practice a democracy in which politicians get to power not on the basis of how they would solve the existential problems of the people but rather as a mere replacement for a failed incumbent, or an attempt to appease a presumably cheated region. That is why I hope that in the weeks and months to come, we will be able to move the conversation about the future of our country beyond the mundane to the serious issues of our national well-being. It is also my hope that the political parties will begin to take themselves more seriously.

In a recent online piece titled, “Nigeria: Who is thinking?” http://jimidisu.com/nigeria-who-is-thinking-by-ayodele-adio/, Mr Ayodele Alao raised salient issues about the inability of our leaders to take full responsibility for our challenges by beginning to think strategically. “The Asians, Europeans and even the Americans are rethinking their educational curricula, with a strong emphasis on STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) because they realise that future jobs are dependent on people who hold strong skills in these areas”, argued Alao who could not but take a dig at elected public officers who spend most of their time arranging marriages for some jobless men!

I concede the fact that democracy thrives in an atmosphere in which politicians respond to the challenges of their society by offering practical policies and programmes, including on social issues like marriage. But that should come only after ensuring that such people are productively engaged, so that they can add value to themselves and the society. The challenge with Nigeria is that members of the political elite, still suffused with oil money to share every month, are yet to come to terms that our country is living on borrowed time and that this is the time to think outside the box for solutions to what ails us.

There is so much to do and we need all critical stakeholders to join this conversation. In a milieu where politics has been reduced to a drama of where aspirant comes from and what religion he professes and not necessarily what such aspirant can offer the people, the civil society and the media have a big role to play in moderating discussions so as to instill a measure of accountability in the process. To paraphrase a famous quote of Babangida, during his elastic transition to civil rule in the eighties and early nineties, it is time our leaders stopped serving Nigerians yesterday’s food in glistering new plates.

NOTE: Interested bookshops and sales outlets for “Against The Run of Play” should direct all their inquiries by email to info@kachifo.com or call 08077364217. Meanwhile, I have also uploaded on my web portal, olusegunadeniyi.com, materials from the 2001 series of The Verdict, for the pleasure of my readers.

__________

Follow us on Twitter at @thesignalng

Copyright 2017 SIGNAL. Permission to use portions of this article is granted provided appropriate credits are given to www.signalng.com and other relevant sources.

 

Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Advertisement

Related

News

Nigerians are still bearing the effects of the policies of ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, Adams Oshiomhole, senator representing Edo North Senatorial District, has said. Some...

News

Muhammadu Buhari, has said that he deliberately refused to release his West African Senior School Certificate (WASC) in 2015 when he took over power...

News

Femi Adesina, former spokesman to former President Muhammadu Buhari has revealed that the president’s plane nearly crashed with him and his aides in November...

News

Former President Muhammadu Buhari has said that he was happy when incumbent President Bola Tinubu jetted up the petrol pump price on May 29,...

Copyright ©