Buhari’s Card Of Contempt
“Do not underestimate the power of Tafari. He creeps like a mouse but he has jaws like a lion.”- Balcha Aba Nefso (1863-1936).
Do you know that there are many reasons for showing concern in any matter, and that sometimes it is to submerge the truth? The new found role of the Governor of North-Eastern State (1975-1976), Federal Commissioner for Petroleum (1976-1978), Chairman Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in 1978, 7th Head of State of Nigeria (1983-1985), Chairman Presidential Task Force, and three-time presidential hopeful (2003, 2007 and 2011), retired Major General Muhammadu Buhari aka GMB, of defending the terrorist group Boko Haram (BH), may just be a tip of the iceberg granting that the lanky Daura-born paragon must have been well aware that in saying what he said, perhaps out of desperation, he shall have outraged a few susceptibilities.
When CPC members from Niger State paid him a courtesy visit in Kaduna recently, GMB, who spoke in Hausa, “gave a deconstruction of the Jammatu Ahlil Sunna Lidawati wal jihad,” commonly called Boko Haram, said:
“God willing by 2015, something will happen. They either conduct a free and fair election or they go a very disgraceful way.
If what happened in 2011 should again happen in 2015, by the grace of God, the dog and the baboon would all be soaked in blood. ”
With this latest outburst, which has opened a floodgate of mudslinging as well as provoked both the ruling Peoples democratic Party (PDP) and the presidency, the retired General seems to have proven Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher, Edmund Burke (1729-1797) right after all. Said Burke:
“It is a general popular error to imagine the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.”
Assuming that he is truly innocent as he and his handlers have claimed, General Buhari needs to refuse being smoked out or baited into a suicidal action like wearing a terrorist mask, or fronting for a terrorist sect, or resist being blackened as supporting the insurgency of Boko Haram. Ala, give a dog a bad name to hang it:
“When the Niger Delta militants started their activities in the South-South, they were invited by the late President Umaru Yar'adua. An aircraft was sent to them and their leaders met with the late President in Aso Rock and discussed issues. They were given money and a training scheme was introduced for their members. But when the Boko Harem emerged in the north, members of the sect were killed.”
But as the former Chairman of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), eminent politician and respected administrator, Chief Sunday Bolorunduro Awoniyi (1932-2007) once observed of former President Olusegun Obasanjo (OBJ), it would seem also that GMB cannot stop digging holes for himself. For a man which BH once chose to represent its interests in talks with the Federal Government, and who denied any affiliation with the sect back then, to now suddenly become the group's spokesman leaves a lot to be desired. Even Pastor Tunde Bakare, Buhari's erstwhile running mate in the last presidential election presently seems dumbfounded as his principal's politics have grown both strange and complicated. Naturally, the ruling Party was swift to condemn the General's penchant to spill the blood of innocent Nigerians, who turned out overwhelmingly to make sure that he was not elected in the 2003, 2007 and 2011 presidential elections:
“The PDP calls on well-meaning Nigerians, especially the Northern elders to call Buhari to order and ask him to spare the nation his thirst for blood. We need to remind ourselves that on April 21, 2012. Buhari was reported in the media as predicting a bloody revolution in 2015. The reports in the national dailies today quoting the same retired General as repeating that blood will flow in 2015 is another build-up to Buhari's relish of funeral train.”
In calling for Buhari's arrest in June 2013, CAN President Pastor Ayo Oristejafor identified the reason behind his repeated defeats at the last three presidential polls, whether it be against Obasanjo, Yar'adua or Jonathan, and labelled him:
“the prime leader of this religious and blood thirsty sect called Boko Haram, a movement that is based on a warped interpretation of a strict adherence to force people of other religions into Islam. This kind of fundamentalism is the driving force behind his failure of each election in the country.”
By all means, GMB must reject the tempting invitation to a “roforofo” fight with the incumbent president, whose earlier pacifist stand Nigerians have decried as unfitting a response to the BH menace. Buhari needs to pitch his tent with these well-meaning citizens who now hail President Jonathan's latest reprisal initiatives (by supporting Government's use of force) on BH, and its heartless sponsors. Trust the PDP to play to the gallery, abi…O ri bata Sele oo ko; nibo loo ti ri ti Serafu (Why refuse a Celestial worshipper who offered you his shoes, when no Seraph would be so kind?):
“We appreciate Buhari's frustration and antagonism towards the PDP. He has lost three times at the polls. But is Buhari really a democrat? Why is the blood of innocent Nigerians the only thing sufficient to quench his thirst for power?”
Even, if it is unfortunate that a presidential aide has already referred to his legitimate desire as inordinate, GMB needs to re-strategise about his unending presidential ambition and come to term with the fact that desire produces the paradoxical effect of the more you crave something, and chase it assiduously, the more that thing eludes you. In the fable, “Man And His Shadow,” Russia's best known fabulist Ivan Krylov (1769-1844) tells us about how fortune treats us in a similar way:
“There was a certain original man who desired to catch his own shadow. He makes a step or two toward it, but it moves away from him. He quickens his pace; it does the same. At last he takes to running; but the quicker runs the shadow also, utterly refusing to give itself up, just as if it had been a treasure. But see! Our eccentric friend suddenly turns round, and walks away from it. And presently he looks behind him; now the shadow runs after him.”
For a candidate who never bothered in the 2011 election to campaign anywhere near the Southern part of the country he wished to garner votes from, the more interest Buhari invests in attaining the Nigerian presidency today or tomorrow, be it with ANPP, CPC, APC et al, the more he pushes away the object of his desire from the electorate who seem determined to reject any candidate preaching division and sectionalism. Nowadays, the more Buhari speaks, the less powerful he appears, cutting a disappointing figure.
General Buhari's interest, being too strong, has therefore, made him to become awkward, fearful, even dangerous. Robert Greene warns that when a desire gets to be uncontrollable, one seems weak and unworthy, even pathetic. A candidate who cannot control his words possibly cannot control himself, and is unworthy of the voters' respect and even votes. But then, someone who is blustery on the outside is often really a coward. Nigerians still have vivid memories of how an expectant, unprotesting but pitiable GMB, was picked up like an orange and carted off into detention (where he spent the next forty months) by four young Majors, who had no stationed direct command of their own at the State House, Dodan Barrack- Viz: Lawan Gwadabe and Umar Dangiwa from Armour, Abdulmumuni Aminu from Infantry, and Sambo Dasuki from Artillery.
Over the years, if GMB had said less, the Nigerian electorate would never have known his true feelings and would never have had cause to be offended by him. They probably would have elected him president, and he would have had his chance to achieve his antidemocratic plans against them. Italian Renaissance polymath, anatomist and geologist, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), informs us:
“Oysters open completely when the moon is full; and when the crab sees one it throws a piece of stone or seaweed into it and the oyster cannot close again so that it serves the crab for meat. Such is the fate of him who opens his mouth too much and thereby puts himself at the mercy of the listener.”
Not known to waste an opportunity like the present one, Presidential spokesman, Reuben Abati, fired his own salvo by overplaying GMB's reduction of self to a regional leader, calling it most unfortunate:
“But perhaps the most unfortunate part of the statement was the portion in which Buhari said that, “Since the leaders now don't listen to anybody but do whatever they wish, there is nothing the north can do.” We find it very sad that an elder statesman who once presided over the entirety of Nigeria can reduce himself to a regional leader who speaks for only a part of Nigeria.”
At three scores and eleven (71 years on 17th December, 2013), General Buhari, who unrelentlessly has played up the North-South divide to everyone's chagrin, ought to change his strategy. Like it or not, he must now get set to paraglide from the high mountains of Nigerian politics, and become the true statesman we knew him to be once again:
“This generation of Nigerians and, indeed, future generations have no other country than Nigeria; we shall remain here and salvage it together.”
Or, in the alternative pretend to be disinterested in running for the highest office in the land any longer. Let him turn his back on what he desires most [presidency], and begin to display contempt and disdain for it. His detractors will no doubt be driven crazy by it, as they will respond with a desire of their own, either to possess or hurt him. In case of the former, the General would have got round “the first step of seduction.” In case of the latter, he would have forced them to “play by his rules,” having unsettled them.
GMB should already understand that contempt is a king's privilege, or power – a prerogative; reality resides in whatever the king fixes his gaze upon, and whatever he chooses to ignore or deny his curious gaze suffers automatically. King Louis XIV employed this weapon a great deal and effectively. Once he disliked you, he acted like you didn't exist, and ignored you completely thereby keeping his superiority. One begets this power only when one indulges in playing the card of contempt, asserting your freedom to choose your friends, or very well dispense of their company. Spanish philosopher, Jesuit and baroque prose writer, Baltasar Gracian (1601-1658), has a lot to teach us all:
“Know how to play the card of contempt. It is the most politic kind of revenge. For there are many of whom we should have known nothing if their distinguished opponents had taken no notice of them. There is no revenge like oblivion, for it is the entombment of the unworthy in the dust of their own nothingness.”
In view of the present fight between a few “Nassarawa communities where Ombatse are active and Fulani herdsmen” of which GMB, their past Chairman, has changed tune and is now calling for the government to descend on Boko Haram, he said:
“The SSS boss or whoever said he has left everything to God has no right to do that. Constitutionally, Nigerians can practice any religion they want or even if they don't want, they can be atheists or anything they want to be, that is constitutional. But nobody should hurt a citizen of Nigeria and then get away with it, not to talk of slaughtering at least 56 law enforcement agents and then somebody coming out from the system and said such a thing. It is either that person doesn't know what he was talking about or he shouldn't even be there.”
“I'm even suggesting that the cult ritual places be destroyed. According to the constitution, you will allow them to go about with their activities as long as thy don't go against the constitution. But those that killed 56 security men must.. ”
Did I hear you say: “Different strokes for different folks?”General Buhari should admit that his present approach of commitment and engagement has so far weakened, if not confused him. He must, therefore, try the opposite that is to ignore, using contempt and disdain which will doubtless enhance his power. The CPC chieftain will do well to agree that he stands to make a problem seem worse when he advertises the enormity of concern and anxiety that it has caused him. Wouldn't it rather be better and wiser if he played “the contemptuous aristocrat,” who refuses to acknowledge the existence of a problem?
The General's handlers should make him adopt the sour-grapes approach. They should teach him to refrain from drawing attention to his disappointment by his bitter complaints every time he desires something and realises it is unattainable. His best shot would be to act as if it didn't interest him in the first place. In The 48 Laws of Power, Greene reminds us:
“When the writer George Sand's supporters nominated her to be the first female member of the Academie Françoise, in 1861, Sand quickly saw that the academy would never admit her. Instead of whining, though, she claimed she had no interest in belonging to this group of worn-out, over-rated, out-of-touch windbags. Her disdain was the perfect response: Had she shown her anger at her exclusion, she would have revealed how much it meant to her… Crying “sour-grapes” is sometimes seen as a reflection of the weak; it is actually the tactic of the powerful.”
Having committed a blunder by his unguarded outbursts, GMB's best response would be to make less of his mistake by treating it lightly. Like the furious Japanese emperor Go-Saiin, a great disciple of the tea ceremony, who owned a priceless antique tea bowl that all the courtiers envied, but which was broken one day by a guest named Dainagon Tsunehiro, Buhari needs to calm down and respond with a similar aristocratic indifference, for his anger has made him seem low and petty – an image his detractors have been manipulating. Archbishop of Paris, writer of memoirs and agitator in the Fronde, Jean François Paul de Gondi otherwise known as Cardinal de Retz (1613-1679), says:
“It is even more damaging for a minister to say foolish things than to do them.”
People who squander their treasure of words cannot have power accrue to them; just as those who rush to the support of others tend to gain little respect in the process. As a matter of deliberate policy, GMB should distance himself from people like Rotimi Fashakin, Balarabe Musa, Anthony A. Z. Sanni, Buba Galadima and co, who have been making excuses and denials when they know that their man has been “caught in a mistake or a deception.” They have been stirring the waters and making the situation worse. Concerning such people, German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), best known for his book, The World as Will and Representation, provides:
“And in this view it is advisable to let everyone of your acquaintance -whether man or woman- feel now and then that you could very well dispense with their company…Nay, with most people there will be no harm in occasionally mixing a grain of disdain with your treatment of them…”
An Indian fable says that: “the weak benefit by the quarrels of the mighty.” Also, an ancient Chinese saying has it: ”when the snipe and the mussel struggle, the fisherman gets the benefit. GMB should beware of the professional trouble makers who beat the drums of war to his ear every now and then. We know the problems which such people caused between Babangida and Abiola, between Abacha and Abiola, between OBJ and Falae, between OBJ and Atiku, between OBJ and Buhari, between Buhari and Yar'adua, and now between Jonathan and Buhari.
Lastly, the name Muhammadu Buhari used to evoke awe since his days as a military ruler (1983-1985), but the moment he appeared before Nigerians and asked to be their president, bragging and blustering like a common soldier; insulting and slandering them as if he felt threatened and insecure, all that respect and grandeur vanished. Like it or not, he must accept that he can never rule Nigeria again, democratically at least, not with the way he is carrying on. He would be in good company though; Nnamdi Azikiwe (1904-1996), Obafemi Awolowo (1909-1987), Aminu Kano (1920-1983), Waziri Ibrahim (1929-), Emeka Odumegwu-Ojuwku (1933-2011), Olusola Saraki (1933-2012), Shehu Musa Yar'adua (1943-1997), Moshood Abiola (1937-1998), Bashir Uthman Tofa (b. 1949), Samuel Oluyemisi Falae (b. 1938), Atiku Abubakar (b. 1946), etc…eminent and respected Nigerians who had sought the Nigerian presidency, at one time or the other, but whose efforts were to no avail. The heavens didn't fall for their sake because the country was, and is bigger than any individual. Instead, to signal his own worth and power, General Buhari should now embrace contempt and disdain as the powerful responses to his niggling, petty annoyances, irritations, and unbridled outbursts. He should desist from showing that something has offended him, or that he is offended, which portrays him as acknowledging a problem. He should always remember, as Greene informs us, that contempt is a dish that is best served cold and without affectation.
Postscript: GMB must never underestimate Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GEJ), a president no one could quite figure out, who like Ethiopia's Halie Selassie I (1892-1975), wears “the front of a gentle, peace-loving man”, never angry or impatient, GEJ lures his enemies with sweet smiles, lulling them with his “good luck” charm before he…. GMB will do well to always remember the last words of accomplished Ethiopian general, Balcha Aba Nefso (1863-1936), also known by his title as Dejazmach Balcha or Balcha of Sidamo, who served in both the First Italo-Ethiopian War (1895-1896) and Second Italo-Ethiopian War (1935-1936), before entering the monastery (here paraphrased to suit the moment):
“It is perilous to underestimate the power of Jonathan. He creeps like a mouse but he has jaws like a lion.”