BUHARI: THE TRUE NIGERIAN MACHIAVELLI
“…whenever men are not obliged to fight from necessity, they fight from ambition; which is so powerful in human breasts, that it never leaves them no matter to what rank they rise. The reason is that nature has so created men that they are able to desire everything but are not able to attain everything: so that the desire being always greater than the acquisition, there results discontent with the possession and little satisfaction to themselves from it.” - Niccolò Machiavelli
After the March 28th Presidential Election, which the then Nigeria’s leading opposition party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) won, the world famous Financial Times hailed a former Lagos State Governor and National Leader of the APC, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu as Nigeria’s Machiavelli. That assertion went unchallenged as almost everyone agreed that the Jagaban of Borgu was immensely instrumental in forming the coalition that took out Dr Goodluck Jonathan’s Government.
However today, any keen observer of the Nigerian Political space will notice another more Machiavellian character hiding in the deep and allowing others play into his hand. That Man is President Muhammadu Buhari.
Buhari, who is often under-rated and overlooked, perhaps because you may need subtitle to understand his spoken English, is the true Nigerian Machiavelli.
As the drama in the National Assembly unfolds, many who have taken President Buhari for granted thought he would make the wrong moves by playing into Tinubu’s hand by toeing the so called “Party line”, which he like all discerning Nigerians know is essentially the “Tinubu line”.
Even before reports emerged that the President was scheduled to preside over a meeting of APC members in the National Assembly on that fateful day came to the public domain, he (Buhari) knew that it was neither in his interest to intervene nor to ensure the emergence of Tinubu’s candidates that were being presented as the Party’s preferred Candidates for the National Assembly top jobs. Yet, to give Tinubu and others the impression that he is truly ‘brainless’, he ‘played’ along. Only that he did not appear at the said meeting and Dr Abubakar Bukola Saraki, a pragmatic Politician who is not Tinubu’s stooge and Mr Yakubu Dogora emerged with the help of their PDP friends as Leaders of the Nass.
Buhari and his Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and former PDP Strategists must have assessed and analyzed the risk posed by having Tinubu’s puppets as heads of the both chambers of the National Assembly while there is another as Vice-President. In other words, Buhari and his people must have known that most times, impeachment thoughts and talks start from the House of Representatives. So to have Tinubu’s lackey as Speaker is not in Buhari’s best interest.
Thus, they may have decided to be ‘neutral’, knowing that Saraki and Dogora can form a strong alliance with the PDP who was in the shadows lurking, waiting for a crack in the now ruling APC to catch in on; after declaring total support for Saraki. And when that happens, there is nothing to be gained in creating bad blood between the Presidency and the emergent National Assembly Leadership, when there is actually a better prospect of a mutually beneficial union to be forged with them by simply embracing them.
Today, the Nigerian Media including SAYELBATIMES.COM, where yours truly is Publisher, is enveloped with reports of how Saraki outfoxed Buhari and the APC to clinch the Senate Presidency. This line of thought follows the same pattern of misreading President Buhari. What many are yet to ask themselves are among others, the following:
- What happened to the Meeting Buhari was belt to attend at the National Assembly with the APC Caucus?
- Did Buhari appear? If NO, which is the truthful answer, what reasons has he given for not attending even though his party’s Senators were not at the Red Chamber at the time Saraki emerged because they may have been waiting for Buhari at the designated venue?
- Has Buhari apologized to anyone for standing them up, while Saraki struck?
- Was Buhari’s eerie absence in his own meeting and Saraki et al’s emergence mere coincidences or are they preplanned?
After the NASS election, while Tinubu masking under the guise of APC was still protesting the outcome, Buhari who, by virtue of being Nigeria's President is now the Leader of the APC recognized, congratulated and declared to work with the victors.
The fallout of Buhari’s response to the outcome of the National Assembly Election is that his approval ratings have hit the roof, while Tinubu and his gang are being trashed for fighting against the development of Nigeria’s democracy and the will of the Nigerian people. This is because majority of Nigerians support and see what happened at the NASS as a plus to the democratization of Nigeria.
The curious thing about Tinubu’s insensitive and parochial plot to foist Femi Gbajabiamila on Nigeria as Speaker of the Lower House of the National Assembly is that it was done in total disregard of the Federal Character Principle and the need for even distribution of political power in a plural state like Nigeria. Hon Gbajabiamila, like the Vice President Prof Yemi Osinbajo, is from Lagos State. Thus, if Tinubu’s plot had succeeded, Nigeria’s number 2 and 4 citizens would have come from the same State.
Asiwaju’s maniacal zeal for power and his attempted to achieve same via the creation of Stooges blinded him to the fact that Lagos is not the only state in the South West. Perhaps if his Speakership Candidate had being from another Yoruba State, the resistance would have been lesser.
To make matters worse, in his desperation, he was ready to create a Senate where the President and Deputy would all be Northerners, in exchange for his Speakership. What this means is that not only would there had been a Northern led Senate, the South East and the South South – former President Goodluck Jonathan’s stronghold – would have been completely cut off from the government with no strategic National Legislative position, a situation which would have painted the APC as a vindictive Conqueror that completely humiliates his conquered subjects. Tinubu’s plan is akin to the Roman Concept of Peace, which as Barton C.A, cited in Timothy Ubelejit Nte’s new book, “Power Tussle and Collective Security: Sources and Response to International Conflict”, puts it “is peace imposed by a victor on a humiliated enemy”. Yet even in the Roman system, there was some sense that humbled enemies ought to be treated with mercy. Barton stated further that “the Roman response to the entreaties of a defeated could not be calculated, any more than the responses of Soldiers or Muggers or rapist to the pleas of their victims… The Romans accepted that the Emperor’s mercy was as close to a Social Contract as they could henceforth get.
The system Tinubu wants to create after APC’s victory is not far from the above.
Yet, it is heartwarming to know that Buhari, the true Nigerian Machiavelli and many other Nigerians across party lines are prepared to checkmate that powerful yet dangerous ambition in Tinubu’s chest.
Tinubu should try to rise above the man described in my opening quote by the Florentine Niccolo Machiavelli, who is able to desire everything but not able to attain everything: so that his desire being always greater than the acquisition and results in discontent with the possession and little satisfaction to him from it.
Saraki, like Tinubu, is a Yoruba man like Tinubu. Thus, I doubt if their ancestors would prefer the post of Speaker to that of the Senate Presidency that the Oloye’s son just won.
I will now retire to Nembe and allow the Big Boys slug it out in Abuja.
Written by Fortune Godson Alfred, a Public Policy Analyst, Strategist and Publisher.
@ElMagnificento1