BUHARI AND 2015

Click for Full Image Size
RETIRED GENERAL MUHAMMADU BUHARI

Femi Adesina’s paean for retired General Muhammadu Buhari, titled “Buhari and 2015” (Daily Sun, July 6, 2012, back page), made an engaging read. Hardly does one find a columnist of Adesina’s high standing embarking on such an unrestrained praise of a controversial figure known to evoke extreme and contradictory passions from his admirers and critics, like Buhari. And among his critics is one of the most credible moral voices of our time, the Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka.

Soyinka’s “The Crimes of Buhari,” published by Sahara Reporters on January 15, 2007, is recommended reading for anyone who wishes to balance Adesina’s laudation of Buhari with an informed, unsentimental assessment of the man, one of whose transgressions in power – the wilful spilling of what technically would pass for innocent blood – should, I think, be indelible from the mind of every true humanist as from our history, despite our being prone as a people to the affliction that Soyinka also has diagnosed as “collective amnesia,” a sort of Alzheimer’s syndrome that manifests on a national scale, and erodes historical memory.

“…we should not commit the error of opening the political space to any alternative whose curative touch to national afflictions has proven more deadly than the disease,” Soyinka warns with a telling allusiveness in “The Crimes of Buhari.”

Now, it is not hard to discern why Adesina writes so passionately in favour of Buhari, not when you think of the import of his declaring himself a “Buhari forever” loyalist, adding that he will “follow him into battle, even blindfolded.” Buhari is a charismatic figure, which explains why those who love him do so with the type of uncritical mind-set implied in these quoted phrases. But one of the snags of abandoning ourselves completely to the force of anyone’s charisma is that it soon begins to pull us in spite of our mind.

And so we may not understand that going into battle for our idol, blindfolded, exposes us to the risk of killing people inappropriately, including defenceless women and children, since – thanks to our blindfold – we cannot differentiate between the enemy and such hapless casualties of war; and certainly like the three men executed under a retroactive decree by the Buhari regime, if we would permit a different take on Adesina’s tropes. Even such an idol should worry for his safety when we follow him to battle blindfolded, since one of our “blindfolded” weapons might mistakenly strike him. And one of the shots Adesina fires in his piece turns out to be in disfavour of Buhari.

For instance, when he says of Buhari: “Imagine a former military governor, a former oil minister, a former head of state, and a former chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund, yet he can’t fund his campaign because there’s no money.” Whatever this statement was meant to achieve, it also doubles as an unintended invitation to reassess Buhari’s blame of his poor electoral misfortunes on rigging, which one admits is a lingering worry with our polity. Yet it would make sense to ponder, following Adesina’s hint, if Buhari loses elections because he is “rigged out” or because he lacks the financial resources to run a proper electoral campaign that can produce victory.

Even Barrack Obama apparently understood that money plays a pivotal role in electoral success, and so had to raise more funds for the Democratic Party campaign than his main rival, Hilary Clinton, to clinch the party’s ticket, and proceeded to win the US presidential polls. So if “there’s no money” for Buhari to fund his campaign and yet he complains when his poorly funded or unfunded campaign fails to produce electoral success, is it not as unrealistic as a farmer lacking the resources to properly cultivate/manage his farm and yet is unable to understand why he ends up with a lean harvest – of crops or votes?

I admired the zeal with which Buhari embarked on his moral reform of our country as Head of State. But executing three men – Bartholomew Owoh (26), Lawal Ojulope (30), and Bernard Ogedengbe (29) – under a retroactive decree as an expression of that zeal continues to haunt me as an unpardonable act of murderous highhandedness. And I remember expressing a similar view in my reader’s response published in Newswatch magazine circa 1985, after that painful – and unjustifiable – execution.

Curiously, the Buhari advocacy continues to beat its chest for the supreme moralist credentials of its inspirer and beneficiary, and his being a disciplined/disciplinarian leader. Yet it was during his War Against Indiscipline that fifty-three suitcases passed with undeclared content through our nation’s major airport to no consequence in spite of media outrage against the brazen indiscipline of it! And did he show good example as “an icon of discipline” by ignoring the invitation to appear before the Oputa Panel? And why did he refuse to appear? For fear of confronting truths that might justly tarnish his moralist iconography?

It is actually a sign of moral weakness when a leader ignores the transgressions of the strong and punishes those of the weak. And such weakness was evident from the episodes of the fifty-three suitcases, considering the status of their owner, and the three men the Buhari regime executed under a retroactive decree. Great moral beings confront forces greater than themselves without undue compromise, and ennoble our common humanity through their triumphs, as Mahatma Gandhi confronted British colonial rule, as Martin Luther King Jr. battled racial segregation, and as Nelson Mandela fought Apartheid. Buhari’s implied threat to resort to bloodshed as a solution to vote rigging will further bestialise our humanity, like his metaphor of the “monkey and baboon.”

Of course, those who advocate the shedding of blood as a “solution” to any socio-political problem, suggesting what little regard they have for human life, do not usually contemplate their own blood or the blood of their loved ones being part of the grisly pool. Sacrifice for nation building becomes tantamount to drenching their road to power with the blood their fellow beings.

“Each time a bomb explodes, I ask myself what Buhari would have done,” writes Adesina. I am persuaded that Buhari’s reaction would depend on whether the responsibility for the bombing is traced to a “monkey” or a “baboon,” in which case he would ignore it like the fifty-three suitcases or punish the culprit – a la Bartholomew Owoh and co – if the culprit turns out not to be one of his favourites among the rich and powerful. Nor do I think what he might do in future should be as important as what he should now – openly condemn the senseless bombings and their death toll on the innocent, as expected of any genuine patriot, leader or statesman.

Jonathan’s performance, which Adesina compares unfavourably with how things might have been under a Buhari presidency, will not be judged fairly outside the context of the distraction of the mindless bombings and other forms of contrived violence that have intensified in our country since he took office. That peace and stability are necessary for progress in any nation is clear from what the Bible records of the reigns of kings David and Solomon. Those who won’t give their leaders peace and expect them to give them prosperity – a fruit of peace – may need to reassess their ways and expectations even as they righty call on such leaders to rise to the occasion.

Written By Ikeogu Oke

Disclaimer: "The views expressed on this site are those of the contributors or columnists, and do not necessarily reflect TheNigerianVoice’s position. TheNigerianVoice will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements in the contributions or columns here."

Articles by thewillnigeria.com