THE LONDONIZATION OF A PRESIDENT, THE MORTIFICATION OF A COUNTRY
There seems to be blurry indications that some prodigal is about to come home. For though rather than appear from the jet of surprise and make sober confessions to Nigerians like the Biblical son, the commander-in-chief has said he’s obeying doctor’s orders, still we know by what ‘doctor’s orders’ means that his mind can now long for the paparazzi of a public official, only that his health does not support such nostalgia.
In whatever case, we have had reasons to chronicle the intellectual disasters that have rocked our nation in the most recent time, masterminded mainly by those who show readiness to sponsor a parliamentary bill that approves an indefinite diasporanization of a Nigerian seating president. They have made the following intelligent claims among others:
One, Buhari has not breached any Nigeria law.
Two, There has been no gap in governance
Three, the desire to have a working president is the article in trade of those who deal in corrupt practices.
I have not included the recent statement attributed to some top official that the said commander is a private citizen whose state and whereabouts is no business of any damn public, since I believe this must be a calumnious report against that official, for such a statement can only proceed from a ridiculous mouth.
Let me then, address those three points in the briefest and most precise manner I could presently afford.
The first claim has made out like a bandit in the hand of those who are most precisely called the Random Access Memory of our society. They have knowledge of the law and are always well-armed to pick from the items-in-gaps of the constitution to rationalize their motives. Their claim has two prongs: one, Buhari complied with Section this and that by forwarding a letter to the National Assembly ‘tranfering’ the power of governance to the Vice President. Two, nowhere in the more-than-many sections of the constitution is a clause found setting a limit on the vacation of the president of Nigeria. A literate person will have reason to empathize with this point of view, since he will certainly find by the flip of the pages that these things are hard truths.
However, a cultured person, that is, someone who by infrastructural development of the mind and vision, has transcended the bare ability to read and write, will observe that yes the constitution does not limit vacation of a president, it doesn’t either, in the more-than-many pages of it, state that our country can be run without a president. He knows that beyond the brushwood lettering of the dry law, there are political and cultural power-play and influences that direct public control, typical of which invariably incapacitates a vice president from exercising fully even in the interest of good governance, the power of the executive powers of the federation. The RAMs are victims of a mental condition that confuses words with persons. Section 5(1)(a) of the most quoted constitutions states that “the executive powers of the Federation shall be vested in the President, and…may be exercised either directly or through the Vice President [not Ag. President, observe] and Ministers…or officers in the public service of the Federation.” Notice that it is not said that the executive powers vested in the president is divested from him when the powers are exercised indirectly, say through the Vice, a minister, an immigration officer or a police constable. And also that the names of offices mentioned above do not refer to a single individual, the same person. We all know that Kayode Fayemi is a minister but he is a separate individual with his own feelings, ideas, preferences, background, influences, family, official limitation, political limitation, different from the individuality of the president. And within the said provision, the Vice President does not seem to have any legal personality that is greater than that of a minister or a police officer, since there is no executive power vested in him: executive power could only be exercised through him. And this is the point: the power vested is one thing, the exercise of it is another. And given the power of collective investiture and crowning of kings, the body and personality in which the powers are vested have un-spiteable influence on the exercise of that power by whatsoever subordinate body. And where the body and personality is un-functional, the power of executive influence is lost to vacancy, or some influential elements appropriate it.
It therefore intrigues the mind, when advocates of indefinite Londonization of executive powers claim that the president transferred the power of governance to the Vice President, by virtue of which the latter is now called Ag. President, through the letter he sent to the National Assembly prior to his flight. One, one could only wonder how the whole institution of executive powers vested in the president through a robust electoral and federative process can be transferred from one individual to another individual with a flip of paper, and the same is re-invested through another flip of paper. Second, one wonders if by such transference of power the President is not divested completely, that is, de-robed of the power and position by which he is relevant to national discourse and project. That is, in what way is it possible for the executive powers of our country to inhabit two different personalities at the same time? RAMs do not consider this infrastructural configuration of our law and politics. So it does not flash their minds that if a president transfers executive powers to another person, he automatically becomes a common citizen like myself, and therefore has no power to ask for that power anymore, just like I cannot ask for such powers in my commonality, except through the elaborate democratic process of election. Politicians are in the habit of throwing up philosophical concepts such as ‘social contract’, so I need inform them that in the tradition of modern social contract theory [of Thomas Hobbes, specifically], ‘transfer’ of the power of rule means abrogation of it.
Someone will quickly say: “but there is the Acting President!” Yes I am aware of this. Just that I am also aware that our constitution did not create an office of the Acting President. The office of the Acting President is like the office of the first lady. They have no place in our law. Nowhere do you find, “There shall be for the Federation an Acting President.” One could only wonder how these people arrived at the reasoning that the president of Nigeria could actually spend the rest of his tenure in London without any implications whatever. The most the much quoted Section 145 says is that the Vice President, whose office is created by the law as a deputy, “shall perform the functions of the President AS ACTING PRESIDENT”. Thus, the executive powers of our country cannot be vested in an office that does not exist. Presently, we have a Vice president who the constitution told to ‘act like a president’ since the president is not at home. You know what it means when a cat tries to mimic the lion. That aside, who does not know that the finger that owns the ring is different from that which borrows it: the so-called cabal would say: “abegi Oga SAN, you no be acting again? PMB we know, Osinbajo we know; but this acting wey dey do like original, na wa o.’
THERE HAS BEEN NO GAP IN GOVERNANCE. IN FACT, GOVERNANCE HAS BEEN RUNNING SMOOTHLY.
The quibble runs like: government is an institution. It is not made of only one person. The governance has suffered no lapses since their Buhari’s flight. A commentator on Galaxy TV even said the government has run better.
There is little doubt that the presidential jet of Buhari eloped with these people’s sense of judgment in its last flight. First, how do they assess whether there is a gap in governance or not? By waiting for the ministers to announce on NTA that the absence of the president has created drawback in economic recovery? By watching the party’s spokesperson lament how the president’s long stay is not good for the much needed salvaging of a country that is lying in the depths of misery? Obviously, these people’s idea of governance does not have a bearing on the people for whom government exists, otherwise, no one would say that governance in the present time is honky-dory and executive powers can lie hopelessly in a London bed. Or else, these people believe the present reality is the best of governance that the APC government is capable of offering. So the presence of messiah or his absence makes no difference.
Likewise, since government is an institution and not made up of a single individual, would these people agree that we should kuku do away with the president, so that we need not integrate him into the institution of governance when he comes backs, since the institution can practically function successfully without him? Is it not superfluous the provision of the constitution that says: “There shall be for the Federation a President”? Is it not wasteful the money that is spent maintaining his health and office? Do these people not actually imply the vociferous conjecture that a proper government can operate without even its principal officials or otherwise that Nigeria does not really need Buhari? The former reeks of ridiculousness while the latter obliges the advocates of indefinite Londonization to allow us elevate the Vice-President to the substantive headship of our country, since we cherish the institution of society for good governance.
THOSE WHO REQUEST FOR THE WHEREABOUTS OF BUHARI ARE PEOPLE WITH SELFISH, SECTIONAL, CORRUPT INTERESTS.
It is political informedness to know that politicians cover reality. It is political intelle-maturity to know such is their god-given mandate. So, I will not make any effort to address the chief pushers in the APC-led government who make this claim. You cannot forbid the camel from foaming in the mouth.
Let me say to the populace therefore, that empirically speaking, there are those who have vested interest in Buhari; there are others who have non-vested, general interest in him. The first are a very few, minute segment of society that have access to more than three-square meal and want a share in this and that. The second is the large, innumerable children of earth lodged in the geography of Nigeria, who work more and eat less. It is more saddening that our political leaders have chosen to focus only on their party-political vendettas, closing their eyes to the plight, yearnings and contributions of the main people, for who they were elected.
MISCALLENOUS REMARKS: THE LOST STORY OF SELF RELIANCE
If the Nigerian president cannot survive in the shores of Nigeria, then Nigeria is a death field. Buhari has been shown to be incapable of surviving in Nigeria, therefore Nigeria has been shown to be a death field.
If the Nigerian president cannot give a hope to himself concerning himself in Nigeria despite the enormity of his office and the huge command and financial advantage it offers, then he has no such justification to give hope to I80 million Nigerians. With Buhari, we get the feeling that we either all move to London, or we are goners. So much has been said about tax payers’ money and capital flight. I won’t repeat those. Let me say what I have said elsewhere: Nigeria is just 00:00 minutes away from the Oct. 1960 euphoria. A Nigeria that today has no apparatuses that can attend to her president, the sole image maker and carrier of the crown of sovereignty, puts a lie to scholarly Africanist claims to non-inferiority of Blacks.
But we could turn the seemingly bad to good. Our present reality shows we have the knack for electing sick presidents. And following the dominant right wing voice, there is nothing wrong in having a sick president, which suggests that we will still joyfully and patriotically elect, over and over again, sick presidents in the future. And all of them may be in the stove, probably, throughout their tenure, since this is legal and proper in the eyes of our most internationally recognized legal luminaries and human right activists. Why not buy equipment for treating sick presidents and set up a protected, top-notch Executive Asylum of Ailing Heads of States in an isolated part of the country’s capital? I see two great rewards in this venture: (i) we won’t incur back-breaking bills in treating our sick presidents in the future (ii) sick presidents of other nations can come for treatment in our country, thereby boost our international trade through hospitalization (or maybe hospitality) and executive tourism.