About 17 months ago, when the wife of the President, Aisha Buhari, raised the alarm, in a BBC Hausa interview, that her husband, President Muhammadu Buhari, had been caged by a treacherous cabal, many Nigerians, who had watched the President’s early political goofs, saw her outburst as a welcome knock for the wobbling ruling party. It was an unusual occurrence in the history of Nigeria, which confirmed to the discerning that the foundation of the emergency marriage, which gave birth to the All Progressives Congress, might not be strong enough to take it through a four-year pact, especially with the longstanding structures that had been instituted by the individual heavyweights who flocked into the ring to consolidate the force against an unwanted Jonathan.
Bold as the handwriting was on the wall, unrepentant sycophants dismissed the gravid interview as the ranting of a sidelined First Lady, while a number of those who should have joined Mrs. Buhari in calling her husband to order while the day was still very young, chose to defer the doomsday by chastising her on unjustifiable traditional grounds. Yet, those who were benefitting from the unusual order, which she sought to break, rather than address the concerns in the interest of the party, the nation and Nigerians, influenced PMB’s hilarious but reprehensible ‘other room’ theory, and perfected plans to shut the First Lady up for good. The result? Chains of political and socio-economic blunders that have made a hero of the former president.
I have read comments of respected colleagues on why Aisha’s periodic outbursts – the BBC interview, her social media declaration of some hyenas and jackals being chased out of a proverbial kingdom, headed by her husband once the ‘king’ returned; her call for a probe into how the State House Medical Centre’s budget was being utilised under her husband’s watch; and the retweets, earlier this year, of strong anti-Buhari comments in the thick of gruesome killings in the north – should be regarded as indisputable demonstrations of disloyalty by a critic, who is supposed to be the closest person to the President.
Some even described the taboo in her pressing the panic button outside the confines of the Aso Rock Villa as one that should never have been committed by a northern Muslim wife. But many of those on this divide failed to consider the fact that the comportment, choice of words and convincing campaign style of this same woman helped, in no small way, to shape the opinions of many Nigerians, especially women, in favour of her husband during the campaigns for the 2015 presidential elections.
Could they not have, therefore, read between the lines to see that, perhaps, she opted for the controversial strategy when genuine soul-to-soul talk failed in the other room? Were those not tell tale signs that these perfidious hyenas and jackals had rendered the other room too hot for the first family as the first step in their carefully calculated plan to hold the country hostage? How could anyone have missed the fact that, beyond political implications, these rather unconventional attempts at arresting a national disaster could have been aimed at saving the President himself and protecting the overwhelming goodwill he rode on to get into Aso Rock? And have we not seen the mess the untamed powerful animals have made of a once celebrated kingdom, practically because the important messages passed in the First Lady’s major social media controversies did not go beyond analyses on the pages of newspapers?
Five decades after the death of Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of the 32ndPresident of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt, pundits still reserve so much respect for her as the most distinguished first lady in the country’s history; not because of some fabulous looks or a perceived strong hold on the president at the time, but mainly because of her social activism, which prioritised the wellbeing of all Americans, irrespective of racial leanings, over an expected docile, conventional role of a ‘supportive’ First Lady. The controversies, which her vocal criticisms against even her husband’s government created were some of the factors that earned her an indelible place in US history. In 1939, under her husband’s watch, she publicly supported Marian Anderson when the black singer was denied the use of Washington’s Constitution Hall because of her race. Eleanor’s popular quote, which, I’m sure, has guided our own First Lady, in taking a few bold steps, was: “Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticised anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.”
Back home, if anyone wants to assess the unpolished popularity of the Buhari administration at this time, compared to its early days, reactions to a recent article I wrote, titled, “Are Nigerians stuck with Buhari?” might give a rough idea. It was interesting how those who could be conveniently referred to as the pioneer Buharideens, to borrow my brother, Dr. Reuben Abati’s coinage, spared no effort in expressing their utter disappointment at the unrestrained blunders being made under the administration of their supposed saviour. Is it not very clear now that the seeming leadership vacuum that has plunged Nigeria into a bigger mess, economically, as observed by even the President’s loyalists, was a major fear that informed the repeated direct and indirect warnings attributed to Mrs. Buhari?
Aside from old age and, perhaps, speculations about medical fitness, the President had warned Nigerians, right from the word go, that he would be a super slow leader. Though he promised, during his first meeting with the Nigerian community in the US, that he would go slow and steady to fulfill his promises to the nation, the fact that some insensitive supporters have hoodwinked him into believing that he has almost finished a long race, when he has not even left the starting point, after three years, is a bitter pill to swallow.
His major blunder was to have held on to the same story of a previous administration leaving behind a ‘dying’ nation beyond the first 100 days. A serious and sincere government would have buried that with its inauguration speech, while working hard at changing the status quo through premeditated turn-around strategies.
In fairness to the administration, this could have been difficult to achieve when those who were supposed to drive the change from the various critical sectors, did not come on board until after six months! And when they did, except for a sprinkling, many of them were misfits. On what foundation would the change be built? Stakeholders have pointed out anomalies across key sectors that should warrant a constructive shake-up in the President’s cabinet, but in spite of speculations of a cabinet reshuffle, some of the economic ministers, who have assumed the position of dictators, and “who do not know that they do not know” have continued to pursue the wrong policies, without check, at the detriment of Nigeria’s economy. This shows clearly that the current administration is not desperate to make impact, perhaps, because of the illusion of a goodwill that may no longer exist, come 2019.
The Transparency International’s revelation that corruption has worsened; the abduction of 110 schoogirls in Dapchi, Yobe State, by Boko Haram; the pressure on PMB to declare killer herdsmen terrorists by Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka; the shocker by the IMF that Nigerians are getting poorer under Buhari; among other controversial ‘don’t contest’ warnings, could have been avoided if someone was really in charge at the centre.
Now that elections are fast approaching, and the President has refused to right the critical wrongs in the system, Nigerians must look beyond Buhari, in their resolve to send the jackals and hyenas
back to the zoo. Reading between Mrs. Aisha’s BBC lines, the President is not in control. Therefore, he does not need more knocks, right now, but our help.
