Even those who had never heard of Bachelet were moved by the exit from presidency video which went viral. Veronica Michelle Bachelet Jeria left the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women to contest and take over office as the President of Chile between 2014 and 2018. It was not the U.N. or her advocacy for women equality that mostly defined her. She had a prior term as president. The Peadiatrics doctor had come through the years under a hurricane of sorts.
Born to a military dad, Brigadier General Alberto Bachelet Martinez and an Archaeologist mum, Angela Jerian Gomez, she took to studying medicine at the urging of her father and because “she believed it was a concrete way of helping people cope with pain.” The 1970s was especially painful. It was the time when Augusto Pinochet, the ruthless dictator, reigned over Chile. Her father, Bachelet, was tortured to death by the Pinochet government, she was pulled out of school, tortured and sent on exile. In 2006, Veronica Michelle Bachelet was elected President of Chile. She served until 2010.
In 2014, Bachelet was again re-elected as President of Chile having won 62% of the votes making her more popular with the people than her first term when she garnered 53.5% of the votes. Bachelet’s second shot as president came to an end in March 2018.
Her exit was glorious. She had made stellar reforms in education, health and job creation. Under her watch, corruption found a bitter enemy. There was free access to colleges and university in an educational system that was hitherto exclusive and exorbitant. Of her, Chileans testified that she had a reformer’s spring. It’s hard to watch Bachelet’s exit video without brushing a tear. No one can miss the true warmth of the human spirit and the deep connection a leader can create with the led. Bachelet like Buhari had a second opportunity to lead her people.
She like Buhari had higher votes at their second comingan indication of the hope the people reposed in the two leaders.
Sadly, that is perhaps where the similarity ends between the two leaders. Nigeria’s President Buhari By the time Buhari’s tenure would end, he would have led a fraction of fractured people and not a nation. He would have administered mostly those who gave him his votes as opposed to administering Nigeria. The man said so himself. One of Buhari’s early gafe was in the United Kingdom.
It was a meeting with journalists and a mid-aged lady had the opportunity to ask the last question. ‘’Mr. President, at no time have people been more hopeful about Nigeria than now…I ask on an area that has not been spoken about and that is the Niger Delta crisis. What plans do you have to address the crisis in the Niger Delta.” The moderator had to translate a question that was asked in English and if that was not bad enough, he went ahead to lecture foreign journalists on how it was not possible to give equal attention to areas that have given most of the votes with those who did not! Imagine the impression the President of the biggest African country gave to the world?
But you know, it wasn’t just an impression, it was the reality. He spoke matter-of-factly about the manner he leads Nigeria. Perharps at no time since the Civil war has Nigeria been this fragmented. Buhari has never recovered from the electioneering stage; it is doubtful if he ever will. For him, it is not about Nigeria. He couldn’t be bothered about national cohesion when he has his cronies to repay for the votes. In a sense, we see a man whose ultimate goal was to win elections and once he did, he partitioned the country into a reward project for those who showed him loyalty. Let’s Talk Security A few weeks ago, General T.Y Danjuma made a call for self defense.
The call was predictably, accompanied by a deluge of reactions. It is sad that Nigerians are fast losing what was left of their trust in Nigeria’s security arrangement and let’s be clear: Buhari must take the blame for this. Nigerians have cried hoarse about how the security chiefs all come from Buhari’s part of the country and how that has a way of raising suspicion and skewing feedback on the reality of the security situation of the country. The President has done nothing about it. The man simply does not care, his word is Law and his actions edicts and decrees.
The people have long been largely left to cater for their security so when TY Danjuma called for selfdefense, he merely echoed the reality on ground. Today, neighbourhood watch, civilian JTF and community efforts are fast gaining currency and the confidence of the people more than the established security structures.
The National Assembly has passed No- confidence votes on the security chiefs and has called for their sack, Sai Baba has stuck to his faulty arrangements. The so-called fight against Boko Haram seems to have been defeated only in narratives and media black outs otherwise how does anyone describe the intrigue around the Dapchi kidnapping and the number of individuals who have been victims of the terror group?
How do we begin to describe the nadir of suffering from the herdsmen terrorism and the daily kidnapping going unchecked across the country? Buhari’s Strange Marketing Strategy We have a president who has a queer manner of projecting his country’s image. After swearing never to seek medical help abroad, he spent months in medical care and tried in vain to manipulate the people into believing a lie.
Nigerians woke up one day only to find we had become a butt of multiple question joke of the longest serving president who rules outside his country. There was the embarrassment of receiving a fake Martin Luther King Jnr award. Last week he went harping on how indolent Nigerian youths are at a place he was to market the country to prospective foreign investors.
No matter how forgiving any country may be, one begins to question if truly Buhari deserves the seat he occupies. Incidentally, leadership is not about grudges and forgiveness, but about competence and faith in the people. Buhari has no faith in Nigeria. He clearly does not believe a nation of different tribes and tongues exists. He is so out of touch with reality that he thinks he is Nigeria’s best thing since gbegiri soup.
His records and desire to run another term are as confusing as they are worrisome. On what basis does he seek to run? His self-acclaimed victory in the fight against corruption with graft staring all around him for which he has selectively been blind to? Is it his use of hammer on IPOB and the attendant slap on the wrist for herdsmen terrorism? Is it on the fact that death has become so common place that Nigerian lives matter no more?
There is so much that has gone wrong for this administration that makes it nearly impossible for the Chilean affinity to be shown to Buhari. The Nigerian President would have us believe that giant strides have been made in agriculture but the reality on ground loudly denies this. Nigerians are hungry and angry. Corruption is at a dynamic epic. While this government claims to win against graft, government structures continue to fail. Power is rarely available. Businesses are failing.
Thousands of people are losing jobs. Dissenting voices are clamped down.Under this government, there are people who are the government’s prisoners. They have no reason to be incarcerated yet they are behind locks and keys.The human rights records are at an all time low.
The biggest undoing of the Buhari-government is that it has lost more trust than the hope it gained prior to election and for obvious reason: There is so much manipulation and distortion of facts that the people know not to believe the leadership anymore. The President and his crew also responds with disdain for the people and a lack of respect for our collective worth. It becomes very challenging for progress to be made in the circumstance. The endpoint is clear: Buhari has demonstrated that he does not have what it takes to put this country in better trajectory.
He is not in control, has no respect for the people, does not see nation building as a priority. When his people like Kaduna’s El-Rufai go about illegally pulling down people’s houses, sacking people indiscriminately from jobs or militarizing democracy, the president does nothing about it because he lacks the moral authority to pull them into their senses or to inspire them to do right. True leadership, as Steven Covey would note, is moral authority.
Leadership is a choice not a position. The choice is to follow universal timeless principles which will build trust and respect from the followers. We were sold a dummy of a great Buhari leadership. Sai baba has become haba baba. Baba needs to honourably take a bow. The results are that poor.
