Buhari and his hyena citizens

Once upon a time, a hunter was returning home after a futile hunting expedition late in the afternoon. He rested his dane gun on his clavicle and held it in place with his left hand while his right arm swung by his side as he navigated his way. Midway, a hyena spotted him and trailed him furtively. The predator was wise enough not to challenge a seemingly frustrated hunter that was armed to the hilt. It, however, observed that unlike the other parts of the hunter’s body which were in place as he sauntered along, his right arm was dangling loosely by his side. In its animalistic reasoning, it believed that sooner than later, the semi-detached, swinging arm would fall from his body… for its dinner!

But the hyena began to have a rethink when the semi-detached arm refused to part with the rest of the body as the hunter approached the outskirts of the village. Sensing that it could risk becoming the hunted if it trailed a bit further, the hyena turned tail to wait for another day.
President Muhammadu Buhari typifies the swinging arm of the hunter. For, no sooner had the gangling president stepped on the London soil for his vacation than the rumour mill came alive with the usual speculations about his health status. It was even rumoured that he was in such a bad state that he had to be helicoptered to the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, from where he was loaded into an air ambulance.

About 48 hours after his arrival in London, all manner of rumours began to bombard the cyber space that the president had passed on. The rumours became so constant that they were becoming believable. I could hear Governor Ayo Fayose of the tummy infrastructure fame and the chief death wisher, gloating: “Didn’t I say so… that the man won’t last the distance?”
The way the Presidency managed the rumours did not help matters at all. Recall that the late president, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua suffered the same fate. I did a piece elsewhere in 2009 entitled “The swinging arms of Yar’Adua” when his health condition began to worsen. The Villa then, as it is today, was too tight-lipped with information especially when the entire nation was on tenterhooks.

The hyena citizens had always wanted to believe what caught their fancy. No one could convince them, and they are in millions, that thunder does not strike twice in the same place. The late Yar’Adua was from the same state (Katsina) as Buhari. Yar’Adua was frail-looking and a gangler like Buhari. Yar’Adua had some health challenges while coming to power. Buhari too! But it is not all health challenges that lead to sudden death.
The question on the lips of Buharians is why the death wish for their hero? Here was a man who returned to power amidst popular votes. Majority of the Nigerian electorate even preferred to hug hell fire (as threatened by a high profile bishop) than return Goodluck Jonathan to the Villa.
Curiously, in less than two years into his tenure, the country is swarming with citizens wishing death for their president. When have they all keyed into the fall-down-and-die mantra of the Mountain of Fire and Miracles (MFM)?

I remember when the former president of Argentina, Cristina Kirchner was hospitalised for thyroid cancer in January, 2012. That was months after she was reelected to a second four-year term. Large pockets of prayer warriors converged on the hospital precincts not to wish her dead under the knife. No. They prayed for a successful operation and God answered their supplications. Their idol survived. It is a miracle to live after a knife has passed through the throat! Go to an abattoir and see what I mean. Those were people who loved their president and stood by her in her hour of need.

It is not so in Nigeria where its citizens are polarised along tribal, ethnic and religious lines. I am sure the collective anger of these hyena citizens is fuelled by the hard times precipitated by the economic recession, and the skirmishes propelled by herders’ incursions into some communities across the land. Not forgetting the current hate speech authored by some Christian clerics with the recent Southern Kaduna saga as their anchor. They feel Sai Baba is not doing enough to protect them and provide for them. Then there are those caught between the lethal jaws of anti-graft sharks like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Of course, this last category would not wish the shark tender well.

Also recall that towards the end of 2014, Dame Patience Jonathan, the ever gorgeous ex-First Lady, hovering between life and death, was ferried to Germany for an undisclosed ailment. As usual, the presidency desperately clothed the truth with lies, leaving death wishers to cook up all manner of speculations about her travails.
Consequently, her close associates believed the stories they heard. So, rather than pray for her, they wished her dead and went ahead to fiddle with some of her assets.

When General Sani Abacha died in 1998, only a few mourned him. Majority perceived him as a maximum dictator and rejoiced over his passage. Maryam Babangida, the most elegant First Lady till date, was hospitalised in Los Angeles for ovarian cancer. Weeks before her death in December 2009, the rumour mill ground out the news of her passage. An angry Maryam hit back and rained curses on the rumour millers… that they would sing their swan song before her. Even her spouse and former First Citizen, Ibrahim Babangida, has not been spared. The Maradona has become a ready grain for the mill. But the Master Dribbler has lived up to his moniker…he is still scoring goals at his Hilltop arena.

Back to the late Yar’Adua! Those who felt that he stole the 2007 presidential mandate from Gen. Muhammadu Buhari wished him dead. More so that the “mandate thief” himself admitted that the election that threw up his presidency was riddled with flaws.
It is reassuring to see the photograph of the president and his spouse taken in faraway London on the pages of some national dailies early this week. The smiles on their faces speak volumes about the former’s state of health. While we await his return to the country, let his arms swing on.