When there is no shooting inside the Presidential Villa, involving the aides of the first lady (an office itself which is a subject of demystification of this administration and its head) and the presidency, there is the drama of the first lady versus members of President Muhammadu Buhari’s family.
Well, let me state here that Buhari is not the first president to be demystified. The gap-toothed one was demystified after he dribbled Nigerians. He must have forgotten where the goal post was, and the duration of the match. Then came the goggled-eyed spider, who continued to be magnanimous to Nigerians with ATM disbursement almost every year; he was demystified. We also saw the second coming of the Ota farmer; he promised he would bring to Nigeria the pounded yam machine. He was so demystified that his effort at elongating his tenure was a low moment for all he would have achieved.
There was the rule of lawman, he was too sick, often too far away in Jeddah and everywhere but his office and he did not last. Enter the Otueke fisherman. He was like the Ota farmer who had an opportunity to write his name in gold. But the lack of shoes was followed by a gross lack of grit, and he was tossed and turned by everyone. President Buhari had the mystery of making people ‘trek’ (how trekking or how market today). Nigeria has never been short of messiahs, but sadly they all fail, for one reason or the other, it seems our leaders are programmed to fail.
We had started heading that road when the cabal narrative started getting hot, when the one time SGF asked who was the presidency, and Aisha (the people’s first lady) revealed several strands of this presidency. It did not get better when we started spending more time with the dude who named his pet dog Buhari to court in the early days of Buhari to these days when a man over 60 was jailed a few months for airing his bitter opinion of events in Mr. President’s home state of Katsina.
You see, I love my president, I have full respect for his person and the office he occupies, but sadly emotions don’t rule, neither do sentiments govern. I am not in the school of thought that requires that security chiefs be sacked, but I believe that the buck stops at Mr. President’s table. I shiver at people that are quick to praise the president/governor/minister or party and yet cannot hold the same accountable for having failed in basic deliverables.
They said when Buhari was stoned in Maiduguri that it was a film trick, sadly it was a movie many of us saw coming. You don’t need a soothsayer to tell you the pattern, the road was there. Did we not stone Jonathan, the man who kept changing or adding name (Ebele) till he was demystified. Then last week it was Katsina, Buhari’s home. The president was not spared. This is the true situation, and I hope someone can tell the president this. I am not sure people hate him. At least I do not, and I can speak for myself. He also has done a few noble things that his predecessors lacked the will to do. However, he has failed in what really counts.
“By any standard of judgment, the leadership Buhari has failed the nation in the virtual area of improving security, poverty particularly in the north…and massive social security problems have worsened under his administration, the relationship between insecurity and poverty is fundamental but the administration does not appear to have any idea on what will provide relief and solution.”
The above were the words of Hakeem Baba-Ahmed speaking on behalf of the Northern Elders Forum. The North is bleeding, and her scholars are mute, her religious and traditional institutions are on silent leave, what is left of her elder statesmen are nowhere to be found. With these and mounting outrage on the state of insecurity, the presidency says that the group is paperweight, featherweight and insignificant.
A few of us have this feeling that Buhari was given a sick nation knowing that he lacked the capacity to and commitment for, and will to do right, which is why as we all bleed, the Oshiomoholes and Tinubus play politics and second guess about 2023 for a populace that many will die before the end of 2020.
So the forces chief are fighting each other, and not sharing intel, Aisha is threatening the IG of Police, Abike Dabire and minister something are fighting, the security personnel of madam first lady and the president are exchanging gunfire in the Villa, and Buhari did not hear. Malami, the attorney general, called the corruption czar a thief. The president’s party chief is being toyed with and his party in crisis, and we can only remember how Obj would have eaten pounded yam with those responsible.
I watched as a respected Islamic scholar shed tears on TV. He lamented how the world was at standstill for one soul, and yet Buhari is quiet as scores are killed…no water for these people, they are not given good roads, no hospital, no good food, they do not even have police stations, they are killed without fear or recourse to humanity. And I could not just seem to understand as I reflect where was the Buhari that cried pre-2015
Buhari, my beloved president, continues to express shock, his service chiefs continue to churn in reports and briefs, while Nigerians are killed. Many voted for him and said he was ‘Mai Gaskia’, sadly the record of lies told by this administration will take some effort in breaking, we were told that he was a former general so he understood the Boko Haram jungle warfare…we were sold the dummy of body language. But my friend, father and president is recorded as having stated that Nigerians are difficult, our youths lazy and more.
While Jonathan was voted out because he failed, Buhari has barely three years to do the unthinkable, which is to considerably bring change to the lives of Nigerians, and put a semblance of a smile on the faces of many Nigerians that have given up on you. Buhari, will you surprise us, and leave a legacy? Only time will tell.
