Buhari: Drowning in indifference

PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari’s aides like to defend their man to the hilt. They say he is the perfect embodiment of care and introspection. They remind us at every turn that thoughts of the welfare of the average Nigerian occupy his waking hours and keep him up at night. They take offence when critics accuse the president of being aloof and distant. The problem for the president’s aides is that their boss is constantly proving his critics right. The latest proof is his unfortunate and ill-advised decision to travel to Seoul, South Korea, to participate in the World Health Organization (WHO)-organised First World Bio Summit and meet separately with Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol. We do not doubt the importance of the summit, which is aimed at the strengthening of African countries’ capacity to manufacture vaccines on the continent. Nor are we judging the president for putting his health first, though we hasten to underscore his unseemly knack for touring foreign medical institutions when Nigerian hospitals and medical infrastructure are clearly ailing.

The latest proof is his unfortunate and ill-advised decision to travel to Seoul, South Korea, to participate in the World Health Organization (WHO)-organised First World Bio Summit and meet separately with Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol. We do not doubt the importance of the summit, which is aimed at the strengthening of African countries’ capacity to manufacture vaccines on the continent. Nor are we judging the president for putting his health first, though we hasten to underscore his unseemly knack for touring foreign medical institutions when Nigerian hospitals and medical infrastructure are clearly ailing.

What we object to is the president’s indifference. In case the president and his aides have been too busy arranging their flights to Seoul to notice, various parts of the country are currently enduring what experts agree are the worst floods in a decade. Across 33 of the country’s 36 states, an estimated 600 people have lost their lives, while more than 70,000 hectares of farmlands have been destroyed. As we speak, nearly two million Nigerians have been dislocated, and uncertainty continues to mount in places where rising tides threaten to destroy everything that people have laboured to build. And in the middle of this grim situation, what does our president, the one that aides assure us is the epitome of fellow feeling, do? This is what he does: he gives the Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Hussein Adamu, a 90-day ultimatum to coordinate with his counterparts in the Environment and Transportation ministries to “develop a comprehensive plan of action for flood disaster prevention.”

Very well. But this is what, crucially, the president does not do: he does not, as is the practice in saner climes, put on his jacket and visit any of the places where the floods have done the most damage to commiserate with those who have lost loved ones. No, our president is too busy for that. He has a flight to Seoul, and he must catch it. Thirty-three out of 36 states are under water, and our caring President Buhari does not deign to visit just one.

For Buhari watchers, none of this will come as a surprise. For most of his perceived disastrous presidency, the country’s first citizen has been all talk and no action. Yet, even for a president from whom Nigerians have learnt to expect very little, the latest spectacle of abdication is particularly callous. It requires no effort to visit and commiserate with people who have been struck by a natural disaster. That Buhari is incapable of even the most minimal symbolic performance is an all-time low for an administration that is not particularly teeming with highs. All the governors who abandoned their states and agreed to be on the president’s entourage for this ill-conceived trip should bury their heads in shame. Indeed, most of the state governors have serious questions to answer about how they have deployed Ecological Funds even as agencies like the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) have been trying to provide relief for flood victims within their limited scope.

Instructively, President Buhari’s indifference contrasts sharply with the heed and alertness of the leading presidential candidates. Calling for swift federal intervention and indeed the temporary suspension of campaigns by the leading presidential candidates, the Labour Party standard- bearer, Obi, visited Taraba State to sympathise with the flood victims. Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) visited Bayelsa State and donated the sum of N50 million to the victims. Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) did the same thing in Jigawa State. Ordinarily, we would encourage President Buhari to borrow a leaf from those who are angling to succeed him; but the truth of the matter is that we are tired of advising the president since ours and the desperate pleas of Nigerians have unfailingly fallen on deaf ears.

Instead, we’ll leave the president with a parting shot, just in case he can hear us above the din of bootlickers who are doting on him and assuring him that he is the best thing to have ever happened to the country: Mr. President, your advisers are lying to you. Nigerians are desperate for your leadership to see them and be concerned with and attend to their problems, and tired of being ignored. They want you to stop junketing and start performing the tasks you solemnly swore an oath to perform if only for the remaining part of your tenure.

Dear Mr. President, will you heed them?