Buhari’s Daura lamentation

LAST week, President Muhammadu Buhari reflected on the challenges of his seven years in office, saying that the job had been tough and that he was eager to leave office.  According to a statement signed by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, the president made this disclosure while receiving some governors and legislators elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as well as party leaders at his residence in Daura, Katsina State. The president, who noted that the schedule of work was much, said that he had recently sympathised with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyema, who had to be away from his family most of the time. He claimed that relative to the resources available and compared to the last administration, his administration had done well in many areas, particularly in infrastructure development. The statement quoted the president as saying: “I am eager to go. I can tell you it has been tough. I am grateful to God that people appreciate the personal sacrifices we have been making. I wish the person who is coming after me the very best.”

To be sure, the job of a president anywhere in the world is a tough one. Among other things, a president is required to take hard decisions in the overall interest of the country even when widely criticised for doing so by citizens who do not see any merit in the actions. As national and global challenges mount, a president is required to be conversant with developments and firm in decision making. It is for this reason that the job is ordinarily not expected to be taken up by the faint-hearted, the academically and politically unsound, and individuals who just want to fulfill a personal fancy. That being the case, President Buhari saying that being president in the last seven years has been tough is nothing extraordinary. No one has suggested that the job is supposed to be a roller coaster or a picnic. But the issue of concern is the tone of resignation and despondency that underlies his declaration.

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The president sounded as if he had resigned to fate in the face of the pervasive insecurity and economic misery and despair that the majority of Nigerians have to battle with on a daily basis. He sounded as if he actually believed the fallacy that he had worked hard to lift Nigerians out of the appalling economic conditions in which they had been trapped for years. If the president is eager to leave office even before his tenure expires, he has the constitutional latitude to do so. But he can sincerely not expect sympathy or applause for what he has done so far; he cannot expect Nigerians to sincerely believe either that he has made huge sacrifices on their behalf or that he has bettered their lot and outshone his predecessors. With Nigeria being the global capital of poverty, out-of-school-children and poor electrification access, the president cannot realistically claim to have done anything significant to make it a better country. He came into office promising to address corruption, battle insecurity to a standstill and revamp the economy, but none of these goals has been met.

Nigeria is currently one of the most terrorised countries in the world and President Buhari’s administration has the dubious distinction of being the government under which the country’s entire security structure has virtually collapsed. Terrorists daring the military to do its worst have done almost everything they imagined to do. They have invaded Nigeria’s premier military institution, the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), the Nigerian Army University and military bases and formations doing maximum damage. And in a symbolic case of demystification of the aura and reverence around the office of the president, there was a burglary incident in Aso Villa where the president resides, and Nigerians till date have not been told what happened to the perpetrators.

The president’s Daura lamentation becomes even more ludicrous when the fact is taken into consideration that he was never conscripted for the job but went for it fully cognizant of what it entailed. He applied for the job five times and was voted in twice by the Nigerian electorate. That is why his lamentation, an indication that he is overwhelmed, is exasperating. It is dangerous for Nigerians because it means that in the face of the crisis in all sectors of the national life,  their president is going to fold his arms, waiting for May 29, 2023 when his tenure ends. It is a no-brainer that when as president you are in a state of departure, you will be ineffective and non-committal. But since this is not a time to throw in the towel, the country faces a dilemma. Buhari contested four times before winning election. Is he telling Nigerians that he was never prepared for the job? Did he not know what becoming president would entail before aspiring and campaigning many times for Nigerians to give him the chance to be their leader?

Truth be told, President Buhari’s lamentation about the rigours of his office and his eagerness to get out of office at the end of his tenure is one confirmation of the loss that his rule has been both to himself and to Nigerians. It would have been another thing entirely if the president could be said to have worked assiduously to improve the living conditions of Nigerians, in which case Nigerians would be grateful to him for the sacrifices he had made to that effect. But where Nigerians are also lamenting the deterioration in living conditions they have experienced under the Buhari government, it becomes interesting how they are expected to react to lamentations on the part of the president himself. Clearly, what this scenario tells us is that Nigerians have to be much more thorough in checking and assessing prospective aspirants for the coveted office of president.

All the same, we urge President Buhari to drop his current toga of lamentation and see if he could spend the remainder of his tenure to make a more positive effect on the living conditions of Nigerians. That would be splendid.