Nigeria’s presidency is harder than bricklaying, grave digging jobs

Two headlines caught my fancy. “It is a thinking job not bricklaying, says Tinubu on fitness for presidency”, by the Cable, an online news platform and, “I Am Not Sick, I Only Repaired My Knee —Tinubu”, as reported by Saturday Tribune of February 2, 2022 on page five. Both reports referred to the Friday, February 24, 2022 statement made by Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a 2023 presidential hopeful on the platform of the APC. Tinubu was credited to have uttered the words while speaking at the palace of the Ataoja of Osogbo, in continuation of his campaign for the presidency in next year’s general election.

Apparently miffed by the torrents of questions being thrown at his state of health, especially, after he cut short his nationwide tour, some weeks ago and jetted out to the United Kingdom, Tinubu, whose mission to the UK was not immediately known to the public, came back to meet an incredulous public which has not ceased to interrogate his fitness, health wise to seek Nigerians’ votes for the 2023 presidency. The man who was quoted recently to have described himself as a kingmaker, had no choice, while in Osogbo, than to explain how healthy he is for the job for which he is seeking the people’s mandate.

In the attempt to convince the public that he is fit as a fiddle, Tinubu, drew an analogy of the physical strength needed for  bricklayers and grave diggers to do their work and the strength a Nigerian president requires to perform the functions of the office of the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces. “I have the brain and capacity. You hear them saying ‘can he do it?’ I am not sick. I only repaired my knee. I am not applying for the job of a gravedigger or a race runner; I am not a horse. I am not applying for the job of a bricklayer”, was how Saturday Tribune reported the APC presidential hopeful. The Cable quoted Tinubu, speaking on the same issue thus: “I am not applying for the job of bricklaying or grave digging. I am applying for a thinking job and I will do it right…”. There is no question about the fact that the two media platforms reported the same thing. The essence of the message is that Tinubu is saying that being the president of Nigeria requires more of the mental faculty of the occupant, while the physical fitness of the president is very immaterial, puny and of no consequence. I beg to disagree. And very strongly too.

The APC presidential aspirant, going by his definitions of what constitutes “sickness” or “illness”, has a very wrong or limited, or both, definition of the concept of sound health. The WHO, the agency the entire globe relies on to speak on health issues, defines health thus: “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” The health agency added that the import of its definition above is that “mental health is more than just the absence of mental disorders or disabilities.” The Canadian Mental Health Association, in a 2004 paper titled: “Connection Between Mental and Physical Health,” having subscribed to the WHO’s definition of health, states three associations between mental and physical health. The third of the associations, which says: “People with chronic physical conditions are at risk of developing poor mental health,” is more relevant to this present discourse. The paper is emphatic, when it posits that: “the social determinants of health impact both chronic physical conditions and mental health.”

In another related expert position, the ‘Mental Health Foundation,’ in a February 18, 2022 report, states again: “We often think our mind and our body as separate, but our mental health and physical health are interconnected. Physical health problems significantly increase the risk of developing mental health problems and vice versa. Nearly one in three people with long-term physical health conditions also has a mental health problem, mostly depression or anxiety.”

I add yet another expert opinion. Dan Brennan of WebMD, a health publication, in a March 29, 2021 contribution states: “Although the mind and body are often viewed as being separate, mental and physical health are actually closely related. Good mental health can positively affect your physical health. In return, poor mental health can negatively affect your physical health.” This again proves that for a man to be adjudged as properly fit for a position, such as Tinubu seeks to occupy, such a man must be in good health conditions: physically and mentally. You cannot leave one for the other and that is the point Tinubu missed in his Ataoja palace statement when he tried to convince us that he does not have to be physically strong like a bricklayer or a grave digger to be our president come 2023.

Talking about bricklaying and grave digging, I make no bones pointing it out here that those skilled trades, in addition to their physical strength requirements, also require sound mental faculties. We have cases of collapsed buildings nowadays because the modern day civil engineers (an advanced euphemism for bricklayers), lack the requisite mental health and capacity. No bricklayer worth his salt will see an approval for a 15-storey structure and agree to go as far as 21-storey. The grave diggers don’t use any measuring instrument before giving the deceased their required ‘six feet.’ You can only do that if you are mentally sound and stable. Most buildings in the hinterlands are the handiworks of local bricklayers, who gave our fathers such wonderful architectural symbols, without going to any school. They used ordinary mud and the buildings are still standing. Those are men who are physically fit and mentally sound. Truth is that with the state of things in Nigeria today, the one who will lead us in 2023 needs more than the strength of a bricklayer and a grave digger, combined; he needs, in addition, the physical strength of a carpenter, a blacksmith and a firewood hewer!

The only beautiful thing about Tinubu’s explanation about his health in Osogbo, last Friday, in my own understanding, is the fact that he admitted, in whatever manner, that he has physical challenges. His “I am not sick. I only repaired my knee” comment is enough evidence to say that something is wrong somewhere. You only “repair” a knee when it is bad, the same way one repairs his bicycle wheel when it has issues. What is in sound health (physical or mental) does not need any “repair.” At least we now know one aspect of his physical being that requires repair(s). But how often he will be doing that, we don’t know. How long he has been having a knee that requires “repair” we equally don’t know. Should we worry about the “how often and the how long”?  I answer in the affirmative.  Tinubu seeks to be our president. He owes us the obligation to tell us how long his knee has been bad and how frequently the bad knee will be needing repairs. He cannot afford to hide his actual health issues and, or challenges, from the public. Doing so will be tantamount to selling us what my people call “oja okunkun”—items sold in the dark, or dark market. The ‘Mental Health Foundation’ February 18, 2022 report quoted earlier states: “Nearly one in three people with long-term physical health conditions also has a mental health problem, mostly depression or anxiety.” We therefore need to know how long Tinubu has been with his knee issue, so that we can decide now if Nigerians should trust him with the presidency or not.

Nigeria has had the misfortune of having leaders who are mentally, physically and psychologically invalid. If Tinubu thinks that his knee “repair” issue has nothing to do with his mental capability, I think he will be absolutely wrong. Evidence abound to show that whatever physical challenge, knee or whatever, he has, is already telling on his mental accuracy. For instance, early January 2022, while addressing some women leaders who paid him a visit in Abuja, Tinubu said: “In case they do not announce to you on time, the PVC you have has expired.” Watch the video of the event; he could not even stand up to address the gathering. And hours later, his handler came calling with his apologies, telling us that “he mistakenly used the word expired.” Earlier, on March 29, 2021, at his birthday bash in Kano, the same Tinubu asked President Muhammadu Buhari to “recruit 50 million youths into the army” to fight insurgents, and provided the food the new recruits would eat as: “what they will eat —cassava, corn, yam, will grow here.” Look for the video and watch. Tinubu experienced inter-sentential pauses before he could complete the statements. By the following day, March 30, 2021, a statement came from him saying that the figure he mentioned was “five million” and not 50 million. If these are not obvious signs of a fatigued mental capacity, what are they? Argue that I am not a physiologist to conclude. No issue. My people say: “Ai sode ri ko ni ki nma mo ese ko lo nihin”- that I am not a hunter does not mean that I cannot recognise that no animal passes through this path.

Our nation has suffered enough such that we cannot afford to toy with the idea of a leader that is not holistically fit for the number one job. This is not applicable only to Tinubu, but to anyone who seeks to lead us in 2023. The mental, physical and psychological wellbeing of such an individual cannot be compromised. From the misfortune of the sanctimonious tendencies of Olusegun Obasanjo, to the trauma of a debilitated Musa Yar’ Adua; from the languid presidency of Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, to the anaesthesised leadership of Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria will be doomed if the only option left for the job in 2023 is a valetudinarian. Are we that cursed!

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