President Buhari’s fear of posterity

Suddenly, President Muhammadu Buhari has become seriously interested in his legacy and Nigerians’ post-presidency perception of him.

His Senior Special Assistant for Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, last Tuesday issued a statement to the effect that the president’s legacy could not be rubbished by the political elite, who, he said, were eagerly awaiting the president’s exit from office so that they could return to the “good old days.”

According to the presidential aide in the statement, “Even though the President will stand down after the election of a successor next year – whether that successor lives up to the exacting standards and example he has set or not – his legacy is strong and will be peculiarly tough to dismantle.”  Shehu then went on to reel out what he considered the president’s legacy; courts that hold those before it fairly and properly accountable – regardless of their wealth or lack of it; the successful repatriation of stolen funds from decades of export abroad and its use to fund social, unemployment, and welfare programmes for the poorest; reforms that have taken the steam out of centuries-long ethnic and tribal disputes – such as the farmer-herder clashes – long used to stoke ethnic and regional tensions by venial politicians for political advantage; and the protection of millions through an effective vaccine roll-out programme.

Similarly, during his state visit to Kaduna on Thursday, President Buhari urged Nigerians to be fair in their assessment of his administration’s achievements, pleading with them to base their assessment on the campaign promises he made ahead of the 2015 elections.

In 2015 when President Muhammadu Buhari assumed office, the year 2023 looked like eternity away. Then, it appeared as if the president would be in the saddle forever. But by January 2022, the President’s exit date of May 29, 2023 is so close that it cannot be wished away. So, the President is coming to terms with the fact that his tenancy of the State House will soon expire and he has to vacate his high office for another person. He is also conscious of the fact that leaving office will make him vulnerable to all manner of attacks and criticisms without the benefit of the state apparatuses to shield him from such attacks. So, he is now concerned about how Nigerians will perceive him after his imminent exit from office and worried about how they will assess his performance. President Buhari is concerned about whether Nigerians will praise or rail at him, adore or ignore him. He is bothered about whether they will rank him with the late Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello, or compare him with the late head of state, General Sani Abacha.   Consequently, it appears the president is determined to invest the remainder of his tenure in developing a positive narrative for him administration.

President Buhari’s reaction to the inevitability of his exit from office is captured by what psychologists term Terror Management Theory. The theory, propounded by Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon and Tom Pyszczynski, says most people develop a self-preservation instinct when the imminence of death dawns on them. This, the theorists claim, produces a conflict, which is managed through a combination of escapism and cultural beliefs that act to counter biological reality with more significant and enduring forms of meaning and value. With this, the people begin to redefine their priorities and begin to focus on activities that can increase their relevance and worth in the estimation of others.

That is what happened to Alfred Nobel, the founder of Nobel Prizes.

Nobel was an accomplished chemist and engineer, who had invented the dynamite, a safer and easier means of harnessing the explosive power of nitroglycerin. The dynamite became popular worldwide for mining and infrastructure development. It also earned the inventor a huge fortune. In 1888, Alfred Nobel’s younger brother, Ludwig, died. But a newspaper mistook Nobel’s younger brother for him and wrote a harsh obituary where Nobel, who was also involved in the sale of weapons of war, was pilloried and dubbed as the “Tradesman of Death.” He was aghast and deeply troubled by what would be his legacy should he die at that moment. It was his moment of epiphany. So, he decided to deploy his huge fortune to fund a prize to recognize those who had “conferred the greatest benefit to mankind.” That began the change of Nobel’s reputation and legacy. He deliberately took steps that resulted in his transformation from the abhorred to the adored.

So, rather than continually worrying his head about Nigerians’ post-presidency perception of him, President Buhari should focus on what he can do now to erase, as much as possible, the negative impression the people have of him. He still has sixteen months to worm himself into the hearts of Nigerians by doing all he can to improve life and living for them. President Buhari should make use of the opportunity to create the kind of memory he wants to etch in the hearts of Nigerians.

Legacy is not legislated, it is not decreed, it is not donated, it is not dreamed. It is made, it is earned. If President Buhari wants posterity to be kind to him, he still has the chance to work for its achievement. Let him travel to the future to see how he wants to be remembered and what he has to do to create that kind of memory and come back to the present to begin to work towards it. It is not much of hard work; all he needs to do is scale down insecurity, scale down unemployment, scale down poverty and scale down nepotism. That is his visa to greatness.

Great legacy does not come cheap, that is why not everyone can have it.