The Kabiyesiness in the Buhari, Tinubu UK photo

There was this conversation between President Muhammadu Buhari and Al Jazeera television held in Quatar in March, 2016. That interview explains the imperialness, the Kabiyesi-ness in Buhari and his feudal reasoning which often clashes with the constitutional requirements of his office as president of Nigeria. It also rubbishes Nigerians’ hoopla against the president’s oft recourse to medical exile in the United Kingdom at the drop of a hat.

The conversation came at the height of a foreign exchange crisis that the Buhari government sank Nigeria into. Boldly, Martine had asked: “What about those who are slightly more privileged like yourself… You’ve got children studying abroad. There are parents in Nigeria with kids in universities and schools abroad, who are now facing the possibility of having to pull their kids out. They can actually no longer afford to pay for school fees?” And Buhari replied: “If the country cannot afford it, so be it.” Fazed by the scant human feeling in the reply and unsatisfied with the curt reply, Martine further pursued, cheekily: “But your children will continue their studies, no doubt?” Buhari then replied: “Those who can afford it can still afford it. But for those who can’t, Nigeria cannot afford to allocate foreign exchange for those who decided to train their children outside the country. We can’t just afford it.” Cheekily again, Martine blurted, “So it’s tough luck?” And the General’s last word, indicative of finality on that unconscionable questioning was, “Well, that’s the true situation we are in.” As if Martine was a seer, many Nigerian parents actually withdrew their wards from those foreign schools.

Apart from the feudal nature of the Daura where he grew up, Buhari was, for decades, a military man, nurtured on the maxim that might is right. Democracy and constitutionalism were alien constructs in the barracks. The military officer was always right and woe betides any subaltern who queried his judgment.

Last week, when that unsettling photograph of Buhari and All Progressives Congress (APC) National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, issued from their UK convalescent home, majestically colonized the social media space, like ants gradually constructing an anthill, Al Jazeera’s Martine Dennis constructed a profiling of Buhari in my mind. And simultaneously, three persons crept into my subconscious – New York’s departing governor, Andrew Cuomo; Helen Zille and ex-President Jacob Zuma of South Africa.

Why would Buhari and Tinubu choose to hibernate in a UK infirmary to look up their health at a time when Nigeria’s health, literally and figuratively, is gasping for breath? Why flaunt such sickening pictures of them seeking bailout from their own sicknesses, in the face of a sick Nigeria?

In its literal representation, Nigeria’s health sector is manifesting some sickening features. This is a time cholera is ravaging Nigerians, having unofficially killed about 700 people. The Delta variant of dreaded COVID-19 pandemic also seems to be ramping up enough energy to ferry more Nigerians to the morgue. Yet, about 19,000 medical doctors in Africa’s most populous nation are on strike, the fourth since the outbreak of the pandemic.

At its metaphoric best, Nigeria is sick at all levels, the most bothersome being the ailment that has afflicted its leadership. Nigerian leaders exhibit acute sickness of mind. That Buhari, who campaigned to be president on the promise of reforms of the collapse that has ripped through Nigeria’s public health architecture, was in London to straighten the rough edges of his own health, is the greatest indicator of a Nigeria that is sick. Nothing could be as sickening as the fact that, though Nigeria is footing the huge foreign exchange bill of his convalescence, Nigerians don’t know what ails President Buhari.

In a piece penned by Helen Zille, most of these issues were analyzed. Born Otta Helene Maree, Zille is a South African politician who served as Mayor of Cape Town from 2006 to 2009, among other positions. Written immediately South African ex-president, Jacob Zuma, was jailed, using the aid of personal acquaintance and in-depth examination, Zille analyzed how Zuma transitioned from a traditionalist to constitutionalist.

It was a forensic examination of Zuma. Zille beautifully explains the complexity of the dual circumstances of many African leaders. It explains why Buhari talked on top – apologies to General Ibrahim Babangida – of Nigerian parents in 2016 because of the majesty of his privileged position as Kabiyesi of Nigeria; it also explains his and Tinubu’s junkets to London for medical vacation, as against the ease of New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo’s resignation.

Now, you must have heard the very un-African story of Cuomo. Buffeted on all flanks by charges of serial harassments of women and violation of state laws, last week, Cuomo publicly announced that he would be “stepping aside” from his exalted position in a fortnight.

In Africa, kings don’t vacate their exalted monarchies as Cuomo did. A couple of months ago, a seismic scandal raged through Nigeria’s Ministry of Communications. You would think al-Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden or Boko Haram’s Shekau authored the blood-dripping statements attributed to Pantami. In a speech he delivered in 2006, Cleric Pantami publicly offered condolences to the “Islamic world” on the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda’s Iraq leader. In another audio clip denouncing Nigerian army’s relentless war against Boko Haram, tearfully and passionately, Pantami mourned decimated insurgents who he described as “our Muslim brothers” being “killed like pigs.” Hot lava volcanic calls for his removal whooshed all over the Nigerian firmament. But not to worry, in Nigeria, chiefs in a monarchy cannot be disgraced out of the palace by common, ordinary citizens. Anyway, not to worry. Presidency’s most voluble legman, Garba Shehu, has cleared the airs. President Buhari “stands behind Minister Pantami,” he said. And Pantami lives happily ever thereafter.

Labeled one of Africa’s most corrupt leaders, Zuma couldn’t connect with why there should be hoopla that he was spending “his” money as president of South Africa. Doesn’t Misuzulu Sinqobile kaZwelithini, King of the Zulu nation, oldest surviving son of King Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu and his Great Wife, Queen Mantfombi Dlamini, spend the Zulu nation money the way he wanted?

Nepotism, favouritism, cronyism which western democracy and constitutionalism frown at, are the linings that underpin the African feudal society. An ancient Yoruba wise-saying, rather than excoriate judicial favouritism, tepidly justifies it in its saying that if one doesn’t have a representative in a decision-making conclave, even if he is right, he would come out wrong –  b’eyan o l’eni ni’gbimo, bo ro’jo are, ebi lo ma je. So when Buhari stuffs national appointments to the brim with his Hausa/Fulani people, he is merely behaving true to type of a typical African feudal leader.

Attitude of Nigerians and their leaders to corruption also mirrors this irreconciliation of where we are and where we are coming from. Professor Peter Ekeh’s Colonialism and the two publics in Africa does much justice to this dissonance. While the two publics – private and public – are similar in the west’s, they are not available in post-colonial Africa. Morality, which is the foundation of the two realms in western world, is absent in Africa as well. We have our different standards of morality which reflects in our government and politics.

Now, if the above was tragic, it cannot be as tragic as the partisanship the photographs of Buhari and Tinubu on medical exile in the UK generated. Analyzed based on political party, religion and regional divides, the impression I got from their analyses on social media was “long live the king!” Yes, Tinubu isn’t occupying any government office but that is the man many Nigerians have stupidly asked to be their president after the calamity of Buhari must have ended.

Absent from all the analyses above is the complicity of every one of us in the kinds of leaders we get to rule us. Our situation is akin to a man who puts a heavy load on a knock-kneed carrier who Yoruba call the amunkun, and who wants the load to be balanced. It is not possible. If we want good governance, we must insist on good people. Not only must we insist on good leaders, we ourselves must begin to defrost our minds of the feudal, “long reign the king” mentality that encrusts them. The road to good Nigeria cannot be one laced with the contours of party partisanship, religious bigotry and executive oraisa (“All right, sir!,” lingo of miscreants) that we flaunt on our leaders.

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