Since his suspension from office on Wednesday, Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Babachir Lawal’s epochal press interview in the twilight of his stay in the Aso Villa has been subjected to very rigorous semantic, syntactical and even situational analyses by Nigerians, as a way forward for them in this grope in the dark about the current running of Nigerian governmental operations. The truth is that, in virtually all Third World countries, the corridors of power are always synonymous with a Jewish sacristy where the Yahweh-ordained Prophet alone and perhaps a few of his anointed ones visit and who only know what operates within it.
Babachir’s statement might sound off-the-cuff, effusions from a frustrated man who had just kissed bye (at least for now) a job that is a key to power, glory and unaccountable wealth. We all know that in Nigeria, nay Africa, government offices are like openings to the vaults of wealth where there is no distinction between private and public purses. Those in the offices are also, by that very fact, owners and wielders of some raw powers that give them passports to ride rough-shod on the rest of the collective. So when Babachir left that office on Wednesday, it would appear that he was leaving life because, that office, in the equation of power and glory in Nigeria, is a sine qua non of life.
Sorry, I digressed. Many analysts have sought to decode what was atop Babachir’s mind as he granted that press interview. According to journalists at the Villa, immediately after leaving the office of the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, he had reportedly quipped, in answer to a question on his suspension, “who announced it?” When answered that it was the Presidency, he had answered, “Then ask them. Why are you asking me? Who is the Presidency?” Also asked if he had been informed of the suspension, he had answered “By who? About what?..” and further, had said, “I have not seen it. I should have been given… I have not seen the press release so I cannot comment on it.”
Curious to know whether this terse press interview could offer a window into the nocturnal dealings in Aso Rock since President Muhammadu Buhari assumed the reins of office, the Babachir interview has really received many interpretations. Was it that Babachir was not aware that there was a presidency to which all Nigerians tremble at its feet? Could it be that he scoffed at the myth that we all have conjured about the almightiness of that presidency? Could it be that he meant that the presidency was comatose and we were just being fooled all this while? Could it be that he meant that he approximated the presidency? Could it be that he knew the state of health of the president and was cock sure that he could not have authorised that statement? Hypotheses, all through.
To be sure, the power play in the Buhari presidency has been a subject of speculations and analytical dissection since his assumption of office. The only time that a cabal held sway in the Villa was when late President Umaru Yar’Adua was in office. During military President Ibrahim Babangida’s regime, he controlled the levers of power like a panjandrum; so also General Sani Abacha. Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo had serious hold on power. It is also said, as part of the analyses, that even when he was military Head of State in 1984, Buhari shared the levers of power with General Tunde Idiagbon.
There are thus talks about two nodes of power that currently fight a survival-of-the-fittest battle for existence at the Villa. The first is said to be superintended over by the president’s “core” men from Katsina and the other is represented by the SGF. As in all the apparatuses of power, so many other government functionaries queue behind each of these power bases and do their obeisance there. The moment one power base liquidates the other, all its apparatuses and offshoots, most times collapse with the liquidated power base. Thus, if Babachir’s power sunset came that Wednesday, he and his power surrogates had thus been vanquished.
Even before the issue of the ailment which necessitated his vacation in the United Kingdom became a public issue, the rumour had always been that Buhari was beholden to these two loci of power. Since his return from the UK and since his health situation apparently started to keep him off the public radar, there have been intense speculations that the power levers were the ones administering government, according to their whims, on his behalf.
Could this be what Babachir was referring to? Even though he sounded diffident and arrogant about it, could it be that he was stating something like this, “I know that the president could not order that kind of statement attributed to him! We (the supposed presidency) know; including the other power locus, so who issued this statement? How come I was not shown the press release? It could not have been the president since we both know that he could not have issued it.”
This analysis has the potential to approximate the truth because the same President Buhari who was alleged to have suspended Babachir and ordered a probe into his activities, had earlier written to the Senate, clearing him of the same allegations of corruption. What then has happened between then and now?
These permutation and conjectures in the affairs of government that have become our lot as Nigerians could have been avoided if the runners of government had embraced openness in their affairs. What is the state of the health of the president?
and then