In 2017, Babachir Lawal, the then Secretary to the Government of the Federation, tried to educate Nigerians that there was nothing like “presidency” in human form.
He was briefing State House Correspondents after leaving the Presidential Villa Abuja after the announcement of his suspension.
Lawal was seen coming down from the office of the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa, Abuja minutes after a statement suspending him was released by the Presidency.
The then SGF, who was apparently reluctant to speak to journalists on sighting them kept on walking his way out of the Villa. But journalists followed suit and asked him if he was aware that he had been suspended by the presidency. He shot back: Who is the Presidency?
Many Nigerians have grown confused over the semantics- president and presidency. While president should be a personality and presidency an office, Abuja has created an impression that the two words mean exactly the same thing.
According to Wikipedia, a presidency is an administration or the executive, the collective administrative and governmental entity that exists around an office of president of a state or nation. President is the elected head of a republic.
Ordinarily, there should be no confusion whenever the two words are used, but in the Aso Rock Villa, they mean the same thing and they are used interchangeably.
In Nigeria today, the president can be said to be invisible. He speaks through a retinue of aides, who may have appropriated the role of the president, and the president seems not to be aware.
Today in Nigeria, the president is a big masquerade that does not come out anyhow. He speaks through mediums.
Unlike in other climes where presidents visit places where citizens are murdered or where there are some natural or human disasters that claim lives of citizens, here, the death of about 100 does not make the president to move. What moves in most cases is the presidency.
Over some past months the security situation has taken a turn for the worst. The tally of deaths arising from unprovoked attacks by herdsmen, Boko Haram and bandits has become mindboggling. The National Assembly has made some castrated moves to call the president’s attention, but to no avail.
Garba Shehu had pointedly told them that the president is too big an institution to be bullied.
Attempts also to summon him to the National Assembly only yielded the appearance of the presidency through Shehu.
Two weeks ago, when some senators wept on the floor of the upper legislative chamber on account of the bestiality going on across the country, some of them wanted the president to be dragged to the floor, but that was resisted.
At the lower chamber- House of Representatives- it was resolved that a security summit be held to enable the president attend to tell the world how he planned to rein in the monster. But again, the summit held Wednesday, the presidency was there without the president. He sent a representative- the Chief of Staff.
On February 15, 2021, while featuring on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme, Garba Shehu pointedly told Nigerians not to expect the president to address them. He said the presidency was doing its job very well. He said that Buhari is not a “showman”, but rather believes actions speak louder than voice.
He said: “When Femi Adesina or myself speak for the president, people should accept that it is the president that is speaking. For this president, it is the actions that should speak for him; he (Buhari) is not a showman, he doesn’t have to be here.”
Nigerians voted for a president, not a presidency, but most times, the presidency speaks before the president. The Nigerian people do not get to see the president who is holed up inside the Aso Rock fortress. They only see him whenever he is boarding a presidential jet to attend to one international meeting or the other, or to attend to his health in Europe.
He is never seen addressing a meeting in the real sense of it. Each time he has a meeting, he is always being shown walking into the venue of the meeting, but while Nigerians are preparing to hear him loud and clear addressing the audience, his picture is taken away. Only his utterances are fed to the people in a reported speech.
While Nigerians were wondering why the President did not attend the funeral of Ibrahim Attahiru, his chief of Army staff that died in the ill-fated flight last week, along other 10 other military officers, even though it took place in Abuja, the presidency spoke, saying that the president does not like “this idea of closing roads”, security men molesting people on the road, whenever he is out for an event outside Aso Rock.
The presidency (Garba Shehu) further said: “These are small things for many people but they are important for President Muhammadu Buhari. So, it is a mourning situation and the president didn’t want to take away attention from that.”
Last Monday, Presidency said that the plan by Southern governors to enforce the ban on open grazing was “questionable legality” and show of power. It was obvious that the president was not “aware” of that statement.
Following the reactions that greeted the release, the presidency chewed its words the following day, saying the president and the governors were on the same page on the matter.
It claimed that “The objectives of the Southern governors and the president are basically the same. The only difference is their approach. The president wants to see an end to open grazing, he wants to see ranching and he wants it in a way that is organised and he has a plan for it and his plan will take off in June.”
But Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State strongly believes that Shehu’s statement last Monday did not emanate from the president.
Akeredolu described Shehu as a messenger who works for an interest outside the Presidency.
“Anyone who has been following the utterances of this man, as well as his fellow travelers on the self-deluding, mendacious but potentially dangerous itinerary to anarchy, cannot but conclude that he works assiduously, for extraneous interests whose game plan stands at variance with the expectations of genuine lovers of peaceful coexistence among all the peoples whose ethnic extractions are indigenous to Nigeria,” Akeredolu said.
On the seeming confusion in Abuja over presidency and president, Tajudeen Yusuf (Kogi, PDP), a member of the House of Representatives, said: “When a nation is in crisis, the leader rises to the occasion. His words bring succor; his words bring direction; his words speak to certain situation that ordinarily will not refer to any other person. Garba Shehu is not the president of Nigeria. We are tired of hearing Garba Shehu. In situations like these, the president rises to speak to the people. On Covid alone, the president of Kenya speaks monthly to the people of Kenya; just on Covid. The president must come to terms with one reality- he is the president of Nigeria.”
A media organisation recently called out the President on a recent viral report that a helicopter was sighted in Niger State dropping off guns, food items and other materials to bandit. Up till now, the President has not responded to that. It decided to adopt its ostrich attitude as in other serious matters in the country.
“The recurring stories about helicopters making deliveries to criminals in the north demand the government’s attention. This year, President Muhammadu Buhari dramatically directed security operatives ‘to shoot anyone seen with dangerous weapons like AK-47, on sight, in as much as the person is not a security operative.’ If helicopters are delivering arms to bandits under the noses of security operatives, it makes nonsense of the president’s order.
“If, indeed, a helicopter was arrested for allegedly making deliveries to bandits, the government should provide illuminating details of the case without further delay. If there was no such arrest, the government should say so. The authorities shouldn’t fuel public speculation by their silence,” the publication said.
But the question remains, where is the President?
