EVERYTHING is becoming possible as President Muhammadu Buhari staggers into the years that will seal memories of him in an eclipse of befuddlement. Buhari has pronounced inability to aspire to meaningful things. He is now everything and nothing, most recently Senior Special Adviser to bribe givers.
How did the President take such a dive from his flaunted averseness to bribery? What happened to his ambition to kill corruption before corruption killed Nigeria? Does he still do anything about corruption?
In the most fickle use of ad hominem, the President asked contractors not to offer him bribe. This too should be reckoned as one of his achievements, that in his sixth year, he advised contractors not to send cheques (bribes) to hm.
Presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu gushed, President Buhari has told government contractors, “I don’t want your cheques. Go and assist our communities. We don’t want cheques from anyone or organisation as returns or influence of any kind. Let them remember their Corporate Social Responsibilities.” Buhari spoke while visiting the Emir of Daura, Dr. Umar Faruk Umar, at his palace.
Were those attempting to bribe the President from Katsina? Specifically Daura? Was that why the unnamed bribe givers’ effrontery was tolerated? What did the President expect the Emir of Daura to do?
The President remembers them, knows them. They exist. They supposedly annoy him. He is telling the Emir who has no constitutional powers to arrest anyone, the same Emir whose domain has been under bandits’ siege.
Nobody is sending security agents to arrest those harassing the President with bribes. Are we to take this as another presidential confession about how bereft the President was of capacities to act unless when making distinctions between terrorists and bandits or defending the inalienable rights of marauding Fulani herdsmen?
“We are known for farming and I have my farm here. I could come every two weeks and no one can stop me. But the cost to the movement is high. I would rather want it to be used to better our schools, clinics, and hospitals,” the President said. He would claim ignorance of the fact that farmers in Katsina and many Nigerian communities had been deterred by dangers Fulani herdsmen pose.
Eager media platforms were awash with stories of the President’s peroration to notice the diversion of attention from insecurity that wrecks his native Katsina. He had nothing to say about it. He merely alluded to the high cost of presidential movements as the reason for him visiting Daura less frequently. “High cost of presidential movements” means insecurity. By implication the President admitted he would do nothing about insecurity in Katsina. We know where that leaves the rest of us.
The Emir of Daura joined the malarkey, “We have been blessed so much as a community because you are the leader of the country. As a community, we have benefited a lot with increased traffic of people and organisations coming to help us here. We know it’s because of you.” We can only guess if the guests bore cheques to “assist our communities”.
Buhari’s flagging popularity is supposed to profit from brazen attempts to rave the administration’s engine to its 2015 turbo-charged duplicity. The celerity with which the attempts collapse testifies to Buhari’s remarkable failure to stem Nigeria’s free fall into waves of unprecedented insecurity.
The best retorts to the security challenges are that they preceded Buhari and that sabotage is responsible for the President’s formidable failures. When the authorities speak with obtuse surrender to bandits who downed a military jet, sacked whole villages, installed their own administrations, they vapourise the Buhari myth to mere mist.
“Nigeria is lucky to have you at this time. If you had not been in power it would have been very difficult. I doubt if we will be here today,” the Emir said. When the Emir says, “I doubt if we will be here today,” we can interpret the Emir in various ways.
Like the Emir, we too debate where we would have been without Buhari. The Emir of Daura is lucky to have Buhari. Not many Nigerians belong to the lucky landscape of Buhari’s governance.
FINALLY…
.GOVERNOR Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai did something decisive about kidnapping in Kaduna State – he withdrew his son from school. If a powerful governor who can unleash security agents on protesting labour officials, pay herdsmen to buy peace, a podium candidate for President in 2023 cannot protect his son, what is his message for parents whose children are still in school?
.PEOPLES Democratic Party (PDP), should keep mute when it has nothing to say. Is President Buhari’s trip to London as disastrous for Nigeria as PDP legislators voting against electronic transmission of election results? When will PDP sanction its erring legislators?
.EMIR of Muri His Royal Highness Alhaji Abbas Njidda Tafida has given Bororo Fulani herdsmen who are killing his people and molesting the women a 30-day ultimatum to vacate the lush forests of Emirate that benefit from waters of River Benue. The major point in the ultimatum is that he has promised the marauders death if they do not leave. Did anyone hear the Presidency oppose the Emir’s order?
.TEN Nigerian Olympic athletes, out of 23 registered, were disqualified in Tokyo. Here is an apology from Athletic Federation of Nigeria, AFN. “The AFN bears responsibility for any lapses that may have occurred during the process and reassures Nigerians that our performances (at Tokyo Olympics) will not be negatively impacted”. Would AFN have wanted more athletes disqualified, or is it telling Nigerians a full squad would have made no difference?
.DEPUTY Commissioner of Police Abba Alhaji Kyari’s trials had been mainly in the media and dismissed as sour grapes. Public FBI documents on Hushpuppi have his name drenched generously on them. If we wait for the unsealed documents that would be public during Kyari’s trial, we would get a fuller picture.
.WHY is Pastor Tunde Bakare, owner of The Citadel Global Community Church, CGCC, formerly, The Latter Rain Assembly, End-Time Church, criticising President Buhari without accepting that a little circumspection would have led him and the crowd of “Buhari or nothing” to better decisions in 2015? We expect to hear the pastor more. The best of Buhari’s wandering is on the way.
.Isiguzo is a major commentator on minor issues
