Nigeria: The shattering of the Buhari mythology
Posted on August 4, 2016 by Moses E. Ochonu
The reality of leadership has exploded the illusion of Buhari’s
messianic abilities and exposed him as a prisoner of power – in other
words, as just another politician.
Has Buhari's image as an ascetic, no-nonsense figure been broken?
Credit: SaharaReporters.
Has Buhari lost his image as an ascetic, no-nonsense leader? Credit:
SaharaReporters.
Having been carried to the presidency on a wave of optimism last year,
President Muhammadu Buhari’s time in office has been characterised by
a trio of crises: an economy on the brink of recession; escalating
militancy in the Niger Delta; and worsening power supply.
As the economy has imploded, the only bright spots in Buhari’s first
15 months have been modest gains in the struggle against corruption
and the fight against Boko Haram.
[See: Boko Haram is not “defeated” but Buhari’s strategy is working]
The president took amidst a flurry of flamboyant promises, some of
them so fantastical and unnecessary that many wondered why Buhari
would wrap – and trap – himself in such unsustainable obligations.
Elections are about promises, but the now ruling All Progressives
Congress (APC) got caught up in its own rhetoric and refused, against
all economic indicators, to alter its pledges. As a result the party
came to power preoccupied with managing expectations instead of the
country.
The unpreparedness that plagued the early months of the Buhari
administration – exemplified by the fact it took seven months to name
a cabinet – reflected its inability to bear the weight of promises
made. And the sense of disillusionment that has now enveloped swathes
of Nigeria stems from this unnecessary self-burdening as well as the
government’s failure to articulate a compelling vision.
In the course of his short time in office, Buhari’s image as an
ascetic and empathetic figure has disappeared, and he has shown a
disturbing lack of initiative, creativity and new thinking in
government, belying his inspiring pre-election rhetoric.
In momentous elections last year, Nigerians voted the incumbent out of
power for the first time ever as millions enthusiastically put their
faith in Buhari to transform the country. But sadly, it seems that the
optimistic narrative about the former military leader and his first
stint of power in 1983-5 these voters were buying into was little more
than a myth.
[See: Not much magic: Nigeria’s Buhari completes his first year in office]
Broken promises
Buhari campaigned on a platform of ending waste and restoring probity,
efficiency, and transparency. But when opportunities have presented
themselves for him to underscore his professed opposition to the
profligacy of the 16-year rule of the now-opposition Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP), Buhari has failed to seize them.
To begin with, Buhari went back on his pledge to sell off some of the
ten aircraft that make up the presidential fleet. That reversal may
seem trivial, but it proved to be the start of a more brazen disregard
for promises made.
For a president whose calling card was transparency and personal
integrity, Buhari’s attempt to abandon his promise to publicly declare
his assets within his first hundred days in office was perplexing. The
president’s media team tried to disavow, dilute, and postpone the
promise before sustained public pressure forced him to fulfill it. Yet
the released document was a mere summary of his assets, not the
declaration form he had submitted to the Code of Conduct Bureau. His
reluctance and continued failure to make the full form public feeds a
perception that the president is insincere.
Earlier this year, this feeling deepened as bureaucrats and the
president’s own kitchen cabinet crafted a budget choked full of
scandalous allocations to the presidency, ministries and government
agencies, including hundreds of millions of Naira for a zoo in the
presidential palace and a vice-presidential library budget larger than
the library budgets of all but two federally funded higher
institutions. When the news broke, Buhari fumed and threatened to
punish those he claimed had “padded” the budget with extraneous and
unjustified items.
[See: Nigeria: Buhari’s 2016 budget continues use of secretive ‘security votes’]
But curiously, the presidency’s spokespeople defended the budget and
the punitive action never materialised. A few senior civil servants
were redeployed and the final budget still contained many questionable
allocations.
Recently, perceptions of the president’s commitment to the ideals on
which he ran for the presidency have been further undermined as two
illegal recruitment scandals have unfolded in quick succession: one at
the Central Bank, the other at the Federal Inland Revenue Service
(FIRS).
In both, prominent APC figures and government officials were accused
of using their influence to award positions to supporters without due
process. In the Central Bank scheme, the president’s own nephew was
among the beneficiaries. And in the FIRS scandal, a leaked list
contained several individuals linked to “Baba” and “Mama”, codenames
that the muckraking news website, Sahara Reporters, speculates refer
to the president and his wife.
Buhari has yet to refute this allegation, nor has he commented on the
allegations around fraudulent recruitment.
Meanwhile, the president’s chief-of-staff, Abba Kyari, has been
accused, along with other prominent officials, of blocking
investigations into the fraudulent affairs of Sahara Energy, a local
oil company reported to have skimmed billions of dollars off Nigeria’s
oil revenues. And the Chief of Army Staff, General Tukur Buratai, and
Minister of Internal Affairs, General Abdulrahman Danbazzau, have also
been implicated in scandals, with documentary evidence emerging of
them acquiring multi-million-dollar real estate well beyond their
legitimate incomes. The presidency continues to back them and has not
ordered an investigation.
Lost lustre
Along with this drip-drip of scandal and inexplicable inaction, Buhari
has added numerous broken promises in other areas.
During the campaign, the president vowed never to raise the price of
petrol, to revamp domestic oil refining capacity, and reduce the price
of fuel at the pump, an item upon which the price of everything else
hinges in Nigeria’s petrol-driven economy. Buhari also promised never
to devalue the naira, thumping his nose at pragmatic counsel that
argued the currency should not be artificially propped up at a time
when Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings had dwindled.
But the president has since broken both promises, raising the price of
petrol from N85 to N145 a litre, and allowing the Nigerian Central
Bank to float the Naira against major currencies. Inflation, which had
already eclipsed all projected baselines due to the government’s
restrictions on foreign exchange and arbitrary import restrictions,
has soared.
This eventuality was perhaps inevitable, but the question many are
asking is: why did Nigerians have to go through a year of painful
economic restrictions, stagnation and inflation only for the
government to embrace the pragmatic path of currency devaluation it
earlier rejected?
This unexplained U-turn reeks of confusion, indecision, and
experimentation on the part of the government. Nigeria seems to have
become one giant economic laboratory where Buhari and his economic
managers are lurching awkwardly from one idea to another in the hope
that one of them works – all at the expense of a Nigerian people
increasingly impoverished in an environment of policy uncertainty and
outmoded economic measures.
As a candidate for the presidency, Buhari was renowned for his ascetic
lifestyle and austere simplicity. But as president, this image is in
peril too. Despite his pledge to put an end to health tourism, he
recently spent (as the presidency confirmed) £6 million ($8 million)
of Nigeria’s money at a time of revenue squeeze to treat an ear
infection in London.
>From the heights of modesty, Buhari has descended into self-indulgence
and now resembles an ostentatious stereotype of the self-absorbed
African autocrat. When he returns from his overseas trips, he is
welcomed back to the country with elaborate and expensive airport
ceremonies complete with military parades, Scottish kilts, and
bagpipes that remind one of Idi Amin’s outlandish neo-imperial
buffoonery. No one thought that we would be seeing this re-enactment
in 2016, let alone by a president with a reputation for being a simple
man of the masses.
In his election campaign, Buhari also presented a conciliatory, even
self-deprecatory, demeanour. Yet this image as an avuncular and wise
statesman has been undone by his blustery, self-righteous anger in
office, as he has taken a law-and-order, take-no-prisoners approach to
all problems – even those requiring tact and negotiating acumen.
When the Nigerian army massacred hundreds of Shiites in Zaria, the
president waxed belligerent and blamed the victims for creating “a
state within a state”, provoking the army, and bringing calamity upon
themselves. It took Buhari several weeks after the Agatu massacre in
March to issue, through his media team, a tepid statement devoid of
compassion. And his only response to date to the killing of unarmed
Biafra agitators by the armed forces was to dismiss their agitation
without even a word about the impropriety of confronting unarmed
demonstrators with maximum military force.
Furthermore, before Niger Delta militants demonstrated their
sophisticated ability to destroy surface, subterranean, and underwater
oil pipelines, the president was threatening a scorched earth response
to their renewed insurgency and ordering a military invasion of
communities suspected to be harbouring the militants.
Buhari and the Murtala mythology
In The Trouble with Nigeria, Chinua Achebe’s little analytical book on
Nigeria’s socioeconomic and political dysfunction, the great author
writes about Murtala Mohammed, Nigeria’s military ruler in the
mid-1970s who was assassinated only six months into his regime. By
time of his demise, Achebe contends, the messianic aura that once
surrounded Murtala had already begun to wane, but the late leader was,
to quote commentator Chris Ngwodo, “immortalized by an early death or
saved by martyrdom from eventual odium.”
Murtala, according to Achebe, did not live long enough to commit the
inevitable errors of military men who try to manage a complex society
with a regimented military philosophy. Instead, he suggests that
Murtala’s premature death elevated him to a mythical status,
generating a rarely-challenged or scrutinised nostalgia that
fetishised his tough, anti-corruption stance.
Like Murtala, Buhari ruled only for a short time in his first stint in
power from 1983-5, during which he made some errors common to military
leaders. But he did not rule long enough to fully prove himself either
competent or incompetent and for the full effect of his draconian
policies to manifest. As a result, even though some celebrated his
ouster, many others were ambivalent and yearned for the order and
discipline – real and imagined – that Buhari’s military regime brought
after years of chaotic civilian rule.
This feeling intensified during the corrupt regime of Ibrahim
Babangida, Buhari’s successor, as some Nigerians who had hated being
corralled and infantalised by Buhari’s soldiers and policies came to
believe that a strong man might be what Nigeria needed after all.
Buhari was reimagined in the public consciousness, his regime
mythologised as a rare period of competent governance, and as time
passed, many began to wonder aloud what Nigeria would be like if
Buhari’s military regime had not been overthrown. Perhaps, some
suggested, Nigeria would be another South Korea and corruption would
be a thing of the past.
An elastic myth of counterfactual assumptions was born around the
military man. And this myth, which papered over his misdeeds and
deficiencies, grew further as Nigeria continued to struggle, including
from 1999 to 2015 as the PDP frittered away the country’s resources.
Goodluck Jonathan’s misrule magnified Buhari’s mythical competence,
whitewashed his inadequacies, and finally enabled his victory in last
year’s elections.
With Buhari improvising aimlessly and looking confused and
ill-prepared in office, some supporters are now saying that it would
have perhaps been better if he had never won. That, they argue, would
have preserved the myth of his competence, which is now unravelling.
It would have enabled him to remain the philosopher and custodian of
political morality they imagined him to be, a transcendental figure
unmoored to and above the messy contestations of politics and the
complicated art of governance that he has failed to master.
These disheartened individuals lament the fact that political
exigencies, the intricacies of power, and elite manipulations have
soiled Buhari’s reputation, exploded the illusion of his messianic
abilities, and exposed him as a prisoner of power – in other words, as
just another politician.
For if his second stint in power has proven anything so far, it is
that. If Buhari has done well in combating Boko Haram and corruption,
however incomplete and imperfect these efforts are, his record on the
economy overshadows all else.
After little more than a year, the wondrous myths around Buhari and
his first spell in office have been shattered. In their place,
realisations about his economic rigidity and lack of thoughtful
policymaking – then as now – are re-emerging.
Moses E. Ochonu is Professor of African History at Vanderbilt University, US.
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5 thoughts on “Nigeria: The shattering of the Buhari mythology”
Monte McMurchy says:
August 4, 2016 at 8:22 pm
Power is a drug akin to an aphrodisiac requiring greater and
greater doses of deference in terms of emoluments and plumage denoting
high public office. The acclaimed American writer and political public
biographer Robert Caro with pithy astringent elegance stated “power
reveals”. President Buhari, it appears from his lacklustre performance
in governance administration has succumbed to this addictive
narcotized nature inherent in power governance. President Buhari
including his team need to understand that high public office is
service to the people where all emotional and political capital in
order to ‘do least harm’ in contributing to the national civic civil
social prescriptive calculus is expended.
Ayuba says:
August 5, 2016 at 6:33 am
Great write up. You forgot to mention the following :
1. Aisha Buhari’s penchant for luxury gooda. I’m her current visit
to America she was spotted carrying a 200k use Hermes alligator bag.
2. The destruction of INEC. Since he took over, INEC has swam from
one controversy to another.
3. He is the most nepotic president in our history. Has
perpetuated his relatives in several arms of government
Austin says:
August 5, 2016 at 12:12 pm
Fine write-up Prof.
Buhari has frittered away most if the goodwill that his ascetic
image generated for him before gaining office. Yes the economy was a
time-bomb primed before his arrival, but his – and I dread to use this
term-clulessness 15 months into his tenure in charting a clear path to
for the economy y has been his greatest undoing.
His refusal to dispense of his 12 chariots-read aircraft- plus all
the unkempt campaign promises reveal him and the ruling APC to be
hypocrites of their own BS.
Richard Matthews says:
August 5, 2016 at 1:00 pm
This piece- timely, factual and engaging- represents the true
picture of the country Nigeria since 29th May, 2015. Personally, I
think it has been attenuated to an extent, as Nigeria’s current state
is more dismal than it is captured above.
However, if the writer- a Professor of History- would be a bit
more circumspect with the above, he would agree that President’s
Buhari’s second coming is no different from his first coming. It
behoves the question: was history and logical reasoning discarded in
last year’s Presidential elections? why was it discarded? Was it
pragmatic to elect someone who has zero competence in leadership, over
the many other more competent choices?
What was the rational used in making this now atrocious and
regrettable decision in Nigeria?
The President, in my opinion, will go to spend at least an extra 7
years in power. Yes. Anyone that knows Nigeria and is honest enough to
see through the repeated inconclusiveness of the current INEC setup,
should know that the President will somehow ‘win’ a second term. It is
important to examine the reasons behind the terrible choice made in
2015 and, if Nigerians are humble enough, accept the failures in
decision-making in order to ensure that this does not repeat itself
again.
Ade Oremosu says:
August 5, 2016 at 2:06 pm
Ayuba’s comments are on point. Ochonu’s well-written piece
inexplicably excludes some of the more obvious failings of the
administration- the blatant nepotism, the mini-Imelda Marcos of a
first lady, and destruction of the political infrastructure. The
entire state is oozing with political mis- and malfeasance -from the
senate leadership to the entire ranks of legislature and several state
governments. Hardly the picture of probity the Nigerian electorate
clamored for!
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