It usually starts with a barely noticeable spark, then it spreads quickly until it becomes uncontrollable. That is the nature of wildfires. That is also the nature of certain volatile newsbreaks. Managing such newsbreaks was my business for years and it doesn’t quite leave you. Like wildfires, the source is important and the trick is not to panic.
The death of former President Mohammadu Buhari was such a spark that quickly became a wildfire. Incidentally, I was in the home of another military man, a former member of the revered Supreme Military Council, when the news of his death broke. We were four guests sitting together. One picked up his phone, looked at a message and exclaimed ‘Buhari is dead’.
The other two exclaimed almost as loudly, causing people to look our way. I was in this instance, the silent one; the calm one. The one who instinctively picked his phone to verify. My first call was to a colleague and friend who had worked in the presidency and was unusually well informed about such newsbreaks. He had heard the news but hadn’t confirmed. Then I called a two-term Minister in Buhari’s government. He confirmed and offered more details. His last words to me were ‘the man can now rest. He has left the stage and people should now look for another whipping boy’.Â
I could sense loyalty and a bit of defiance in those words. But what was on the tip of my tongue as response were the words uttered by Mark Anthony at the graveside of Emperor Julius Caesar. Instead, I offered my condolences and dropped the phone. Yes, the evil that men do lives after them according to Mark Anthony, while the good is often interred with their bones. It was with Caesar, it will be with every mortal.
Besides, Buhari’s time as Head of State and President had such a profound impact on the lives of the people that it is difficult and even undesirable, to simply let him and what he represented – for good or ill- rest. Scrutiny of his legacy was what he signed for when he offered himself to lead the country, not once, but twice. The scrutiny will continue long after the emotional moments of the burial stages with their gratuitous eulogies are long gone. It is a lesson for those who are strutting on the stage today, that the days of reckoning would come sooner than later.
Would the indulgences and power drunkenness of the moment, be enough satisfaction against the verdict of history? While nobody lives forever, what we do with the chances we have will live long after us. What this two-term Minister and others like him who still remain loyal, can do is to try and control the narrative by pushing his achievements and strengths now that the eulogies are still coming. They should however remember that history never forgets. It might be distorted for a while, but it will right itself with time.
The strengths of the late President include his often touted spartan personal lifestyle and disdain for the accoutrements of wealth. They include his patriotism – ‘we have no other country but Nigeria, so we must salvage it together’. They include his alleged distaste for corruption in any form. Among those strengths must be his affinity for the poor masses – the ‘talakawas’ in the society and the reciprocal love they had for him.
These strengths formed the core of his appeal to many apolitical voters in 2015. I remember a friend, a lawyer, saying in 2015, that he would vote for him even if all he did were to tame corruption and enforce discipline in the country. Unfortunately, there are contradictions even in those strengths. His disdain for wealth did not apparently preclude people close to him from acquiring wealth however they can. His famed common touch didn’t include making the lives of the talakawas significantly better and can’t be reconciled with his preferred personal aloofness.
His distaste for corruption couldn’t stem the wave of corruption in the country, or even in his government. It probably grew even worse than the Jonathan era. But the greatest contradiction for a man who professed home grown solutions, and initially discouraged medical tourism as President, was to be found dead in a foreign hospital. It was an embarrassing, but not an unexpected situation, given the number of weeks he spent on medical treatment abroad while in office. He was the second President to die abroad. But from the look of things, he would not be the last since nobody at both the State and Federal levels, is prepared to lead by example by trusting what we have and investing in what we don’t have.
Of all the leaders we have had, Buhari had perhaps the best chance to stem medical tourism. Apart from his military background and the aura of a disciplined patriot, he was once a Governor, Minister of Petroleum, Chairman of PTF, Head of State, and a two term President. No single Nigerian has been that opportuned, and we await the verdict of history to tell us what he did with the chances God gave him. He also, coincidentally took ill during his first term in office as President in what should have been a wake-up call. It was a call he didn’t heed. It was a call his successor, who simply opted for another foreign capital, has not heeded.
My own verdict is that he was basically a decent person who meant well but didn’t have the focus or the capacity to see his dream through. History will note his decent initiatives in road, rail and power infrastructure. History will observe his respect for court judgements and his attempt to uphold the rule of law. History will acknowledge his several attempts to decimate Boko Haram terrorism. Just as history will not forget that the farmer/herder clashes took a turn for worse during his tenure. In his quest for power, he found himself among wolves in sheep clothing who succeeded in manipulating and compromising him due to his limitations.
Yes, he loved power; but in the old, feudal way. He was not a hands-on Manager. Neither did he seem to possess the mental acuity, the confidence and the courage to challenge the norm and thus truly lead his promised transformative agenda. The nicest thing one can say is that he should not have been the President of a complex country like Nigeria at the time he did. He left the country more fractured in more ways than one. He left the economy in a sorrier state than he met it. The simplest analogy I can think of is ‘the Peter’s Principle’ of being elevated to a level of incompetence.
Adieu, President Buhari. My condolences to those loved ones who will genuinely miss you.
The post Adieu Mohammadu Buhari: You came, you saw, and in your own way, conquered, by Muyiwa Adetiba appeared first on Vanguard News.
