President
Muhammadu Buhari’s strategists, if they are at work at all, are chasing
ants and ignoring the elephant in the room. They do him great
disservice. Their oversight is hubristically determined either by
incapacity or a vendetta-induced distraction. It is time they changed
the game and the narrative; time they woke up.
It’s been more than 15 months since the
incumbent assumed office as president, but his handlers have been
projecting him as if he is a Umaru Musa Yar’Adua or a Goodluck Ebele
Jonathan, first time presidents who could afford the luxury of a
learning period before settling down to the job, and who in addition
must prove themselves to earn necessary plaudits. In making this
mistake, President Buhari’s handlers created a sad situation whereby
they have progressively undermined his image.
The truth is that Muhammadu Buhari is
neither a Yar’Adua nor a Jonathan. He may have sought the office of
president in three previous elections, before succeeding at his fourth
attempt in 2015, but he came into office on a different template. He had
been head of state of Nigeria (1983-85) and had before then served his
country at very high levels as military administrator, member of the
Supreme Military Council, head of key government institutions and
subsequently from 1985 -2015, as a member of the country’s Council of
State, the highest advisory body known to the Nigerian Constitution.
In real terms, therefore, General
Muhammadu Buhari did not need the job of president. If he had again lost
the election in 2015, his stature would not have been diminished in any
way. His place in Nigerian history was already assured. That is
precisely why it was possible to package him successfully as a man on a
messianic mission to rescue Nigeria from the People’s Democratic Party
(PDP) and whatever is ascribed to that in the emotion-laden field of
Nigerian politics.
He might have acquired many IOUs when he
assumed office in 2015, as all politicians do, but he was not under any
pressure to pay back and he was so well positioned in the people’s
reckoning and historically that he could call anyone’s bluff and get
away with it. That much is of course obvious.
Many of the persons and groups who could
claim that they helped him to get to power a second time are today not
in a position to dictate to him. Long before such persons left their
mother’s homes for boarding school, he had made his mark as a Nigerian
leader. He could look them straight in the eye and cleverly put them in
their place.
Corrupt patronage is a strong element of
Nigerian politics and so far, President Buhari has shown a
determination to limit the scope of such politics. Whether that is right
or wrong is a matter of political calculations, and if current
intimations are anything to go by, that may even prove costly in the
long run.
Nonetheless, when a leader assumes
office with his kind of helicopter advantages, it should not be expected
that he would hit the ground like a tyro in the corridors of power. Not
too many persons in his shoes get a second chance to return to power
after a gap of 30 years. As it happened in his case, he would be
expected to run the country as a statesman, not as a party man, as a
bridge-builder, not as a sectional leader and as father of all.
The writer of his inaugural speech
alluded to this last point in that borrowed statement about belonging to
everyone and to nobody. Charles de Gaulle of France originally made that statement
in 1958 when he returned to power as president and founder of the fifth
republic. Charles de Gaulle had been an army general and one of the key
figures in the drama of World War II. In his second coming, De Gaulle
built an unforgettable legacy.
President Buhari’s handlers may have had
an idea of going in such direction but so far, they have taken their
eyes off the legacy project. The best way to remember a president of the
incumbent’s status is with regard to the legacy he leaves behind. We do
not need to travel to 20th century France to borrow an elaborate
example. We have the home-made example of former President Olusegun
Obasanjo.
An obsession with the past does not produce a legacy; it defeats it.
Like Buhari, Obasanjo had been a
military head of state. Like him also, he returned to be civilian
president. Obasanjo did not try to impress Nigerians with the daily
grind of governance or obsession with the past. He played a legacy game
from the first day. The military had been excused out of power.
Nigerians by 1999 were so angry with military rule, they just wanted
change.
Obasanjo capitalized on that and helped
to prepare the foundations for the consolidation of the democratic
process. Nigeria had been a pariah nation within the international
community and a weakling within the continent. With a combination of
charisma, street wisdom, and the reactivation of old networks, Obasanjo
regained for the country, the respect it deserves. He met a country in
debt. He paid off the debts by 2005, and made the country financially
stable again. He surrounded himself with bright and talented
technocrats, including foreign consultants and within government circles
if not outside, he actively encouraged the free flow of ideas.
In doing this, Obasanjo cultivated the
image of a strong, charismatic leader. He also refused to be trapped by
ethnic or religious considerations. He had his own faults and there was a
lot to complain about as I did at the time, but looking at the big
picture, Obasanjo was a good manager of complex relationships, and he
had a good sense of humour. Out of office, it is possible indeed to
speak of the Obasanjo legacy in Nigerian history in rich and detailed
terms.
There are parallels between the
circumstances that brought General Obasanjo and General Buhari back to
power, and if you wish, you could tease out the connections. But while
the former immediately began to build a legacy out of the opportunity,
the latter is yet to embark on a defined legacy mission.
No political leader ever built a legacy
out of complaints and excuses. An obsession with the past does not
produce a legacy; it defeats it. Nor is the restriction of human freedom a legacy-building gesture.
General Sani Abacha violated the dignity
of virtually every institution in the country but he is remembered more
for stabilizing the economy and for creating additional states,
particularly Bayelsa, where he is considered a hero. Obasanjo often
deployed power as if it was a whiplash, making his politics ambiguous,
but that is not the substance of his legacy. A leader’s legacy lies in
those steps he takes to transform society for good and for the people’s
benefit.
President Buhari’s handlers should begin
to think of what legacy he intends to leave behind. A legacy is
something big and memorable, not routine exertions or bland ceremonies,
the type civil servants are perpetually bringing before a sitting
president to keep him in motion, in the absence of movement.
I do not intend to construct a
possible legacy project for the Buhari administration: a legacy is meant
to be the product of careful deliberation, vision and resolve, not
something to be thrown up casually in a limited newspaper copy.
But there are grand moves to be made, and that should be done, because a
legacy cannot possibly arise from the mere fact of being President of a
country twice between the 20th and 21st centuries.
If I must make a few suggestions,
however, it seems to me that there is a legacy-building opportunity in
the same National Political Conference Report that the government of the
day seems determined to ignore. Even if that 2014 Report is ignored:
the issues relating to the restructuring of Nigeria have been on the
table since independence and more coherently since the 2005 Political
Conference which was aborted due to a controversial attempt to hand over
a third term to the Obasanjo administration through the back door.
President Buhari has both the pedigree
and the courage to take some bold steps about how Nigeria is presently
constituted and ensure not limited reform but far-reaching
transformation: create new states, merge some states, if possible,
review the revenue allocation formula, embark on legacy infrastructure
projects, introduce some alterations in key areas of national life,
merge parastatals to reduce cost and duplication, take up some neglected
ideas about public finance and give effect to them, revisit the oil and
gas sector and further reform it, crush Boko Haram.
Nigeria’s politics is complex and can be
frustrating for those who choose to swim in its murky waters, but
ultimately every leader will be judged on his record. How would
President Buhari like to be judged? It is not too early to pose this
question.
Legacy is not a destination; it
is built one step at a time. It is not an accident; it is a process and
the summation of concrete steps to make a difference. The
Buhari administration should begin to develop a legacy mindset; this
will include measuring the feedback from the people carefully in terms
of how their expectations are being met or denied. If this will require a
change of team or emphasis, now is the time to take that decision.
Dr.
Reuben Abati was spokesman and special adviser, media and publicity to
President Goodluck Jonathan (2011 – 2015). He tweets from @abati1990.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the writer.
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