When on 15 October, 2014, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari declared to run for the office of the President of the federal republic of Nigeria, his fourth successive time, I was one of those who didn’t give him a chance to succeed at the polls. Of course, I had my reasons. I wanted a younger President who will clearly understand and assuage the needs of young people; a President who understands what leadership in the 21st century entailed. For me, the General didn’t cut it. But did President Goodluck Jonathan, who Buhari was running against, possess those qualities? That is a question for another day.
Secondly, as a young Nigerian, I didn’t believe at the time that it was possible for an incumbent President to lose an election. That can’t happen in our clime, I thought. At least, not yet. But with time, I was proven wrong. The then President had erected an institution that would make that possible. So when results started trickling in, it became obvious that the people’s general, as he was fondly called by his admirers, had won the election. The nation went on a frenzy when the news filtered in that President Jonathan had called the General to congratulate him on his victory at the polls. For some of us who live in the Northern part of the country, we saw Nigerians expressing unprecedented joy. I was proud of my country. At least, I told myself, we got this one right.
With high hopes and expectations, on May 29 2015, Nigerians from all walks of life assembled at the Eagle’s square where the new President renewed our hopes. Voting him and his party isn’t a mistake was the message. The needed change had come. The sixteen years pillage of our common resources by the enemies of our people was indeed over and there was a genuine reason to rejoice. This is a new Nigeria, in which we’ll be proud to raise our children.
However, all that changed in few months. Some people who had expressed hope that the new government had all the answers had started losing hope in the modus operandi of the new government. We were back to the status quo. Complaints started flooding in. While some citizens gave unbiased and reasonable opinions on the ways things were being done by the government, others started critiquing the actions and inactions of the nascent administration unduly. Then the blunders started littering our political and leadership space. From squabbles in the National Assembly, to Mr. President’s gaffe at the United States Institute for Peace, to the denial of campaign promises by his political party – APC, to his lopsided appointments… the list went on and on.
But, in all this, what I found confusing was Mr. President’s unwillingness to talk directly to the Nigerian people. Important government statements like possible time for the appointment of ministers, the President’s opinion about the importance of ministers to his government and other policy statements, we all learnt from foreign media. Apart from things we heard him say in foreign media, we are supposed to decipher every other thing by monitoring the President’s Body Language.
I heard this new vocabulary that is gradually becoming the lexicon of this government for the first time from my close friend Chinedu – a candid blogger and staunch supporter of the President. He had told me how power supply had improved since the President was inaugurated. When I reminded him that the new administration hadn’t made any significant investment in the power sector, he told me that it was the President’s Body Language that did the magic. It was interesting though, considering that the sector had been privatised by former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, and was now being managed by businessmen, who should provide services in order to make profit.
You see, one thing I am certain about is that Nigeria is an interesting country. Our political landscape is even more interesting. Politicians and their supporters never learn from the mistakes of others. For me, the major sin of the Jonathan administration was the fact that the former President and his handlers took the goodwill of the Nigerian people for granted, a blunder that the opposition capitalised on until he eventually lost his re-election bid. But, the funny twist is that the former President was lied to by his close aides. He was constantly reassured that “your people love you, sir”, yet, that was not the reflection of the real situation on the streets. After all, one of the cardinal rules of power forbids the servant from breaking bad news to the king. Hence praise singing and sycophancy are, unofficially, the most important characteristics of a political aide who will last long, especially in our clime.
When former President Jonathan held sway, we heard politicians say things like “oh! the President is a good man, he loves the country so much, but his problem is the bad people around him.” Then I asked, how did this one good man know all the bad people around? Truth is, that was a thought fabricated by those benefitting from the then government to defend ineptitude. However, Nigerians were smart enough not to fall for the ruse. But, trust our politicians, they’ll never learn. These days, politicians and biased social commentators use the phrase “The President’s Body Language” to defend today’s ineptitude in governance.
With a battered economy arising from the free fall of crude oil prices in our mono-product foreign exchange earner, the delisting of Nigerian bonds by JP Morgan and later Backlays Bank (two major players in the international Forex market), the near collapse of our basic infrastructure, the seemingly unabating security challenges and of course corruption (which the government has only fought in the media), there is no gainsaying that it is high time the President and his party realised that their self-given honeymoon period is over. There is a lot of work to be done, and more than mere body language is required to get it done.
The President once made a joke about being called “baba go slow” and promised not to change his pattern. Slow and steady wins the race, he implied. But I want to remind him that slow and steady may win a marathon, but not a 100 metres sprint. Leadership in the 21st century is more of a 100 or 200 metres dash than a marathon; therefore speed is required. Maybe Mr. President isn’t counting. Let me remind him that this mandate he has is for forty-eight months, out of which he has spent five. The implication is that, Mr. President has spent slightly above 10% of his entire four-year term taxiing and showcasing body language.
I don’t care if I get conscripted into the club of the wailing wailers, but the truth is, if the effort put by this government and the ruling party in disparaging the opposition and the critics of the government is put in actual governance, I will not be writing this. Unfortunately, even after brutally crushing the PDP at the general elections, the now ruling party still carries on as if she is still the opposition party. They haven’t stopped whining about the problems, instead of solving them. We know there were problems in the system, that was why we chased out the dude that was there before and voted APC, so why complain instead of doing the job they applied for and were employed to do? It gets so annoying that sometimes you’ll feel like singing Rihana’s Shut Up and Drive.
Before this President’s body language deafens us, I want to remind him that he promised to create three million jobs per annum, totalling twelve million in four years. He also promised to pay social palliatives to young unemployed people. While this president is yet to create even 50 jobs, tens of thousands of Nigerians previously employed in several sectors of the economy have been laid off due to none award of capital projects since Buhari got into office. Also, the National Youth Service Corps has churned out two sets of graduates who have joined the mass unemployed people roaming the streets and looking up to their President to live up to his words. Job creation requires deliberate actions, not body language.
Pupils are back in school without any plan in sight for their lunch; yet their president had promised them free lunch during the campaign. Low investors’ confidence occasioned by vague economic direction of the government is preventing both local and international investors from investing in almost every sector of the economy. There is no money as they say in our local parlance. The problems of insecurity due to Boko Haram insurgency, kidnapping, rise of armed groups, menace of herdsmen and secession threats by separatist groups are serious causes for worry. The President hasn’t lifted a finger on any of these; and body language cannot solve them.
I hope I’m not misconstrued as suggesting that it is quite easy to be in the President’s shoes. Leadership is not easy as we know, but it is better to make mistakes than not to take actions. Lethargy too is ineptitude.
President Buhari was called on to lead a country he led thirty years ago, mainly because of the actions he took as a leader in those days, not necessarily due to things he didn’t do, and he cannot afford to disappoint the Nigerian people.
This is also to the handlers of the President: there is only one Nigeria – the one we live in. We wail because we want it better. A more prosperous Nigeria will not benefit one ethnicity, religion or political group more than the other. They must do the jobs that Nigerians pay them for dispassionately. We must get Nigeria to work. That is true Change… That is the Change we voted for.
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Steds Ezekiels is a social commentator Follow him on twitter @stedsonline
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