It took a gentleman named Hassan Idris Alkali to trigger my awareness
and to bring me to this moment of self-confession, self–denigration,
and introspection I’d like to share with all the fans of this column.
The man whose name should obviously make him a northerner and
therefore a Muslim could jolly well be a Yoruba man or an Igbo man who
makes his comments using a fictitious name like many of us do when we
hide under cover of anonymity so we can say some things or make some
comments we aren’t proud to be identified with. In his Facebook
comments, Hassan Idris forcefully argued that Buhari has in fact, within
his first 4 weeks, accomplished a lot more than what can be credited to
his predecessors who held the same position, especially Goodluck
Jonathan, Umaru Yar’Adua, and even Olusegun Obasanjo.
That confession has forced me to go back to the drawing board to
check if what Mr. Hassan Idris has alleged is either right or wrong. I
discovered that all three civilian presidents mentioned have at least
named their cabinet within one or two weeks of their inauguration, if
not sooner. But I was also pleasantly surprised that Buhari has done a
lot more things than some have given him credit for. Some of us, myself
included, have actually accused Buhari of being too slow to start
bringing about some of the change we elected him to carry out on March
28th, 2015. We expected him to have used the interval between March 28th
and May 29th to do what he alone is able to do without any consultation
with the Legislature and the Judiciary and to be able to articulate
this, like Nasir El Rufai did in Kaduna State, within his inaugural
address.
That he failed to do so close to 4 weeks after his inauguration has
rightly frustrated many of us who argued that the man who was Head of
State before under military rule cannot be viewed as a complete novice
who’s stepping into the presidency for the first time in his life.
We forcefully argued that the man who waited 12 years to be elected
the civilian President of Nigeria should have hit the ground running. We
also argued that the opposition had waited for 55 years to be voted
into power in Nigeria and that we therefore expected a more coherent
agenda and delivery instead of the Tower of Babel or the total disarray
we have all witnessed in the legislative arm of Government under the
APC. Some have argued that Saraki was doing what he he did in order to
clip the wings of Ahmed Asiwaju Tinubu and to stop him from claiming he
owns the APC. If that’s true, Saraki is throwing out the baby with the
bathwater and disgracing both the APC and President Buhari.
Under the separation of powers mandated by the Nigerian 1999
Constitution, some of us have argued that Buhari is right to forgo
violating that separation. On the other hand, when you realize that
Buhari has come to power under the APC platform, there is no way he
could have separated himself from the fumbling disarray of his Party in
the Nigerian Senate and the House of Representatives. He remains the
leader of APC and he bears some vicarious responsibility for whatever is
happening to his Party and how the Party has demonstrated total
incompetence and weakness in the way it has so far managed the
Legislative arm of Government.
That Bukola Saraki, a decampee to the APC Party from PDP has stolen
all the oxygen in the room from the APC and has, so to speak, rained on
the parade of the APC and President Buhari is a serious cause for alarm
in Nigeria. Saraki has managed to completely embarrass the APC by
refusing to cooperate with the 59 APC majority in the Senate and by also
conspiring with all 49 PDP senators to put the APC in total disarray.
He has snatched 8 out of the 59 APC senators to form a majority in a
Senate of 109 senators. The 59 APC senators would have been sufficient
to keep PDP defeated as the minority in the Senate, but because Bukola
Saraki has created an alternate government in the Senate, he has used
PDP’s 49 members to appoint himself as the Senate President in a quid
pro quo contract that forces Saraki to make PDP member, Ekweremadu, his
Senate Deputy President and David Mark of the PDP the majority leader
even though he belongs to the minority Party in the Senate.
APC had a choice to seek redress in the Court of Law. However, the
APC Party is reluctant to start its governance of Nigeria by taking
Saraki to Court. Such a move would have sent the wrong message to the
whole country about the APC as the new Party in power in Nigeria.
Because Saraki’s gang or the APC Party would have dragged the case to
the Supreme Court if either of them lost in the Lower Court, the suit
would have put the new Government on hold till the verdict of the Court
was known.
For the APC that would have been a sure recipe for disaster. If it
had happened that way, the APC and President Buhari would have realized
that they committed an unpardonable blunder by refusing “ab initio” to
closely monitor and supervise what is going on in the legislative branch
of their Government. As we speak, confusion galore is going on in the
Senate and the House of Representative. All the new President can do is
to stay out of the fray and to start hoping that the problem goes away.
It is not the best way for any new President to start his
Administration. That would have been the quintessential “jiggery
pokery” that Justice Scalia spoke about in reference to Obama Care when
he delivered his own minority verdict at the US Supreme Court.
Above all, Buhari lacks the gift of the garb and the eloquence to
explain to Nigerians what’s happening to his Party and what he is doing
about it. Even though Mr. Hassan Idris thinks President Buhari has done
pretty well in his first 4 weeks, nobody who saw what happened to his
Party in the Legislature would be willing to give the President a pass
mark even though he has done a few things and has achieved a few things.
Like me, most Nigerians who voted for him have now come to the
painful conclusion that the first 4 weeks of Buhari’s presidency have
been less than satisfactory.
I repeat that on his short post on Facebook, Mr. Alakali reminded
Nigerians about all the things and steps the President has taken in
Nigeria between May 29th and today. The presentation style made the list
was quite impressive. But to most Nigerians, it is as if President has
been sleep-walking since May 29th.
There wasn’t an achievement that Mr. Hassan listed that I could
easily dismiss with the wave of my hand, but what was missing is the
fact that the if placed in front of television cameras the President
himself can not articulate in a persuasive order what he has done. It is
true that he wasn’t able to name a cabinet or do some of the dramatic
things he had the power to do under the cover of the 1999 Constitution
without engaging in any picayune consultation with either the
Legislative or the Judiciary arm of Government.
APC’s Nasir El Rufai, the new Governor of Kaduna State followed by
PDP’s Ayo Fayose have unilaterally reduced their salaries and allowances
and those of their kitchen cabinet by 50 percent until further notice.
They have significantly cut down the number of ministries in their
States using the comatose nature of the Nigerian economy as their
excuse. They both know that the goose that lays the golden egg meaning
the Federal Government is right now in a financial quagmire that calls
for such drastic steps in Nigeria.
The two Governors both know that Nigeria is totally bankrupt and that
conclusion has been confirmed by Ahmed Joda of the Transition Committee
which says corruption has eaten deep into the very fabric of Nigeria
anywhere you look. President Buhari should have known that before he was
elected on March 28th. He gave Nigerians the impression that the knew
exactly what to do if voted into power. If he knew what to do, an
announcement of a cut in his salary and allowances and that of his Vice
President should have been the first thing he did, if not with his
inaugural address at least within a day or two of his coming to power.
That would have convinced his ardent supporters that he truly means
business. He failed to do so and by keeping Nigerians guessing about
what he’s up to he lost the momentum right there and then. Because he
lacks the ability to quickly define himself, he has left his friends and
political enemies with no other choice than to define him the way they
like.
That is why I have no regret calling him President “Go Slow.” The man
has not articulated a strategy or named a few members of his cabinet.
It would have made a lot more sense for Buhari who has waited 12
years to be elected President to have formed a firm opinion of what is
wrong with Nigeria and what he intends to do about it and how he intends
to do it? When the Buhari/Idiagbon regime ransacked the Apapa Mansion
of Chief Obafemi Awolowo in 1983/84, they carried away documents and
dossiers that Awolowo had already compiled on what he was planning to do
if he was elected President.
Among those documents was a list of Nigerian technocrats and
professionals which included those in Diaspora that Awolowo was going to
bring back to Nigeria in the same way Obasanjo had brought back Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala from the World Bank on a platter of gold. That is what
great leaders do. You don’t wait until you get the power before you
start thinking about what to do with it.
It is now crystal clear to most Nigerians that Buhari lacked those
star qualities. As a matter of fact, many are now beginning to believe
that Tunde Idiagbon, his number two man from August 1983 to September
1985, was the reason his regime was able to achieve most of the legacies
credited to Buhari during the 20 odd months that Buhari’s regime was in
power. Tunde Idiagbon was in Saudi Arabia performing the Hadj when his
regime was toppled in Nigeria. He knew his boss Buhari had been arrested
and put in detention, but that did not stop Idiagbon from returning
home. He did not go into exile from there like Yakubu Gowon did.
The man got into a plane and flew back to Lagos ready to confront the
regime that had just torpedoed his own regime. If you don’t call that
bravery, I don’t know what else to call it. Idiagbon returned to Nigeria
not because he thought he had 9 lives like a cat, he returned because
he had a very clear conscience about the few bold steps his regime had
taken to restore order and discipline in Nigeria. He returned to Nigeria
fully prepared to defend himself. He was retired and he went into
retirement very sure of himself and what he had done for Nigeria. I was
in Government at the time and I followed what happened very closely.
I am bold to say that Buhari was a good man because I knew him very
well from 1968 and for all of my 3 years in the Ministry of Defense as
Assistant Secretary (Army) under permanent secretary Damcida and later
on under late permanent secretary Yusuf Gobir, the dapper don lawyer
from Ilorin. I still maintain that Buhari is incorruptible. There is no
doubt about that, but I have my doubts about his readiness for prime
time. I do not have cause to doubt his administrative capacity and his
ability to set and execute the order of priorities to bring change to
Nigeria, and to do it in a way that inspires confidence in the people
like Murtala Mohammed did and like Jerry Rawlings did in Ghana both as a
military dictator and as a civilian President. They both knew how to
bring the people along with them like Presidents and Governors and even
Mayors in times of national crisis.
Just imagine how Ruddy Guilliani handled the bombing of the World
Trade Center in New York in 2001. His was a virtuoso performance that
the whole world acknowledged. The performance would have catapulted him
to the presidency of America were it not for his other character flaws
as a politician and the negative agenda of his Party concerning the poor
and the disadvantaged in the American society. Just think about how
Barack Obama relentlessly pursued the killing and the burial of Osama
Bin Laden, the restoration and restructure of the American economy, and
the passing of the Affordable Health Care Reform which none of his
predecessors had been able to achieve for more than 50 years.
Obama will go down in history as one of the best Presidents of
America which include, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham
Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Ike Eisenhower,
Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and now Barack Obama, the first black
President.
June 22 to 27 has been a spectacular week in the Obama presidency
that history will never forget. His signature achievements as President
are going to pave the way for the first female President of America.
Obama’s presidency has broken all the known frontiers of what a good
President must look like. I listened to the young man deliver his eulogy
at the funeral service for a black pastor and 8 other members of his
Church who were gunned down by a home-grown terrorist. The Obama eulogy
was one of the greatest funeral orations I have ever heard in my life.
It was delivered with a candor and passion that only Winston
Churchill or a Mario Cuomo could have conjured. I could not control my
tears of joy as I watched the first black President of America deliver
one of the greatest eulogies in human history. Obama completely
mesmerized his audience. He covered all the basics in that speech
touching upon all that is wrong about America what he has done about it
and what still remains to be done and how it should be done or
accomplished.
All I could do as I listened to that speech is reflect on how our own
President Buhari would have handled the rare opportunity if he found
himself in the shoes of a Barack Obama. I wept because in Obama I saw
what I could have been, but which I could never be, because I was not
born in America. But I was pleased that no less than 9 out of my 12
grandchildren have a chance to be like Barack Obama, a product of
Columbia and Harvard. I wept because I did not have the education and
the background that made Obama a great President of the greatest country
on Earth and the leader of the Free World. I wept as my mind went back
to his white mother who fell in love with a black man from one of the
most despised tribes in Kenya. I am talking of the Luo tribe in Kenya.
Obama’s father was not born with the silver spoon in his mouth, but
that did not stop the lucky man from earning a PhD in Economics from
Harvard University. By some luck, the man met Obama’s mother a white
lady from Kansas who took a big risk by falling in love with a black man
from Africa at such a time in American history. I can tell you that
Obama’s father was very daring to have dated Obama’s mother at that
time. I guess he was able to do that because of his academic laurels as
an alumnus of Harvard. I have to believe that Harvard has transformed
his life and self- esteem to have been able to even date a white lady,
not to even talk of sleeping with her in order to produce the future
leader of the free world.
I see that the amazing grace that Barack Obama spoke so eloquently
about in his once-in-a-life eulogy for a “good man” to quote the
President verbatim. I would not trade my life in America with any gold
and silver elsewhere around the world. I have travelled the world quite a
bit in my career. I am yet to find any other country better than
America despite some of her imperfections as a nation. I wept listening
to that speech from an attorney and a community organizer like Obama and
I regret not reading Law and missing a chance to add Harvard University
to my resume. I got admitted to an Arthur D. Little program in Harvard
in 1979 but could not go due to circumstances beyond my control.
I wept when I saw the female Attorney named Mary Bonauto, the lead
attorney in the same sex marriage litigation that the US Supreme Court
has just decided. I wept as I saw to Chief Justice Roberts and Justice
Kennedy side with the 4 liberal judges at the Supreme Court uphold Obama
care just like I predicted more than 4 years ago that Obama care, like
Social Security and Medicare Laws, was here to stay and that Americans
could only mend it and not end it. I am not a lawyer. I am a historian,
an administrator, a social worker, and a clinical psychologist by
training but I could clearly see what the Supreme Court had seen in that
Law by upholding it and making it irreversible for generations of
Americans yet unborn. You don’t take what is good from people if you
don’t have something better to replace it. That is the big problem for
the Republicans who are going to pay a political price for opposing the
Law.
I also predicted years ago that same sex marriage is going to become
the law of the land sooner than later and it has happened yesterday. The
gays and lesbians asked for equal dignity in the eyes of the law and
the Supreme Court judges in a vote of 5 to 4 has again granted their
request. It is the right thing to do even though the ruling defies the
biblical injunction that marriage should only be between a man and a
woman. If God did not want humanity to make its own laws as needed the
10 Commandments should have been the only laws that humanity is supposed
to follow. I am a Christian by persuasion and I believe in the Bible
but I also believe that everything done by man and even things done by
God Almighty can be infinitely improved. I therefore support the Supreme
Court ruling albeit reluctantly.
I cite these 2 cases as a digression only to draw a comparison
between what Obama did yesterday at the Emmanuel Church at Charleston,
in South Carolina and how our own President Buhari would have handled
the same situation were it to happen in Nigeria. I am saying that Buhari
still lacks the ability to articulate the same kind of logic that has
convinced the Supreme Court to come up with the great verdict on Obama
Care. Buhari lacks the oratorical flourish to make a case for anything
he strongly believed in. I love his speech at Chatham House in London
but that was only a fluke or an accident.
How I wish Buhari had the eloquence of an Obama to explain and
articulate what he has already done for Nigeria in the last 4 weeks as
deposed by Hassan Idris.
My conclusion is that Buhari has very good intentions like Obama, but
his greatest problem is that he lacks the ability to articulate what is
it he has been doing in the last 4 weeks because he is just not up to
it. I can tell you loud and clear with this write-up that the problem
of Buhari could also be his inability to persuasively articulate what he
has done and to let the people appreciate that there is some method to
his slow speed in executing and explaining his change agenda.
It is as if the man is scared to death to even come before television
cameras to express himself. He does not feel comfortable addressing a
press conference in English. He might do a better job in Hausa but
protocol would not allow him to do that as the President of Nigeria
where English is our Lingua Franca.
I use myself as an example. I once suggested in one of my recent
articles that Buhari might be exhibiting some early symptoms of
Alzheimer's. I still maintain that, but there could be more to Buhari’s
silence and sloppiness, than Alzheimer's. He could also be suffering
from what many of go thru with our heavy accent and the way we speak
English.
When I briefly attended the Center for Management Development of
Cambridge for a diploma course in Management under one Professor
Daniels, I did suffer from some inferiority complex in the way I spoke
English. I felt the same pressure when in 1972 to ‘73 I attended the
Royal Institute of Public Administration at Mabledon Place in London
near Euston Station and St Pancreas Hall in London with some of my
classmates like Omolorun Modupe now an Immigration lawyer in New York.
Modupe came from the Western Region Civil Service to attend the program
with some of us who came from the Federal Civil Service. The same Modupe
retired from Ondo State Public Service where he rose to the position of
Secretary to Government before going to Ekpoma University to read law
and before relocating to America to be called to the American Bar.
Modupe Omo Olorun is my good friend till tomorrow. He is a very
brilliant man who was not even a graduate before coming to the Institute
of Public Administration. That limitation did not stop him from
graduating at the top of our class as I recall. I was at the time a
graduate of the great University of Ife. I was among the class of 1966
which was the second set of the University which started in 1963. The
first set which started in 1962 included Itse now Professor Sagay of the
University of Benin. Mr. Itse Sagay who is now a Senior Advocate of
Nigeria was the first student to make a first class in Law in that
University in 1965 as I vividly recall.
I also recall my own brother –in-law Mr. now Dr. S.O Omobomi who came
top of his class in 1965 with a Second Class Upper in Economics before
going to New York University to complete his Ph.D in Econometrics. Dr.
Omobomi later became the Secretary to the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and
later Chairman of Wema Bank Nigeria PLC. I mention all these
distinguished Nigerians to say you could be the best students in your
University days and still come to some of these overseas institutions to
be embarrassed because you speak with an accent. I am not suggesting
that Itse Sagay and Dr. Omobomi spoke with an accent. All am saying is
that we all have accent and are embarrassed by it when we speak and some
of our listeners do not clearly and quickly understand us.
I recall Professor Emeritus of Food Science at the Federal University
of Technology, Akure, late Professor Joseph Bandele Fashakin telling
me at one point in his brilliant career that he once faced that
embarrassment when he attended MCGill University in Canada, the MIT and
Harvard University. The learned Professor graduated with a magna cum
laude at McGill in and top of his class at MIT for his Master’s in 1976
a his Ph.D in Biochemistry from Harvard University in 1979. We all go
through that experience due to our very heavy accents.
I recall experiencing the same inferiority complex at the State
University of Connecticut and later on at the Yeshiva Jewish University
of Connecticut from 1991 to 1993. Because of my accent even though I was
a good student, I was always afraid to sit on the front row to avoid
being called to speak by the professor because I felt embarrassed when
some of my classmates asked me to repeat myself or come again on few
occasions when I was bold enough to speak. We all instinctively know we
have that deficit or challenge, just like Buhari should have known by
now he is a very good orator or public speaker.
I have a strong feeling that Buhari may be suffering from the same
inferiority complex as a public speaker. He may be scared or intimidated
to call and address a press conference to explain what he is doing. I
encourage him to get over it. Public speaking is a must for anybody who
will be President and he can learn it. He must learn it fairly quickly
by calling more press conferences at home. I recall Goodluck Jonathan
our first Ph.D holder President from the University of Port Harcourt
also suffering the same inferiority complex every time he had to speak
in the public. Public speaking is not one of his strong suits. That is
why the man was always shooting for the back row at most international
summits of Heads of State he has attended because he was scared to speak
in the Public or be put on the spot.
If a Ph.D holder like Goodluck feels that way you can imagine how
much more a Muhammadu Buhari with his heavy Hausa/Fulani accent is
likely to feel.
Buhari appears to me to be scared to talk in public. He probably
feels more comfortable speaking in Hausa than English. That does not
mean he is not brilliant. I recall the War College in the US giving him
high grades when he was their student. The man should have called many
more press conferences to explain what he is doing and why he may appear
a bit slow to some of us.
Governance by silence is an aberration in a Democracy. You have got
to be eloquent up to a point and you should not feel intimidated to
express yourself. There are things that nobody but yourself can only do
when you are a Head of Government. I am not so sure he feels confident
enough to trust all of his civilian aides to articulate for him what he
is not able to do. He therefore keeps quiet hoping and praying that the
problems would go away with time. Problems don’t go away like that you
have to address them.
If a President does not like public speaking, he is going to be at a
great disadvantage to let the people understand where he is leading
them. If Buhari is not able to define himself other people are going to
define him the way they like and he is not going to like it.
If Buhari were to be an American President he would be subjected to
taking some reading lessons and to learn how to read fast and carry the
people with himself on anything he is doing. When you are President of
Nigeria, you are also like the President of the whole of Africa because
Nigeria is among the leading nations of Africa because one out of every 4
Africans is a Nigerian the last time I checked. Buhari has to be very
knowledgeable and quick to grasp what is in front of him. I am not
saying this to criticize or run him down. I am saying it because I care,
and because he is of the same age group with me and I want him to
succeed. The more you exercise your brains the sharper it becomes and
practice makes perfect.
I agree with Hassan Idris that Buhari is doing a few things right and
getting some results, but he must learn how to better articulate what
he is doing. He has to take many more Nigerians along. He must never
leave Nigerians guessing about what he is up to.
The media like Sahara Reporters and other social media outlets are
offering many useful suggestions that President Buhari would be well
advised to pay attention to. If he does, he cannot go wrong. There is an
urgent need for him to cure or stop the hemorrhage currently going on
in the Legislative arm of his Government.
I rest my case.
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