100 days of Buhari: I stand to be corrected

What we need to be doing is not just changing who holds power, but changing the way we conceive of power. There is the power we’re all familiar with — power over. But there is another kind of power — power from within.” (Starhawk, 1979)

President Muhammadu Buhari has already won the psychological war on corruption – the fear of repercussion, at least, is palpable. Everybody is now scared of stealing and everyone is talking about the war even when not asked. The Nigerian atmosphere is evidently charged with the new spirit of the times. The battle of the minds was won without firing a shot.

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The next and the main battle front is not only in government offices, but in all strands of the Nigerian tapestry; in banks, churches, mosques, schools, taxis, fuel stations, market stalls, hospitals, the media, sports, security system and even the Internet.

Let’s not derail the discourse here; Buhari has gotten all Nigerians to talk not only about, but against corruption, publicly. Nowadays it is fashionable for known corrupticians to buy airtime and talk against corruption on television—to act holy and to dissuade public angst and condemnation. But Buhari knows these persons just like every other Nigerian does. To pretend not to know a thief even when caught until the thief defends himself and proven guilty is one of the funniest lies we’ve been forced to accept. But that is the bullshit about the rule of law. But I’m not against the rule of law—after-all bullshit can also be used to grow flowers.

My point is that the particular aspect of the Nigerian rule of law that protect known corrupticians who looted our patrimony is bad bullshit. It is painful to know that these corrupticians are everywhere, and like the shrew, deviously poisonous and constantly spraying their odious stench. One hopes the recently inaugurated Itse Sagay committee will give the needed teeth and close the loopholes in the Nigerian legal system before these same bad eggs encircle the President. Delay is dangerous.

Buhari is a disciplinarian and everyone knows he came to clean the Aegean stable. Few days after his swearing in, his brother-in-law was forced to repent, a certain refinery announced its readiness to start production, a certain former minister publicly returned fleet of cars and certain amount of cash and others are running to take refuge in foreign hospital on phantom medical stories, and most recently, a self-claimed whistle blower rattled the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the very ombudsman saddled with watching over our commonwealth, of stealing over a trillion naira. The fear of Buhari has grip Nigerians such that the Nigerian police was begging applicants not to pay bribe for the upcoming recruitment. I think Buhari has successfully mobilised the nation against corruption; the war is half won!

The first challenge that stared at Buhari’s administration were the renewed severity of terror attacks, long queues at filling stations due to round-tripping and other sleazy deals that surrounded the management of fuel subsidy, and the perennial power outages. Buhari’s responses were swift and surgical; he immediately engaged the stakeholders of the power and the petroleum sector and extracted an understanding that restored normalcy to those critical sectors. Today, no Nigerian can deny noticing improvements in the service deliveries of those sectors. On Boko Haram, Buhari briskly rallied countries of the Lake Chad basin to put a multilateral force to confront the terrorists. After relocating the military command centre to Maiduguri and appointing new service chiefs. The military started recording success. From Borno to Adamawa, territories after territories are being recaptured from the terrorists; the plights of the internally-displaced persons are being ameliorated.

Apart from several official visits to the IDP camps by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and the First Lady, President Buhari ensured the released of the monies that were earmarked for the welfare of IDPs but kept away by the past administration for reasons yet to be explained. Such intervention was not only enjoyed by the mostly northern IDPs, in the Niger Delta, apart from the recent exploits of the Nigerian Navy pulling down bunkering sites even the ones behind Rivers State Government House, Buhari came to the rescue by fast-tracking the clean-up of Ogoniland. He followed it up by appointing a brand new coordinator to articulate the Amnesty Programme to its true intention. In the South-East, Buhari’s attention was immediately drawn to the overly politicised Second Niger Bridge commission by the Goodluck Jonathan administration. Initially Buhari’s order for a review of the contract was misunderstood by those who felt they are about to be deprived of that strategic infrastructure. But the fact remains that the President was not only nosing for probity, but to ensure the completion of its construction.

Within this period also the Buhari administration has released funds for the sports sector to enhance their preparation for the next Olympics and sundry competitions. The recent mauling of the Angolans in the final of the 2015 Afrobasket by D’Tigers cannot be unconnected with the Buhari push. The President knows that aside being a tool for providing youth employment, nothing conjures national integration than sports; not even religion.

On the diplomatic scene, Buhari has been at the top of the game. His trips to the Chatham House and the White House were not show trips, these were deft engagements at its best given the calibre of those two countries in global affairs and the attendant benefits Nigeria stands to reap. His earlier invitation as an observer to the 2015 G20 summit, the Lake Chad region engagement against terrorism, the recent visitation by the UN Secretary General is a pointer to Nigeria’s blistering arrival at the international stage.

While I will not encourage praise singing Buhari to start playing god in office, it is unfair to brush aside his efforts especially at this take-off stage. Our knowledge of the aviation comes to mind: ask any pilot, take-offs are always itchy, and they require steady hands and deep concentration and calculations if the plane must manoeuvre the clouds. That is when it is compulsory to wear seat belts. Nigerians must buckle their seat belts and pray for Buhari to dominate this fog of a cloud.

I sincerely salute those criticising Buhari. He needs more of criticisms if he must remain focused. Criticism is a major ingredient of civil rule; it draws leaders’ attention to the other opinions, especially to how followers perceive governance. It helps leaders in formulation of balanced policies. But criticism can also be negative; geared not towards redress but to poison the system and pull down the leader. The recent tirades on Buhari’s appointments are gradually becoming poisonous. Yet again we are relapsing to our different ethnic choirs while still singing the change song. Buhari is not oblivious of the Federal Character principle. But he should make haste to fix his entire team so that his policies, actions and body language can easily be explained to the masses to avoid being constantly misunderstood by the governed. The whole idea of the All Progressives Congress machinery acting as government’s mouthpiece is not politically correct. There should be a line between podium tirades and articulating government policies and actions for public acceptance. Public engagement is different from campaign oratory. The masses too should learn to trust their leaders and first flush their minds of the mentality of seeing government as the oppressor and always playing the victim, weeping parochial tears instead of standing up for collective good. The ‘we’ versus ‘them’ mentality is what weakens people’s strength and hinder them from achieving popular goals. Let’s watch Buhari’s next moves. I stand to be corrected.