It is more than a month ago now that President Mohammadu Buhari travelled out of the country. Precisely, he travelled on Sunday, May 7, shortly after receiving the 82 freed Chibok girls that had been taken hostage by the dreaded Boko Haram, which incidentally, had been technically defeated, according to the federal government, but had been unrelenting in its attacks.
But that aside, there seems to be a conspiracy of silence about the continued absence of the president and I kept wondering why. Would the silence be due to the fact that the country or Nigerians have grown tired of discussing the health challenge of the president which has always taken him out of the country. His health has taken out of the country on more than three occasions in the last two years.
I remember that his last trip generated a lot of storm especially since his return into the country kept shifting. The situation became more compounded when different stories started circulating on the social media about the nature of the president’s ailment. A fake website had even announced the president’s demise.
From indications, Nigerians seem not to be missing the president. Obviously, Nigerians are now used to the president’s intermittent absence and have taken his non availability as a matter of course. Like a friend asked, when I raised the issue recently in a gathering, ‘what do we need the president for? Is the Vice President not doing a good job?’ He took me on a long discourse that I even started regretting broaching the matter. That the country seems calmer. Nobody seems to be harassing anyone.
Things are moving expectedly. The tension that had always existed between the executive and the legislative arms when President Buhari was around, has practically disappeared. Fulani herdsmen are equally not as rampant in their attacks as they used to be when the president was around. As much as I tried not to agree with him, I saw that some of the things he had listed are true. Was it not in the absence of the president that the Code of Conduct Tribunal freed the Senate President, Bukola Saraki and absolved him of all corruption charges? That’s not all. The accusation against the acting president that he was favoring his Yoruba ethnic group and members of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) in appointments, seems to have died a natural death. Under normal situation, those flying the kite would have squeezed whatever it was worth out of that accusation, founded or unfounded.
Yea, IPOB people called a sit at home which was largely successful in the South East, but it ever ended in violence or altercation as we use to have it. Nobody was killed.
Also, the three months misguided ultimatum issued by the northern youths group to Igbos to vacate the north is being maturely managed without creating undue tension. Indeed, some detractors of this administration would want to say that the country is better off without the presence of the president. I, certainly would not join in mouthing such ‘blasphemy’. But the bottom line, like a friend said and I will quote him, “his deputy is doing a great job in his absence”. One certainly would not dispute that. But that does not mean we should forget that we voted for President Buhari and he has the mandate of majority of Nigerians to administer this country to the best of his ability.
In this wise, there should be a time limit for the president to go for his medicals and return to his seat in order to continue the job to which we have ‘employed’ him. We cannot continue to have an absentee president. In a corporate or work environment, if a staff continues to have health challenges that necessitate him or her being absent from his duty post, the Human Resources (HR) department would have been on his case.
It (HR) would have found a way to ease him out of work on compassionate ground. He would have been advised to go and take care of his health. It is not in dispute that HR departments I work places have a right to know the duration of absence of an employee from the organisation due to ill health because the organisation would still have been paying the salary and would also probably be paying the medicals. Labour laws allow that. In the president’s case, Nigerians are the employers and the president is an employee, so how long will he continue going for medicals? An HR expert said what an organisation does in that situation is to, I am quoting him now,”request for his medical report and evaluate based on empathy and the overall interest of the organisation”. So may be we should start applying the HR concept to the Nigerian situation. Maybe the National Assembly should lead in this direction by requesting for the president’s medical report and accessing it based on empathy and the overall interest of the country. I dare say, that would not happen. The National Assembly will never take that step. No matter the differences they display for public consumption, our politicians always have a meeting point.
The general opinion is that the acting president is doing a good job of holding fort, but I dare say we won’t and can never get the best of the Vice President with the current situation. Even his good intention or ideas for the country would have to be executed with caution. He cannot have a ‘vision’ and if he has one, it cannot be executed or implemented, lest he be accused of being over ambitious or wanting to displace his boss, as some people are wont to make us believe in recent time. His moves would always be watched by the hawks and the cabal said to be in the presidential villa. The questions are; what do we want for ourselves as a nation? How long are we going to continue living under this shadow? Why should we continue to collectively suffer because we lack the courage to do the right and needful thing? It is in the interest of some people to continue this charade that will not take us anywhere, but must we also be complicit in this selfish desire to continuously keep us in slavery?
In most countries of the world, the leadership or the elite have always been interested in keeping the status quo. But the masses, the long suffering, down trodden citizens would not allow that. History is replete with changes, either peaceful or violent, orchestrated by the people. If the ordinary man on the street still believes “e go better”, he is still deluding himself. It will never get any better unless he comes to the realization that his life will only get better if he takes his destiny in his hand and rise against those interested in putting him in perpetual slavery.