President Muhammadu Buhari is not a politician the mode we know them in Nigeria. He holds up no pretenses about that, which is why he has left the political side of the job to those who are better equipped for that role. Former Governor of Lagos State and leader of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) has stepped up to fill that position. The President has ceded that to the former governor, whose reputation as a political strategist came to greater national attention in the rather ingenuous act of fusing disparate political groups to wrest power from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). The cracks showed early in the wall of the fused units and the President did not think of another person than the man who built the house to step in and hold his structure from falling. As I was putting this article together, I got news alert that Buhari had upturned a decision of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party to extend the tenure of the current executive by one year. The move is seen as a political victory for Tinubu who seems to have an axe to grind with Chief Odigie-Oyegun, current chairman of the ruling party. The President is reportedly due in Lagos for the celebration of Tinubu’s birthday. Tinubu, the strategist, is said to have started moves for the next election. These are all moves to give honour to the man who holds the political ace.
However, that the President is not a typical politician does not imply that he should not know what to say in certain circumstances. I am minded to flog a seemingly dead horse on this matter.
President Buhari should not be caught making comments that detract from his credentials as a seasoned soldier, who qualifies to be seen as top-notch in matters of security. It rankled the mind that, when the President visited Benue, after intense pressure from all quarters, he said, to the chagrin of many, that he was not aware that the Inspector-General of Police, who is a member of the security council of the nation, did not obey his instruction to relocate to Benue State, in the thick of killings in the state. The President is, indeed, not a politician, which is why he did not know the implication of such a weighty statement.
How could anyone in the security apparatus, not to think of the Inspector-General, flout the instruction of the Commander-in-Chief? The President did not even blink an eye in telling a bewildered nation that he took no notice of the security infraction and no one brought it to his notice. It is scary for a man in his position to be so caged, in the loneliness of power and leadership, that even security matters are kept away from him. A bewildered people were shocked that the President came to know what he exposed to the public and the ‘recalcitrant’ officer was still cozy in his office.
Although we know that the President does not act in a hurry as exemplified in the case of the former Secretary to the Government, Mr. Babachir Lawal, who was later sent out of office several months after the people had given up on the matter. No one may yet foreclose the matter of IGP Ibrahim Idris. The President might still bring down the heavy stick. Even if the President did not know that the IGP flouted his instructions, it was bad politics and public relations for him to relay such weighty information to the public.
The foregoing gives cause for concern, not just on security matters. There might well be several things the President does not know and those around him would let him wallow in blissful ignorance when there may well be fire on the mountain.
Perhaps the President does not know that there is hardship in the land and that job losses have not abated. Perhaps his people are feeding him that dangerous all-is-well-sir feedback, which would never let him come to terms with issues that affect the people. Perhaps the President does not know that Boko Haram has not been brought to its knees as the public has been told, it still had the capacity to take Dapchi girls away from their school and return them in a convoy. The story of what transpired before the release is not as important as the release.
The parents of the innocent girls are happy that their children are back in their arms. In due time, we shall know how much water passed under the bridge in the matter. We hope the President knows that Boko Haram insurgents are still causing pain to the nation even in their so-called “technical defeat.”
There is ample evidence that this President is kept in the dark on several issues. Perhaps his handlers are preserving his health, not knowing that the buck stops at his table. There have been no opportunities for the President to field questions from the press and get the people to know how his mind works. The feeling one gets is that he is being shielded from the people. Even in the war against corruption, he does not know about the discrepancy between reported recoveries as announced by the EFCC and what the Ministry of Finance has in its report. Both parties sing discordant tunes on the matter and I can wager that the President does not know and thus would not have intervened and ordered a reconciliation of the figures. If he gets to know and gives the instruction for the right figures, he may still not know if they flout his instructions.
We do hope that the other security agencies have not been in the same lane with the IGP. We may never know what the President does not know and why he has been kept in the dark.