By Paul Onomuakpokpo
Until last week, it
might have been dismissed as delusional to think that President Muhammadu
Buhari considers the citizens as people he has conquered. But if the
body language of the president has failed to magically make available the
dividends of democracy to the citizens, it has at least in recent times
reinforced the notion of his seeing himself as a conqueror, and thus a blight
on our democratic experience.
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| *President Buhari |
Here are a people who have been brutalised by decades of misrule and who invested so much hope
in the Buhari’s change mantra. Over a year after waiting for the
realisation of the promised change, Buhari has unabashedly disavowed it.
Passing the buck, Buhari has rather asked the citizens to make the change a
reality.
Yet, Buhari and his
party members are the only people who know the breadth and length of
the change he envisaged. The citizens did not sit down at a table to
arrive at a template of his promised change. At best, the president only
revealed snippets of the change: a robust economy that would guarantee full
employment and a parity of the naira and the dollar, and as a palliative
measure for those who are still jobless, the payment of a stipend of
N5,000.
Buhari’s new mantra of
change beginning with the citizens is an expression of his sense of
triumphalism. The new mantra brims with the hauteur of a president who has not only
impenitently abdicated his responsibility, but who is yet to come to terms with
his own failure to grapple with the problems he was elected to solve. The
citizens could tolerate the president’s incompetence while hoping that with his
seeking the advice of those who should know better, he could still fulfill the
people’s expectations. But with a mindset that the citizens have been
conquered, the president does not need to attach any importance to such advice.
Or why would the president tell the people that change begins with them when he
is expected to make good his promise? As far as the president is concerned, he
has used the change mantra to gain power and those who are interested in its
actualisation are free to torment themselves with that triviality.
But the president may
not be wrong after all. From his Olympian height, he can only see the
citizens he has conquered. The conquest began with his ministers and other
aides who are supposed to advise him on the right decisions to take. We must be
reminded that the president did not hide his disdain for his would-be
ministers. They were only imposed on him by the constitution. And this was
why he considered them as noise makers whose contribution to national
development could only be consigned to a marginal space compared to that
of civil servants in whom he reposes more confidence.
Consequently, the
president may be dismissive of any advice emanating from his aides. And the
aides knowing that they are seen as only zombinised messengers do not bother to
offer any suggestion that may appear to be interrogating the omniscience of the
president. This was probably why when it was clear that the president had made
up his mind on telling the citizens that change begins with them, no one dared
bring a better insight into the matter.
Buhari knows that he
has conquered the people. They would not be able to reject any policy he throws
at them, no matter how much it negates their interest. This was why when he
increased the price of fuel, there was no protest from the people. At best,
there was only a whimper that was easily submerged by the din of the avowed
altruism of the president. Yet, this was a policy that provoked the citizens’
animus when the past government considered it. Before the conquered
citizens, Buhari prosecutes his anti-corruption campaign without respect for
the people’s constitutional rights. While he ignores the fact that members of
his party are equally guilty of corruption, he continues to hound those who
were associated with the past government. The citizens believe that but for
Buhari’s intervention, corruption would have worsened and the economy
would have sunk deeper. They endure their current economic predicament
exacerbated by Buhari’s inept management of the economy amid the illusion that
whether the president is sleeping or awake, he is preoccupied with
thoughts of how to improve their lives.
The president is secure in the notion that he has conquered the vocal section
of the citizenry. Those citizens who were vociferous in criticising misguided governments
have been silenced with appointments. It is these people who now mock
the notion of hunger in the land. They wonder how a Nigerian citizen could be
so far from reality as to think that there is suffering in the country when
they have not seen anybody who has died of hunger. They have more
evidence: They are not hungry, they still have enough money to send their
children to schools abroad. And for these people, the final evidence is that
airlines are still in business as aircraft on international routes are not
empty. To them, the fact that some airlines such as Aero, First Nation and Arik have shut down is not enough
indication of a country writhing in economic turmoil. Those who have been
regarded as the conscience of the nation renege on their promise to speak on
the Buhari government. They would neither thunder and brand Buhari as a
Nebuchadnezzar nor consider him clueless. The tiny segment of the
vocal population who refused to be quiet has been silenced. They have been
given the final warning not to march on Abuja
Buoyed by his conquest,
Buhari is riding roughshod over the Niger Delta. He offered dialogue, but now
that the agitators have accepted to dialogue he has kept deploying troops in
the region. He does not want to heed the pleas of the leaders of the region
that he should use the opportunity of the ceasefire to negotiate and bring
enduring solutions to the problems of the Niger Delta.
Buhari is aware that
his conquest is not complete until he removes two major obstacles in his way.
He does not want any intervention from the judiciary and legislature. This is
why he wants emergency powers. Even if he does not enjoy the support of the
legislators in this regard, Buhari is free to do whatever he likes. After all,
he has conquered the citizens, and who can question his thinking that he
has not only four years but eternity to slog towards his promised
change for the benefit of the people?
*Dr. Onomuakpokpo is
on the Editorial Board of The Guardian
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