During his recent visit to
Qatar, President Muhammadu Buhari sat for an interview with Martine
Dennis of Al Jazeera. Last weekend, close to two weeks after the trip, I
finally found time to watch the entirety of the interview. I found it
enlightening, for two broad reasons.
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The first and minor one was to remark the interviewer’s composure and
confidence. She had a grasp of her subject (Nigeria’s economic woes,
widespread disappointment with Mr. Buhari’s budget, and growing
apprehension about the outline of his economic and security policies).
The interviewer’s full-throttle style was in sharp contrast with the
fawning and deferential manner adopted by many a Nigerian reporter when
given the opportunity to interview an incumbent or former president—or
even lesser ranking public officials. In question after question, Ms.
Dennis zeroed in on specific details of Buharinomics and politics
Buhariana. And she was rather quick-footed whenever the occasion called
for a follow-up question.
My major interest in the interview was the opportunity it offered to take a measure of the president’s mindset.
Buhari had a few fine moments in the interview, the hallmark arriving
when—reminded by Ms. Dennis that the IMF was not enamored of his
refusal to devalue the naira—he replied that his country’s interest
trumped the IMF’s prescription.
On the whole, however, I came away with the impression that President
Buhari’s interview was simply “interesting.” And I have borrowed the
word, interesting, with all its freight of ambiguities, from Mr. Buhari.
He seemed uncomfortable when the interviewer touched on the subject
of how the government’s forex policy was affecting parents who are
paying school fees for their children studying abroad. Yet, when she
reminded him that his own children were also studying abroad—implying
that he was now among the super-privileged—he seemed unfazed.
One of most revealing segments of the interview concerned the
scandal-plagued budget the president forwarded to the National Assembly.
As Ms. Dennis asked pointed questions backed with dispiriting facts,
Mr. Buhari seemed perplexed about his own budgetary proposals. He ducked
or deflected her tough specific questions—say, about the fact that the
VP’s office was allocated more funds for book purchases than all the
country’s polytechnics put together, or about the even more
disconcerting fact that the budget for improving the State House clinic
was larger than the total budget for Nigeria’s teaching hospitals. Even
though the government recently punished some bureaucrats on account of
the budget fiasco, the question remains: How did Mr. Buhari imprint a
budget without first getting a handful of trusted hands to vet it?
The interviewer brought up the scandal called security votes.
“Security votes have been described as (perhaps) the most enduring form
of corruption in Nigeria. Why don’t you just eliminate them completely?”
she asked. And that’s when Mr. Buhari responded: “You know more about
our budget than I do. That’s very interesting.” He then went ahead to
enumerate Nigeria’s security challenges, including Boko Haram and
resurgent militancy in the Niger Delta. “Nigeria has got all these
security problems. So if money is voted for security, I don’t mind,
people can go as far as they can to find out whether that money is being
utilized for security or is being shared in the pocket like the $2.1
billion the previous administration did.”
His response was both in character and disappointing. Where the
journalist challenged him to do something that would amount to a
structural blow against corruption, Mr. Buhari was content to invoke his
personal integrity. Yet, no community should settle for the chancy
goodwill and character of its leaders. It is far better to institute a
system that discourages or curbs excesses than to hope for the wheels of
fortune to throw up a good man or woman on occasion. Nigeria’s security
budget should be entirely routed through its security agencies—the
armed forces and intelligence apparatuses. There is no justification for
security votes, which have evolved into a tested system for siphoning
funds into private pockets. In a haste to be defensive, the president
missed the deeper implication of the journalist’s questions. That
implication is that Nigeria needs systemic, institutional reforms, not
just the sprinkle of a few good men and women.
The absence of that institutional focus is, for me, one of the most
troubling aspects of the Buhari Presidency. The Al Jazeera reporter
noted that the president’s anti-corruption crusade has netted no
convictions, yet. One expects a few to come soon, but it’s still going
to be a trickle.
My fear is that some of Nigeria’s captains of corruption have
exhaled. They don’t see the president pushing any judicial reforms to
put corruption cases on a fast track, to fix Nigeria’s labyrinthine and
slumberous judicial system—where each court session becomes an
exasperating exercise in motions and counter-motions, designed to
occasion long adjournments or appeals.
To fight corruption more effectively, the president ought to initiate
legal and judicial reforms. As cases plod along in court, the corrupt
find time and opportunities to manipulate the system. Many Nigerians
have stashed away illicitly acquired millions of dollars. Do we doubt
their readiness to use that loot not only to hire the best defense
lawyers but also to pay off prosecutors and some judges who are not
averse to auctioning off their revered bench?
The most troubling glimpse into the president’s mind came in his
responses to the question of Biafra. First, he declined to watch footage
in which Nigerian security agents are seen closing in to teargas and
then shoot some unarmed, peaceful demonstrators. Several protesters were
killed, many more wounded. Harping on the two million who perished in
the Biafran War of 1967-1970, Mr. Buhari could not fathom why some
youngsters—who were perhaps not born at the time of that war—would just
“wake up” to say they “want Biafra again.”
Asked why his government had not invited the agitators for talks, Mr.
Buhari coldly retorted, “Why should we invite them?” Let me chip in one
or two reasons. For one: because it’s the president’s job to assuage
popular disaffection. Two, it makes better sense to talk than to shoot.
Any leader who believes in the humanity of his citizens would never
shoot them as a first recourse. After all, a leader is called to govern
the living, not preside over a mass of corpses.
I am opposed to the agitation for Biafra, but that does not excuse
the president’s icy, insensitive and hectoring tone—much less the
impression that he would sooner deploy what Ms. Dennis described as
“very heavy-handed” military force to brutalize agitators than make a
good faith effort to reach out, to talk, to listen.
Few people would wish to secede from a success story. The reason
multitudes of youth are defying bullets to ask for Biafra is that
Nigeria has grown into an almost 56-year old experiment in failure. It
doesn’t mean that Biafra is the answer. But we must remember that other
sections of Nigeria have also voiced the same sense of disenchantment.
Many Nigerians are revolted by Nigeria: a mess of a country that we’ve
all helped to create.
The Igbo are resilient entrepreneurs, and their enterprising genius
is best unfurled, I have argued, within a larger rather than smaller
territorial canvas. They are better off in Nigeria, and Nigeria is
better off with the Igbo. Al Jazeera gave Mr. Buhari an opportunity to
strike a large-spirited, conciliatory note that could have healed
wounds. It is “interesting” and disappointing, but not surprising, that
he squandered the opportunity.
Caveat: This Opinion does not reflect that of VC Ezems Blog.
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