There is no doubt that the management of President Muhammadu Buhari’s ongoing medical vacation in the United Kingdom could have been handled in a far more professional, credible and significantly less embarrassing manner. With the quality of medical advice that must presumably be available to Nigeria’s number one citizen, it ought to have been obvious even before the president left the country on January 19 that ten days would be insufficient for him to undergo all the necessary tests and ascertain his state of health. It was surely after all this had been done that the duration of his stay abroad could be more accurately and credibly determined. Why then didn’t the President just notify the National Assembly that he was taking his full annual vacation rather than specifying that he would be back within ten days, thus creating serious credibility problems when this proved unrealistic and raising doubts about claims that he was hale, hearty and in good spirits?
Beyond this, Buhari had fulfilled all constitutional righteousness by notifying the National Assembly of his vacation and even hinting that he would seize the opportunity to undergo medical diagnostics. That way, there was no vacuum in governance as the Vice-President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo (SAN) simply stepped in as Acting President in accordance with the law. What then was the point about the flurry of reports in the media about purported trips to see the President in London by assorted persons, his telephone conversations or his planned imminent return to the country? Perhaps the most credible and useful of the effectively publicized visits to Buhari were those of top chieftains of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Chief Bisi Akande, as well as the leadership of the National Assembly. Most of the others, however, only spawned further needless and unhelpful media speculations.
I do not agree with the view that the public has a right to be told the details of the President’s medical condition. Yes, full disclosure may be morally desirable of the president. It is not legally obligatory. In any case, what purpose would it serve? Do those who so earnestly yearn and desire to be acquainted with every detail of the president’s health status have a cure for whatever the problem may be? Is the information being sought for altruistic and patriotic purposes or to fuel cynical jokes on social media with possible deleterious consequences for the president’s psyche and morale as well as that of his family? The final decision on such a sensitive matter rests entirely with the president himself, his doctors and close family members. In reality, those who demand full disclosure may be actuated by considerations that are no less base and vile than those who want to totally occlude information as regards Buhari’s health challenges.
Given what we know of their antecedents, I am confident that some of the administration’s information managers like Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information and Culture and Mr. Femi Adeshina, Special Adviser to the President on Media, would most likely have handled the situation differently if they were to have their way. They are operating in challenging circumstances and it would appear have to give out information they are given without the benefit of first hand acquaintance with the facts. In any case, irrespective of whether or not they have access to the president, their hands are necessarily tied as to what they can tell the public. That is the nature of the job. Their opting out of the job as is often advocated in such circumstances would not change anything and so would be completely pointless.
There has, unfortunately, been too much hesitancy, tentativeness and unnecessary defensiveness in managing information on the president’s health. There is absolutely nothing to be apologetic about a 74 year old man taking ill. All of us are after all mortal and vulnerable to sickness even at the very prime of life. Buhari is still less than two years in office and cannot be blamed for a deplorable health care situation that compels the president to seek medical care abroad. In any case, if for whatever reason Buhari were to be declared unfit to continue as President today, his name will still be written in indelible gold in the annals of Nigeria. It remains a miracle that he is not a billionaire in diverse currencies given the critical positions he has held in various spheres of the country’s public life. Whatever may be his personal failings and that of his administration, Buhari has raised the bar of the anti-corruption war to a new pedestal that will clearly be difficult to roll back.
What has become evident in this political dispensation since 1999 is that although the presidency was conceived and designed as an institution to symbolize and strengthen national unity and cohesion, it has a very polarizing and divisive effect on the polity. Nobody can become President of Nigeria except he runs on the platform of a genuinely national political party or a coalition of political forces that transcends wide swathes of the country’s ethno-cultural, regional and religious divides. To emerge a President, a candidate must win not only the highest number of votes cast in the election but also score not less than 25% of the votes cast in each of at least two-thirds of the states of the federation. The aim is to ensure that the president has a sufficient spread of electoral support to enable him rise above sectional divides and exercise effective authority as a genuinely national leader.
Unfortunately, the presidency remains as trapped as ever in the constricting prisons of ethnicity, regionalism and religion. In fact, the vicious struggle for control of the all powerful presidency by competing ethno-regional factions of the political class has itself become a serious destabilizing factor in the polity. This is worsened by the fact that once a president emerges, the party platform that produced him tends to be relegated to the background becoming no better than a parastatal under the supervision of the presidency. The place of the party in ensuring responsive, responsible and accountable governance in accordance with the party’s manifesto and ideology is thus easily hijacked by a mix of ethnic, religious, regional, old school boys and other predatory cabals that effectively hijack an unhinged presidency.
That was the situation during the 16 years of the PDP and was largely responsible for the insidious, even if unnoticed degeneration, and ultimately disastrous performance of the party in the 2015 election and its continuing implosion since then. Unfortunately, the APC, despite its slogan of change, is continuing along the same path with the party increasingly atrophied structurally and functionally and the consequent undesirable personalization of power around the presidency. Incidentally, the late radical historian, Dr. Bala Usman, who along with Professor Segun Osoba produced a minority draft constitution for the second republic had predicted this possibility.
In a paper presented at a seminar on the draft constitution in March, 1977 and published in his collection of essays, ‘For the Liberation of Nigeria’, Usman said, “The justification they give for making the office of president so powerful is that he will provide effective government and become a focus of national loyalty. But it is not clear how this effectiveness and loyalty will develop if there are no provisions to ensure that the president will be elected and operate during his term as somebody who, with his team, stands for a definite political programme and policies. Unless this is ensured the president will be seen as standing for nothing more than his personality and ultimately his place of origin”.
Stressing further the critical importance of a clearly defined party policy and programme, internal party democracy and collective decision making at all levels both within government and the party, Usman gave insight into the provisions of the minority draft constitution saying “Without provisions to ensure this, the president and the governors will, far from being a focus of loyalty and effective leaders, be merely power- hungry, megalomaniac, political operators whose personality and ego will be the most important aspect of their governments. Such political leaders will only create national disunity because, ultimately, the personality, no matter what national garb it is sold in at the elections, will come out with its ethnic and religious colouring”.
And Bala Usman’s parting words four decades ago: “If their constitution is adopted, far from moving towards national cohesion, Nigeria will become torn with ethnic and religious disunity and sectionalism. Far from providing a basis and framework for the development of national cohesion and democracy, there will be an intensification of the present grossly uneven pattern of underdevelopment, greater capitalist and bureaucratic greed, individualism and chaos”.
Could anyone have been more prescient?
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