When I inaugurated this countdown six months ago, the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) was at the beginning of his second term and had 1444 days left in office.
But I must point out that this calculation is based only on the Gregorian calendar. Time and chance—the very lotteries of life—may have other plans for him.
Last week, one of those lotteries appeared to have a message for Buhari as he arrived in Egypt for the Aswan Forum.
He had barely settled into his seat when his home erupted, his wife sending out an explosive press statement in which she exposed the war in the First Family.
She accused Mamman Daura, Buhari’s nephew who is widely believed to be the real president, of causing an illegal presidential directive to be issued by spokesman Garba Shehu that her office should not be recognised.
That is the Office of the First Lady, which she established at the beginning of Buhari’s second term, and into which Buhari has appointed aides.
Mamman lives at the presidential palace and just two months ago, Aisha first alluded to the crisis. The First Lady’s update puts Mamman and Shehu on the chopping block and presents her husband with difficult choices.
“To make matters worse, Mr Shehu has presented himself to these people as a willing tool and executioner of their antics, from the corridors of power even to the level of interfering with the family affairs of the President…” Aisha wrote.
And then she took on Mamman himself. “We all remember that the chief proponent appropriated to himself and his family a part of the Presidential Villa, where he stayed for almost four years and when the time came for him to leave, he orchestrated and invaded my family’s privacy through a video circulated by Mamman’s Daughter, Fatima, the public was given the impression that on arrival into the country I was locked out of the villa by Mr. President.”
After offering instances of Shehu’s activities at the villa, she tied him to the stake and gave her husband the gun: “Based on Garba Shehu’s misguided sense of loyalty and inability to stay true and loyal to one person or group, it has become apparent that all trust has broken down between him and my family due to the many embarrassments he has caused the Presidency and the first family,” she said.
The choice before Buhari is clear: “We all have families to consider in our actions and therefore it is in the best interest of all concerned for Garba Shehu to take the advice of the authority, given to him sometimes in the first week of November, 2019.”
It may well be that Buhari and his spokesman went to Egypt to learn one thing: the meaning of hell, as in: “hell hath no fury.”
But that was just the beginning of a tumultuous December 11 for Buhari: Back in Nigeria, a newspaper demoted him from democrat to dictator and sent him back 35 years.
In a scathing editorial, The PUNCH drew attention to the serial disregard of Buhari for human rights as well as other excesses of his government.
Until the government purged itself of its contempt for the rule of law, The PUNCH vowed it “will henceforth prefix Buhari’s name with his rank as a military dictator in the 80s, Major General, and refer to his administration as a regime…”
It was a resounding rebuke which caught the attention of the entire nation and, with the help of social media, the world.
The government reacted. Twice. In one day.
First, presidential spokesman Femi Adesina described the paper’s explosive decision as a validation of the democratic character of his boss. In his narrative, it was evidence of the freedom of the press.
But not that free, thundered his counterpart-spokesman, the embattled Garba Shehu, in a lengthier response.
Shehu deployed anger and impatience. Clearly, his boss had been rattled by the newspaper’s overarching decision to de-legitimise him. He accused the newspaper of going beyond its remit, arguing that it did not undertake a similar policy shift when such rulers as Ibrahim Babangida and Olusegun Obasanjo had run the country. He did not mention Sani Abacha, who was Buhari’s friend, insinuating only “personal hatred” for his principal by the newspaper.
Shehu was being disingenuous, of course. Neither personal nor corporate opinions are guided by such standards. The truth is simply that General Buhari is not the man he pretends to be or promised to be; instead, he has emerged a far more dictatorial, narrow-minded and divisive figure than anyone had reason to fear.
Shehu was quick to call on the power of the elections of 2015 and 2019. But they are the same only in name: the first was conducted under President Goodluck Jonathan, a man to whom the concept of one Nigeria meant he quickly conceded the presidential election. To Buhari.
Since he took his oath of office in 2015, the General has replaced the hopes of voters with shame and embarrassment. Worse still, he has shrunk the concept of Nigeria to the size of one crumpled sheet of paper.
In other words, General Buhari cloaked himself in democracy to undertake a coup against the people. But he has maintained the stream of insults. “In my first term, we put Nigeria back on its feet,” he said on Democracy Day, six months ago. “We are working again… CHANGE has come, we now must move to the NEXT LEVEL.”
This summarises how low Nigeria has sunk under Buhari. What CHANGE? And exactly what does “NEXT LEVEL” mean, cynicism? What has General Buhari achieved in five years?
At the UN General Assembly three months ago, he unleashed empty clichés about due process and the rule of law. “The rule of law remains the permanent, unchanging foundation of the world order,” he declared. “Freedom, tolerance and the rule of law are universal values…”
It was painful to listen to, knowing how he espouses the opposing values and betrayed every strand of progress made since 1999.
Sadly, everyone at the UN knows the former head of state is guided only by a narrow map of self and nation. He is known as a tin-god who preaches accountability but never practices it; and as a principal without principles.
But his blame train is now grounded. If he wants to regain any respect, attacking Nigerians who say, “Enough is Enough,” as Premium Times did in another strong editorial last Friday in which it also referenced “General” Buhari, will not do it.
His larger-than-life character is no longer being celebrated but questioned. By his wife. By his country. By every smirking international observer and leader. This is not a southern or northern Nigeria question, but of good or bad, and right and wrong. Bluster and bravado are no answer.
Nigerians didn’t vote for a democrat to receive a despot. They voted for someone who claimed he knew them and would lead them there.
Buhari is not that man. He has 1261 days, on a certain calendar, to make amends if he is man enough. At home, he has fewer.
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