The ultimate prize for the introduction of clowning into Nigerian leadership must go to Olusegun Obasanjo in his second coming as Nigeria’s helmsman from 1999 to 2007. A clumsy soldier and uncouth statesman, Obasanjo hid his gross deficiency in statecraft in regular banters laced with hilarious jokes. Even when the jokes sounded flat, clumsy and unpalatable his courtiers applauded him and egged him on. Unsuspecting and insensitive to hypocrisy, Obasanjo took their applause for approbation and sunk deeper in political buffoonery. He came across as earthy and street-wise, but beneath his bucolic visage and manners lies a villainous mindset. Instead of focusing on serious matters of state and making enduring speeches that ought to have served as national beacons, Obasanjo mounted many a stage and attempted to outdo Ali Baba, Okey Bakassi, and I Go die, all put together. Thus Nigerians cannot remember any ennobling speech or deed by Obasanjo while he was in the saddle.
Obasanjo’s successor, Umaru Musa Yar’ Adua, was a serious minded fellow who jettisoned clowning as statecraft. He appreciated “the trouble with Nigeria” and set out diligently and quietly to tackle it. His sincerity of purpose enabled him to abjure the electoral process that enthroned him. He began the process of electoral reforms which his successors, Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari, could not muster courage to complete. Unfortunately, Yar’ Adua died before he could make a lasting impact. But Nigerians appreciated the difference between him and his predecessor. Yar’ Adua was not a clown and he abhorred political buffoonery.
Yar’ Adua’s successor, Goodluck Jonathan, engaged in occasional clowning in an awkward manner that elevated Obasanjo’s act above his. Like a man who never thought things through Jonathan committed one faux pas after another and looked most of the time like a timid courtier instead of being the king. Things went awry under him and he couldn’t evaluate their gravity. By 2014, it became apparent that Nigeria was like a rudderless ship heading towards an iceberg. The Jonathan’s administration was very low on three fronts namely; economy, corruption and security. Jonathan’s response to these problems which summed up his attitude and weak analytical mindset was either clownish or naive.
At a time when poverty had become endemic to many a home in Nigeria, Jonathan claimed that the nation was prosperous because he sighted fifty jets in Nairobi that belonged to Nigerian business men. When corruption was asphyxiating the nation and Nigerians had concluded that corruption will kill the nation if the nation did not kill it, Jonathan told us that there was no corruption in Nigeria, that what we called corruption was mere stealing. He went on to do an exegesis of the goat and yam anecdote with clumsy aplomb. Not done, when confronted with the security crisis which peaked with Boko Haram’s abduction of the Chibok girls, Jonathan opined that there were neither missing nor abducted girls and that Nigeria was secured and impregnable. Nigerians were aghast at all these.
The coalition that eventually outwitted Jonathan in the 2015 election rode on the waves of his “cluelessness”. The All Progressives Congress (APC) didn’t need to do too much to sway Nigerians that the nation needed a realist and not a joker. They exhumed Muhammadu Buhari who after his 2011 defeat at the polls vowed he would have nothing to do with politic again. The APC, a party of strange fellows knit by the conspiracy to steal political power, sold Buhari to the nation as a redeemer figure. Buhari was held up as a frugal mallam whose ascetic and Spartan life style will make the economy boom. Buhari was held up as ruthless anti-corruption crusader who will eradicate corruption the very day he takes the oath of office as president. Buhari was held up as an army general who will end the Boko Haram insurgency and militancy in the Niger Delta in no time. The campaigns were frenetic. Election came and Buhari won.
As 2018 draws to a close, Buhari has spent three years and seven months as president and commander in chief of the armed forces of Nigeria. The excruciating circumstances which paved the way for his emergence as president have grown worse. Nothing has added up politically. The economy is prostrate and held down by recession. The war against corruption has become a joke and Buhari has blamed its failure on the system. Who runs the system, Muhammadu Buhari or my colleague, Emmanuel Biri? The security crisis is festering. The year 2018 was ushered in by mass killings in Benue. The killings spread to other states. As 2018 rolls to an end, the Boko Haram insurgents are making mincemeat of Nigerian soldiers and ravaging the North East.
Nigerians have been condemned to trepidation. It is probably to relieve our apprehension that the trio felt it needed to sing a Christmas song for the nation. Two or three days ago, the social media and later television stations aired the video of President Buhari, his deputy, Yemi Osinbajo and APC chairman Adams Oshiomhole singing, “we wish youuu a merry Christmas…..”, Nigerians have already wished themselves a merry Christmas. They don’t need the clowning trio to do so. The trio should go about finding solutions to “the trouble with Nigeria.”. They have shared “trader moni”, now it is “we wish you a merry Christmas”. Enough of this recurring cycle of cluelessness and clowning.
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