Any adult Nigerian who believes one word of Nigeria leader Muhammadu Buhari’s “Democracy Day” speech two days ago needs a doctor.
But let us step back a little bit by two weeks: to May 29 when General Buhari took to the pages of Newsweek in a signed article he called “Post-Coronavirus: Africa’s Manufacturing Moment.”
It was a reminder of a previous one, “The Three Changes Nigeria Needs”, which Buhari penned for the Wall Street Journal in June 2016.
It would have been remarkable had Buhari’s new article revealed how he has made those three changes in his five years in office, but of course he has made none.
But if you didn’t know Buhari has again written for the foreign press, you are not alone; some people in the government say they didn’t even know.
It is widely-known he does not like to speak to Nigerians. He gives the impression that sounding concerned and committed before the international community is far more important than actually serving his own people.
Curiously also, although he holds the Nigeria job, he wanted to speak for Africa.
He wrote: “In this new, post-coronavirus age, Nigeria—and Africa, more broadly—wish to benefit the world, not be a drag on its resources or seemingly forever in need of aid. At last, after years of poor governance, we have the people, the purpose and the political will for this to change.
“What we need now is for the vision of others to match our own. And Africa is positioned to play a critical role in the remolding of a post-coronavirus world that centers around manufacturing.”
It is unclear why the will of the giver must match that of the taker. Or why manufacturing would be the first concern of a people who are hungry.
He wrote: “Our young population is increasingly well educated; governance reform, while not universal, is growing in strength in most African countries such as my own, where our sustained actions against the seemingly perennial scourge of corruption and malfeasance are well-recognised; and the energy, infrastructure and key natural resources needed to power and supply large-scale manufacturing facilities are in place.”
He was referring, by the way, to the same youths he denounced two years ago in the United Kingdom as freeloaders; and tendering as an achievement his verbal onslaught on corruption. But particularly astonishing is the declaration that Nigeria now has the energy, infrastructure and key natural resources to power manufacturing. We have, Nigeria?
Curiously, Buhari also disclosed that he owes his strides to his late friend and infamous kleptocrat, Sani Abacha, that former leader being one Buhari is on record as saying he never looted anything.
Not that Buhari named anyone, though: he simply expressed “thanks to close to a billion dollars of funds stolen from the people of Nigeria under a previous, undemocratic junta in the 1990s that have now been returned to our country from the U.S., U.K. and Switzerland.”
As Buhari finally admitted that Abacha was a thief, I wondered whether, as he wrote those words, he was grimacing, given that as far as undemocratic Nigerian juntas go he was a front liner in the Abacha regime, and led one himself in the 80s.
Nonetheless, the funds to which he refers are far larger than a billion dollars, but since assuming office in 2015,Buhari has defined such concepts as accountability and the rule of law with a wink or an asterisk. At the intersection of those two concepts, for instance, he has famously refused to obey court orders to account for billions received by his and previous governments.
Which is why, on Friday, he arrived at his Democracy Day desk and had no problem saying he is “focused on ensuring that Nigeria would always be governed by the Rule of Law and I would do my utmost to uphold the constitution and protect the lives and property of all Nigerians.”
Clearly, none of that is true. Nigerians continue to point out every day how Buhari routinely violates the constitution or ignore it. They lament how, under his watch and despite his outlandish claims, insecurity is flourishing. Boko Haram remains undefeated, armed Fulani herdsmen have compromised agriculture in swathes of the country, while kidnappers and armed robbers take advantage of our prostrate security outfits.
These are all possible largely because of that first “need” Buhari identified to the world in 2016 but has neglected: credibility. There have been untrustworthy governments before, but Buhari’s is especially loaded with air, and has neither shame nor pride.
Buhari’s speech on Friday again demonstrates this. It is a long list of promises to keep. Buhari’s speeches are always a long to-do list. But none is ever completed, and none ever enjoys a direct follow-up.
He recalled that last year, he “promised to frontally address the nation’s daunting challenges, especially insecurity, economy and corruption,” and would now give account.
But that promise was made five years ago, at his inauguration. While it has been repeated ad nauseam at home and abroad ever since, it has not been honoured in action. And that has earned Buhari’s government the image of Nigeria’s most corrupt and ineffectual in her 60 years.
Think about it: last year, Buhari also made new promises, as is his character. The most prominent was to fight extreme poverty, a category in which Nigeria leads the world.
Affirming that his government had been “mapping out policies, measures and laws to…lift the bulk of our people out of poverty and onto the road to prosperity,” he declared he would liberate 100 million Nigerians in 10 years.
As ambitious as that declaration was, Buhari in the past year failed to announce an implementation plan. Last week, his silence on the subject is evidence that he is content with Nigeria being permanently the world’s poverty capital.
The truth is that you must be ambitious to be successful. But in his Newsweek article, Buhari described Africa only as “an opportunity for all and a threat to no one…[content]…merely to play our part as partners in development.”
But that is not a dream; it is a nightmare. Why should we be content merely to be a partner in our own development when we should be champion, leader and cheerleader?
And how can you be a champion if you are merely an “opportunity,” with no ambition to be as good as they are?
Nigeria has the tools to be far more than the poorest of the poor. Nigeria should dream big dreams the same way the United States dreams. The way Singapore dreamt. The way China dreamt.
Those massive dreams are at the heart of their economic and technological ascendancy. No nation has ever advanced based on an apologetic and self-deprecating philosophy while it squirrels around in debt. None.
Nigeria needs a leadership capable of great dreams and the heart to set its best free to pursue them, recognising that you cannot win the Olympics with non-athletes.
“Nigeria could become the next China,” wrote Sam Hill also in Newsweek last January. “It may not…Maybe Nigeria will always be the country of tomorrow.”
[This column welcomes rebuttals from interested government officials].
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