If President Muhammadu Buhari, his executive cabinet, the judiciary and eighth National Assembly possess the capacity to be truly humane and progressive, they would seek greater understanding of their role as Nigerian public officers and more importantly, attain true purpose and direction by the wisdom and example set by former Uruguayan President, José Mujica.
Mujica, 77, served as leader of Uruguay between 2010 and 2015. He was elected in 2009 but he had no interest in taking on the grand presidential lifestyle. As president, he reportedly donated 90 percent of his salary to the impoverished and small scale entrepreneurs. He scorned the vulgar opulence characteristic of contemporary presidencies like Nigeria’s, to live in a farmhouse, off a dirt road in Montevideo; there he and his wife worked and still work the land themselves, cultivating chrysanthemums for sale, having declined to live in the opulent presidential palace or use its staff. He also scorned the official presidential motorcade.
The austere leader earned $12,500 a month but reportedly kept only $1,250 for himself. “I do fine with that amount; I have to do fine because there are many Uruguayans who live with much less,” Mujica disclosed in a newspaper interview.
While in power, he rode a 1987 Volkswagen Beetle car. In 2010, the value of the car was $1,800 and represented the entirety of the mandatory annual personal wealth declaration filed by Mujica for that year. In November 2014, the Uruguayan newspaper, Búsqued, reported that he had been offered $1 million for the car; he said that if he did get $1 million for the car, it would be donated to house the homeless through a programme that he supports.
Mujica was able to improve quality of life for the citizenry via populist economic policies. Uruguay thus enjoyed an impressive GDP considering it’s the second-smallest nation in South America. He was known for speaking his mind, defending basic human values and attacking the dark sides of modern life. He did so in a remarkable speech at the sustainability summit in Rio de Janeiro four years ago. In September 2013, Mujica reiterated his philosophy of leadership and humanity to the United Nations General Assembly, with a very long discourse devoted to humanity and globalization.
The speech called on the international community to strengthen efforts to preserve the planet for future generations and highlighted the power of the financial systems and the impact of economic fallout on ordinary people.
As a Colombian newspaper said, it was ‘the speech world leaders did not want to hear, but is shared by the rest of the world.’ The speech has been called poetic, prophetic, romantic, lyrical and flat out weird. It’s not exactly your 16-minute TEDtalk, but it definitely projected ideas worth reliving.
Excerpts of the speech:
“We have been talking about sustainable development, about rescuing the masses from the claws of poverty…What is it that flutters within our minds? Is it the model of development and consumption, which is shaped after that of affluent societies? I ask this question: what would happen to this planet if the people of India had the same number of cars per family as the Germans? How much oxygen would there be left for us to breathe?
“More clearly: Does the world today have the material elements to enable seven or eight billion people to enjoy the same level of consumption and squandering as the most affluent Western societies? Will that ever be possible? Or will we have to start a different type of discussion one day? Because we have created this civilization in which we live: the progeny of the market, of the competition, which has begotten prodigious and explosive material progress. But the market economy has created market societies. And it has given us this globalization, which means being aware of the whole planet.
“Are we ruling over globalization or is globalization ruling over us?…Today, man does not govern the forces he has unleashed, but rather, it is these forces that govern man and life. Because we do not come into this planet simply to develop, just like that, indiscriminately. We come into this planet to be happy. Because life is short and it slips away from us. And no material belonging is worth as much as life, and this is fundamental.
“But if life is going to slip through my fingers, working and over-working in order to be able to consume more, and the consumer society is the engine-because ultimately, if consumption is paralyzed, the economy stops, and if you stop economy, the ghost of stagnation appears for each one of us, but it is this hyper-consumption that is harming the planet.
“And this hyper-consumption needs to be generated, making things that have a short useful life, in order to sell a lot. Thus, a light bulb cannot last longer than 1000 hours. But there are light bulbs that last 100,000 hours! But these cannot be manufactured, because the problem is the market, because we have to work and we have to sustain a civilization of “use and discard”, and so, we are trapped in a vicious cycle. These are problems of a political nature, which are showing us that it’s time to start fighting for a different culture.
“I belong to a small country well endowed with natural resources for life. In my country, there are a bit more than three million people. But there are about 13 million cows, some of the best in the world. And about 8 or 10 million excellent sheep. My country is an exporter of food, dairy, meat. It is a low-relief plain and almost 90% of the land is fertile.
“My fellow workers, fought hard for the 8 hour workday. And now they are making that 6 hours. But the person who works 6 hours, gets two jobs, therefore, he works longer than before. But why? Because he needs to make monthly payments for: the motorcycle, the car, more and more payments, and when he’s done with that, he realizes he is a rheumatic old man, like me, and his life is already over.
“And one asks this question: is this the fate of human life? These things I say are very basic: development cannot go against happiness. It has to work in favor of human happiness, of love on earth, human relationships, caring for children, having friends, having our basic needs covered. Precisely because this is the most precious treasure we have; happiness. When we fight for the environment, we must remember that the essential element of the environment is called human happiness.”
Mujica is a farmer. Buhari is a farmer. The difference between both men’s touted simplicity is that, while Mujica practiced what he preached by scorning the trappings and vulgar luxury of presidential office, President Buhari curiously, is unable to do so. Nonetheless, Buhari represents Nigeria’s best hope at the moment, amid the pack of hounds masquerading as ‘Change Agents’ in the presidential cabinet and National Assembly.
In these hard times, Almighty Eledumare help Buhari navigate his way through the luxury-traps and political landmine hindering him from steering the nation’s ship to the promised land. If he could truly aspire to a simple life like Mujica’s, he may enjoy the citizenry’s unflinching support at taming the gluttony and alleged excesses of his colleagues in the National Assembly.
And let’s hope the younger generation of Nigerians are able to present worthier replacements for the Buhari generation or what Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, aptly described as the ‘Wasted Generation’ come 2019.
NATION
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