Much ado about saboteurs in Buhari’s government By Uche Igwe

I read a disturbing newspaper headline in which President Muhammadu Buhari was quoted as saying that some people around him could be sabotaging his efforts. The President was quoted in an interview on Aljazeera, which was monitored from Doha and reported by the Cable newspapers.

Many people are very surprised at the statement. For a long time after Buhari was elected, he could not announce many of his appointees because he was reportedly screening each one of them to ensure that they were not tainted.

The President was even quoted as saying that he was going to appoint only those that he could trust. Fair enough. So what happened? How did he end up appointing these ones that are not on the same page with him? At what point did the saboteurs come in? Who are they?

These questions need to be answered urgently, especially when one recalls that former President Goodluck Jonathan made similar statements with regard to his inability to successfully fight the Boko Haram insurgency. It is possible that some people may be disloyal to the President or they are pursuing a different agenda. Rather than give excuses or speak as if he is helpless, his immediate task should be to investigate them. If he has incontrovertible evidence that they are sabotaging his government, he should fire them accordingly.

Buhari should waste no time to rid the system of such elements that are capable of betraying his vision and derailing his mission. At the end of his tenure, Nigerians will hold him responsible for his performance, the same way they held his predecessor.

But, beyond the immediate action or inaction of the President, it is important to do a proper diagnosis as to why there could still be saboteurs within the present administration. It appears that Buhari is probably too preoccupied with governance to bother about politics. For the kind of situation that he inherited, with falling oil prices and the current state of the economy, it is imperative to focus attention on issues of governance so as to deliver visible results.

However, President Buhari should not continue to ignore politics. It has a way of overshadowing governance in a country like ours. For instance, the feeling among many people is that the ruling All Progressives Congress is still struggling endlessly to assert itself as a political party in power, almost one year after defeating its rival, Peoples’ Democratic Party. It seems as if the leaders of the APC underestimated what it means for a political party to remain in power for 16 years at a stretch. Such a period should be sufficient for the party to extend its tentacles to every stratum of the Nigerian society. It will take a lot of effort to root out the PDP and entrench APC in the polity.

It will be recalled that since the APC emerged victorious in the 2015 elections, the President and the party became quite relaxed. They have not done much to consolidate their hard-earned victory. Apart from a few components of the party’s manifesto, which resonate in some of the speeches of President Buhari, little is known about how the APC will like to do things differently. The ruling party has practically lost every other election that has taken place afterwards. Why? Look at what happened in Bayelsa State and how the APC allowed intra-party issues to ruin what was a clear opportunity. All the Senatorial re-run elections in Taraba and Benue have been won by the PDP. After the APC had done the most difficult job of unseating an incumbent President, how come they have been unable to consolidate the gains by showing steady popularity in other smaller elections? What has changed between 2015 and now?

For a political party that won election through the coming together of people of diverse political persuasions, the proper thing for the leaders to do after the elections will be to find a way to establish themselves among the people. The best way to accomplish that task is for the President to popularise the party’s change manifesto. That will help to win genuine converts for the party and empower those who want to promote its vision and mission. So far, it is not clear to many people the substance upon which the change mantra promoted by the APC should rest on.

Again it seems that the ruling party decided to open its flanks too quickly for defectors from the PDP to populate it and even assume strategic positions. Some people argue that the difference between both political parties exist only in name as there is a free movement across the two parties for political convenience and survival. The implication of this is that those who consider themselves ‘original’ members of the APC in some states feel short-changed, especially in relation to appointment. However, others who are new entrants were now catapulted into important positions without necessarily understanding the foundation upon which the party was built in the first place. The aftermath of the ministerial nomination precipitated some divisions that still linger in many states. Some office holders today are APC in flesh while they remain PDP in their soul and spirit. Even at the national level there was concern over the national spread of the President’s key appointments, although he has continuously defended his position as constitutional.

In particular, there are those who consider what happened with the 2015 budget as a product of sabotage. Really? What should have been an internal party matter was unfortunately allowed to become a media affair. I would rather describe it as an error than sabotage. On another note, it may be important to talk about another salient but silent factor. This may be early, but part of the reasons for disloyalty to the President could be due to murmuring about succession. What does the President’s body language indicate about whether he will be re-contesting his position in 2019? Who are the possible persons or group of persons who can take his vision further? Could it be that politicians are already positioning themselves for politics by forming fiefdoms? President Buhari needs to listen to the pulse of the street while scrutinising his team. It may well be true that some people are sabotaging his efforts or that it is just that he needs to scale up the politics to root himself and his party in the heart and minds of Nigerians.

PUNCH

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