During President Muhammadu Buhari’s maiden media chat a few weeks ago, a few points struck me which I wanted to raise. However, I could not do so because of the kind of divisive conversations that overtook the
Nigerian public space afterwards. I was a little surprised with the level of sentiments expressed by both those who did not support the President and those who did. Such a bitter display of partisanship submerged any chance of an objective assessment of that important dialogue. There were those who suggested that the President was tyrannical in his approach because of his tough stance on the detained former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, who is facing trial for alleged corruption and the Director of the Radio Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, who is facing charges related to treason. I admit to the fact that the President ought to set a democratic precedent by obeying court orders. However, such single low point is not sufficient for us to dismiss the media chat as a waste of time.
That chat was an important moment to peep into the mind of the President. Nigerians had an opportunity to begin to see things through their leader’s lens. It is important therefore that we assess the chat and the man and make extrapolations from the two. Nigerians deserve to know more about someone who will lead them for the next four years. I am not one of those who saw the media chat as a flawless one. There are some many things the President needs to learn very quickly or better still we need to cope with about him.
For instance, he needs to improve a little more in the area of public speaking. He is a bit old-fashioned in his speaking, otherwise how would he be referring to the German currency, the Deutsche Mark, that seized to exist many years ago? Sometimes, the President appeared not to hear or understand the questions asked before he went ahead to answer them. Yet, some people insist that it is right to substitute substance for eloquence. Although the President is a former soldier but my gut feeling is that someone who is willing to subject himself for media scrutiny cannot be described as a tyrant. All over the world tyrannical regimes have been associated with leaders who r press the media rather than those who permit and promote media freedom. For me, Buhari’s willingness to engage the media is an important democratic credential that should not be dismissed easily. He had confessed that he had only been a democrat since April 2002.
For a man at 73, it means he has only embraced democracy for 13 years. Can we confidently say that such a man is performing below expectation based on his background? So many people suggested that the President was visibly angry – now this may just be one side of the story as many others describe his attitude as a product of passion. But let us assume for the sake of debate that he was angry.
Angry over what or and with who? When a leader makes stunning discoveries of public funds that had been diverted to private pockets; that crude oil belonging to the nation had been illegally lifted and its proceeds diverted to private accounts.
When a leader realises how thieves and looters are littered in our political space, those who diverted resources meant for the fight against one of the world’s deadliest insurgencies while those who plundered the economy are still walking free. He may also be angry, justifiably so, with the frustrations of the court processes and the fact that the rule of law is taking too long in giving these offenders commensurate punishment. The problem is that many Nigerians have not recovered from the divisive politics that we all witnessed in the last elections. That is why they still see the President’s actions from the lens of his tribe and religion. I guess we should rise above that and give him some benefit of the doubt. That was something I took away from that media chat.
We got to find a way of rebuilding the trust that had eroded considerably amongst us. Trust in one another and trust in our government. I am not saying that we should continue to trust government when it does not deliver. No. What I am saying is that we must try to trust it while waiting for it to deliver. I think we should stick to the issues that the President raised. He asked us to use the Freedom of Information Act to demand the details of asset declaration either for him, any of his ministers, governors or any other public official permitted to do so by the constitution. On the war against corruption, we may need to take an inventory of those who had been convicted beyond the media trials before we can join to assign the President a pass mark. His comments about the whereabouts of the Chibok girls were quite unsettling. That government still does not have credible intelligence about their location raises a lot of issues about competence and even veracity of the whole abduction story. With what we have heard from those escapees, no sensitive government will wait for the 209 girls to be assembled in one location before it begins to negotiate.
The issue of welfare of the more than two million Internally Displaced Persons, a majority of whom are women and children, is an emergency. We could read the body language of the President about the Nigerian Army-Shi’ites brouhaha when he referred to the “excited teenagers almost hitting the chest of generals and pelting missiles at them”.
Yet, the President must tolerate the political intervention from the President of Iran and allow due process for a matter whose evidence exists in the public domain. Can we follow up on the declaration that Boko Haram has been technically defeated and its capabilities eroded? We now know that the President feels and thinks that both the Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele and the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, are Igbo from the South-East. Aren’t they? What about the debate on the devaluation of the naira and restrictions on foreign exchange?
How convincing did he come across? Shall we wait for him to hear from the CBN governor and come back to us? Can we have a conversation about the Treasury Single Account? Whether it is the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation having 45 different accounts or the Nigerian military having 70 different accounts, both sound outlandish.
However, the President needs to show us the N1.5tn which he said has been mopped up from the TSA implementation. He also needs to tell us where the money will be applied in the 2016 budget. There are many important issues which the President raised during his media chat that deserve our attention and further probing. The debate about obeying court orders is in order. However, we must approach it objectively. There are many other areas that we must hold our President to account. We should not allow unnecessary sentiments and our political leanings becloud our sense of judgment. There is work to be done.
PUNCH
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