PUNCH NEWS
On Sunday night presidential media aide released a statement to relay a Christmas Day event at the presidential villa. The otherwise routine release stated that the President, Maj. Gen Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), hosted the Federal Capital Territory Minister, Mohammed Bello, and some residents of the nation’s capital. The statement contained the now tiring rant about how Buhari will not meddle in national affairs once his tenure ends. We have heard variations of this promise enough to wonder at the self-importance underwriting this repetitive claim. Who, really, is going to miss Buhari? Which one of even his lickspittle acolytes will tolerate his nuisance when he is no longer serving their purposes? For a president that lacks charisma, does not embody intellectualism, and hardly displays sustained interest in even his own job, there will be virtually no reason to summon Buhari after May 2023. The afterlife of his presidency will be long days spent vegetating in his hometown. His post-Aso Rock fate is oblivion.
In the typical fashion of the Buhari administration’s flaunt of his anti-corruption credentials, Shehu relayed their principal’s opinions on how Bello must be faring given the incessant requests they received from some influential Nigerians— including the president’s associates—for land allocation. According to Buhari’s narration, one of his asked him to speak to Bello on his behalf. When Buhari asked what he needed the land for, this person replied, “I will sell it and use the money to marry another wife.” The story must have been narrated for comical relief, but it was also too telling of the nature of the people surrounding the president and the scam that Buhari himself has proven to be.
Now, it is understandable that a president would have friends who would be close enough to make idle jokes or even say risqué things before him—he is human, after all. However, it is an entirely different affair when the loose talk is transcribed and archived into official records. In societies where governance is a serious affair, what the president says while on duty is taken seriously. Serious leaders are ever conscious that transcriptions of their words will be used to measure their government for a long time, so they strive to guard their utterances with all diligence. One startling exception was Donald Trump’s phone call to the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, in 2019. In his typical brash manner, Trump had suggested to Zelensky that their military aid would be predicated on his willingness to use his position as president to investigate Trump’s political opponent. A whistleblower leaked the transcription of the conversation; Trump was investigated and impeached. If Nigeria were a country that holds its leaders accountable for their words, more of them would think carefully before talking.
For Shehu to include a crass exchange between the president and his associate who suffers from the Nigerian “Big Man” disease of libidinal incontinence into official records, he—and even Buhari—did not think how much they demeaned the presidency. Even worse, they punctured through the whole lie they sold to us in 2015 that Buhari would be a reformer because he is personally disciplined…
