It was not compulsory for President Muhammadu Buhari to address the nation on his return from 103 days of receiving medical attention in the United Kingdom. After his first trip in January that lasted for some 51 days, he returned and went straight to work without any national broadcast. He could have done the same this time, perhaps give a few statements to newsmen at the airport, exchange banter here and there, and crack a few ready, ingratiating ribs with his handy jokes. But after choosing to address the nation on his return from a second medical trip, he had an obligation to select his words carefully, address the right issues, even if not copiously, show that he has had time to reflect deeply on troubling national issues, not to say on his detached and often distant style, and indicate that he had found the wisdom and appropriate combination of policies and measures to redirect Nigeria to the path of stability and growth.
If he gave the speech, it was because he thought he had enough oxygen in his lungs to speak clearly, while demonstrating enough conviction in his statements to pass his succinct messages on to a wearied and sceptical public yearning for a great leader. There was clarity in his voice and message, despite the foreboding terseness of the speech, and there was much more. His media aides were exultant about the speech, and the ruling party chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun, rhapsodised it with priestly reverence as an outstanding speech. Was it disturbingly laconic? For aides and party leaders inured to the dynamics of speech lengths and textures, it could not have been otherwise. Did it address the right issues and speak to the nation’s distress? It roared with the cosmic and telepathic precision of a lion-king returning to claim his territory, they chorused.
The elite prevaricated over the speech. But among the commonalty, opinions were much more diverse, reflecting regional and partisan biases, but overall slightly unfavourable. Whether the crowds that received him from the Abuja airport were rented or not, they showed enough passion in their assignment to disguise the motives behind their raptures. It is safe to say that 103 days away in London and from his desk did not diminish his appeal, but instead did his health much good. The enduring stamina of that appeal becomes even more extraordinary and baffling when considered against the backdrop of the additional 51 days he spent away in the same London for his first substantial medical trip. No matter how incapacitated he is, his diehard supporters are unlikely to ever blame him for anything, regardless of the state of the economy and the inevitable stasis acrimonious politics, sometimes promoted by his policies, statements and appointments, often engender.
The brevity of his speech appears deliberate. It was simply designed to read the riot act to a few promoters of discord, particularly those campaigning for separatism. By illustrating his speech with a discussion he said he had with the late Emeka Ojukwu, leader of the 1967-1970 Biafra rebellion in the Eastern Region, the president all but indicated that his chief animus was targeted at Nnamdi Kanu and his Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) self-determination group. A few days before the president returned, the Internal Affairs minister, Abdulrahman Dambazzau, had indicated that the government would be asking the court to revoke the bail granted Mr. Kanu on the grounds that the pro-Biafra agitator had broken the terms of his bail. There is no doubt he had. The campaign to get Mr. Kanu back to jail is almost entirely northern, including one by the northern youth coalition. A few days after the president returned home, the Justice ministry finally decided to approach the courts to formalise that bail revocation. The application is unlikely to be turned down. How long the tunnel Nigeria is about to enter will be and how dimly lit it is are difficult to determine at this point.
Whatever other things the president said in his short speech were simply added to elongate a speech otherwise already worrisomely and, despite the best arguments of aides and party leaders, indefensibly brief. The speech exposes two terrifying details. The first is that, irrespective of the president’s vaunted conversion to democratic ideals, he is at bottom averse to the liberal principles that undergird democracy. Reflecting his sour mood and impatience, the president suggests in the very first paragraph of his speech that questioning the collective existence of the nation amounted to crossing ‘national red lines’. This is a popular but wrong narrative. If Nigeria should break up, it would not be the first, nor the last. The separatist challenge to national unity that causes the president so much distress should have encouraged him to seek for an understanding of the factors predisposing the county to that problem, rather than venting his spleen. Clearly, the short speech was designed primarily to read the riot act to IPOB, set the stage for a massive crackdown on that group and any other similarly inclined groups, a decision the president passed on to the heads of the security forces the next day.
Far worse is the fact that the speech clearly and unequivocally indicated the president’s sole preference for law enforcement as a tool for securing national peace, unity and understanding. He shows no inclination to scientifically analyse the factors that engender the separatist campaigns that infuriate him, let alone decide and design options that would intelligently tackle and exterminate the malaise. The president says any disaffected group can ventilate their grievances within the ambit of the law. Since that ventilation began, how well has the government responded? No student of history or even science will argue that ignoring the remote and immediate causes of a problem would lead to a proper and lasting resolution of that problem. This column has restated times without number that the problem of Biafra separatist campaigns is far deeper than Mr. Kanu’s blather, regardless of his penchant for hate speech and melodrama. The problem is far more grievous than that, and opting only for law enforcement tactics, as the president has done, to tackle the campaign is both wrong-headed and short-sighted.
It is clear from his speech that President Buhari is unlikely ever to summon the discipline and effort required to find the root causes of the separatist campaigns in particularly the Southeast. His anger boiled over in the speech, and it in fact betrayed what many south-easterners and Niger Delta activists have long argued about the unequal social and economic relations in the country, a factor that makes the core North fear that its sentiments of entitlement, exceptionalism and patrician approach to politics are threatened by agitations that target and question the country’s unity. Mr. Kanu and his IPOB call for separation, the rest of the Southeast and South-South call for restructuring, the Southwest and much of North-Central also call for restructuring. If these cries register wrongly on the ears of the president, as they seem sadly to have done, he is unlikely not to be swayed by the wrong narratives that centre the agitations foolishly on one rabble-rouser.
In addition, the president fumes at agitators “daring to question our collective existence as a nation”. He also says in the same speech that Nigeria’s unity “is settled and not negotiable”. These sentiments are the product of his military background, not an indication of any democratic instincts. And when he speaks of “better to live together than live apart” as a product of national consensus, he seems unaware that he has no fact or statistics to buttress that sweeping assertion. The British were even more circumspect and farsighted about bequeathing a workable constitution to Nigeria, one that enabled the various peoples of Nigeria to grow in the same space without relinquishing their social, cultural and economic individualisms. Now, with a perverse 1999 constitution, one that is the product of a small cabal of military men, the president still speaks of an abstract consensus. There is no consensus anywhere. What the agitations in the Southeast and elsewhere indicate is the urgent need to re-examine the basis, structures and dynamics of that so-called unity. But the president and his advisers are not listening to the cries of the people. They have shut their ears to the people’s demands for honest reassessment and possible renewal of the country, partly because the core North is wary of where that effort would lead.
The second terrifying detail the speech exposes is the warped dynamics of the president’s decision. No president must take a major decision with far-reaching implications without consulting his advisers, and if it has something to do with safety and security of the nation, with his top security and law enforcement men. The speech does not give any indication at all that the president has a team of advisers that cut across the major ethnic groups of the country, complete with depth of intellect and wisdom. History is replete with empires that seek out the gifted and wise even from among their captives, who are then elevated into the top hierarchies of their bureaucratic, advisory and palace structures. President Buhari’s speech has major implications for the Southeast, whether this fact is admitted or not. How many advisers, not yes men, did he consult? And if they all concurred with the drastic steps he is determined to take, did he seek out a devil’s advocate to argue for the other side just in case he had missed any point?
What is even worse is the poignant message the photograph of the president and his security chiefs give to those who noticed the ethnic skewness of their membership. On Tuesday, the president charged his security chiefs to rid the country of the threats posed to Nigeria’s corporate existence by Boko Haram, IPOB, and herdsmen and kidnappers. Boko Haram is a long-standing disease that shows no sign of being extirpated soon; herdsmen-farmers menace is not a new thing, and was not even tackled with the urgency it demanded when the president had not yet travelled; and kidnappers, despite their madness, do not threaten the corporate existence of Nigeria. The target is, therefore, IPOB, a separatist organisation located in the Southeast. How many of the president’s security chiefs come from that region to help deepen or sharpen his options and final decisions? Gradually, the inability of President Buhari to expand and broaden his advisory base and security council will begin to manifest in hasty and counterproductive measures. Moreover, by charging his security chiefs to go after the malfeasant groups, the president has all but surrendered leadership of a campaign he should directly inspire, help formulate its structure, guide, and closely monitor, given its strict sensitivity. Too many things are being taken for granted, and too many things can easily go frightfully wrong in the national hysteria to, as it were, defend national unity.
It is preposterous to introduce into the unbalanced narrative of separatist agitations the supposition that the Southeast exploded in hateful, divisive campaigns because they lost the primacy they enjoyed under ex-president Goodluck Jonathan. So, is it right to suggest that the core North is now monopolising sensitive appointments because of their muted and unpleasant experience under Dr. Jonathan? The implication of this kind of narrative is that once a region or ethnic group ‘captures’ power, it should justifiably go ahead to skew sensitive and plum appointments in favour of its own people. Where would this tragic pirouette end, given that one group cannot hold on to power for all time?
President Buhari’s supporters, aides and party leaders can put as much gloss as they want on last Monday’s laconic speech. And they can read as much sanguine meanings as they want into it, especially the president’s incomprehensible and insensitive decision to fob off restructuring on the National Assembly and Council of State. The speech was, indeed, in content, brevity, refusal to take cognisance of other great and urgent issues, a bad one. It had no pretence to be called a good speech, let alone an outstanding one. It was hasty, angry rather than urgent, misdirected, and incapable of bringing about lasting peace and helping the president to run an inclusive government. It is shocking how many top Nigerians fall over themselves to praise a speech that neither attempted to fully understand and explain a very clear but complex problem nor to find a scientific and beneficial solution that would lead to the birth of a great, democratic nation. Worse, a few days later, the speech seemed to have inspired what may still turn out to be the birthing of a very illiberal environment in which, stealthily, Nigerians could begin to lose their rights and privileges in the noble but misdirected effort to rein in hate speech and what the government has concluded is its alter ego, terrorism.
The president is not under any obligation to make a national broadcast. But whenever he feels obligated to give one, it is important it must add value to the national discourse it pretends to lend clarity. Speeches reflect the inner workings of a president’s mind, bringing out the real man, much the same way impromptu interviews do. President Buhari may be too old to change, or to transform into someone other than who he really is. Yet, despite his pet prejudices and inattentiveness to the deep things of Nigerian history, his aides and advisers, assuming they have the presence of mind and the required chutzpah to challenge him over his weariful biases, should help mould him into at least something fairly agreeable to the national character of the people’s utopian dreams.
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