By Ikechukwu Amaechi
Wole Soyinka once described the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as a “nest
of killers”. That was at the height of PDP’s power when former President
Olusegun Obasanjo held sway and prominent political personalities were
gruesomely murdered in their bedrooms, on the streets and other
unimaginable places.
Many, including the Nobel laureate, construed those killings, rightly or
wrongly, as politically motivated. He was particularly incensed after the
brutal murder of his childhood friend, Bola Ige, who, as the attorney
general of the federation and minister of justice, was the country’s chief
law officer. The lethargy that characterised the investigation of Ige’s
murder didn’t help matters.
Soyinka is yet to put a sticky tag on the ruling All Progressives Congress
(APC), which he helped elect in 2015 by unreservedly endorsing its then
presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, a man he had had issues with
since his first coming as military head of state on December 31, 1983. I
doubt if Soyinka will do so very soon, considering that he will be hard
put explaining to Nigerians what has changed.
If the PDP was a nest of killers, the APC is a nest of liars. The party,
like the swashbuckling United States President, Donald Trump, came to
power by serving the people cocktails of lies, and it has sustained itself
in office for 21 months by upping the ante, feeding the people more
egregious lies.
That is expected. Unlike truth that stands on the parapet of facts,
realities and evidence, and therefore needs no further propping, lies
stand on nothing. And because lies stand on nothing, for sustainability,
they must be hoisted on an effigy of more invidious lies.
That is the story of the APC. Truth is anathema to it. Its officials take
pride in worshipping at the altar of mendacity.
Nothing illustrates this more than the stories the party and its
government officials have been dishing out since Buhari proceeded on an
impromptu 10-day winter vacation in London, his third in one year.
The vacation, which began on January 19 and was to end on February 6, was
so sudden that Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, the man Buhari temporarily
handed power to, had to abruptly end his participation at the World
Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, to rush back home. Yet,
whatever was the matter with the president was so serious that he could
not wait for the arrival of Osinbajo before leaving. It was that bad.
Nigerians were told he was going to rest after working so hard. For
someone the Financial Times of London described last week as “the man
supposedly in charge of the country” who has “been literally sleeping on
the job,” hard work must have a new meaning.
Buhari was hardly airborne when the stories started making the rounds that
there was more to the trip than ordinary vacation. And the lies started
pouring in.
First was the picture of the president, with his leg on the table watching
Channels Television (his favourite television network, we are told) and
making a call. Yet, many Nigerians were still prepared to give the APC the
benefit of the doubt, believing that the president was, indeed, resting.
But Buhari failed to come back. Instead, he wrote another letter to the
National Assembly (NASS) on Sunday, February 5 seeking an indefinite
extension of his leave. And the lies continued to pour in.
“Let me first say the president is hale and hearty,” Osinbajo told
reporters in the State House on Tuesday, February 7. “I spoke to him just
this afternoon and we had a fairly long conversation, he is in good shape
and very chatty.”
House of Representatives Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, took his own turn at the
altar on Thursday, February 9 when he claimed to have had a telephone
discussion with Buhari the previous day. “Buhari called me yesterday
evening. He talked about what the executive/legislature must do to ensure
food security for all Nigerians,” Dogara disclosed.
On Wednesday, Information Minister (and Dean of the APC School of Lies),
Lai Mohammed, upped the ante after the weekly Federal Executive Council
(FEC) meeting.
“I can say without any hesitation that Mr. president is well, is hale and
hearty. No question about that,” Mohammed reiterated.
He said the fact that all ministers were working optimally was proof of
his assertion. “Do you think we will be conducting our business like this
if Mr. president is ill?” he asked rhetorically.
“He (pointing at Minister of Power, Babatunde Fashola) was in Anambra last
week, I was in Kwara yesterday, all our ministers are busy doing their
work. Mr. president is well and is absolutely not in danger.”
Lies. Lies. And more lies.
If Buhari is hale and hearty, then what is he doing in London after his
vacation? Has he absconded? If he is hale and hearty and yet refuses to
speak to Nigerians or return to work, is that not truancy? Is he now
governing Nigeria from London?
The goings-on in the country in the last three weeks are sobering. They
remind us of the last days of President Umaru Yar’Adua. They make an
unequivocal statement on the negative tendencies that have stultified
Nigeria’s development.
The happenings bring to the fore our predicament as a people and why it is
almost impossible to realise the dream of a Nigerian nation.
For a septuagenarian who, despite all protestations to the contrary, does
not seem to enjoy the best of health, it is not difficult to fathom the
reasons for the death rumour swirling around him.
Some people have asked why Nigerians are overtly interested in Buhari’s
health. The simple answer is that he is not an ordinary Nigerian. He is
the president.
I am saddened that some people seem to be bubbly about his health crisis.
The way the death rumour swirls seems to suggest that some people actually
think that they will be better off if the man is dead.
Maybe!
But Buhari is first a human being before being president. He has a wife,
children, relations and friends who care for and love him and naturally
want him to live. We should join them in prayers that God, the Ultimate
Physician, should heal him and restore him to good health. We all lose our
humanity whenever we wish others dead, because the death of one diminishes
all.
Nonetheless, the president’s health crisis has seriously incapacitated him
and diminished his ability to govern although some believe, as the
Financial Times poignantly put it, that dead or alive, Buhari makes no
difference.
“The tragedy for Nigeria is that policy making has been so ponderous
during the 20 months since Mr. Buhari took office that, dead or alive, it
is not always easy to tell the difference,” the newspaper wrote.
I totally agree that the biggest tragedy to befall Nigeria in recent times
is the election of a man who has neither the mental/intellectual nor
physical capacity to govern.
The result of our collective folly almost two years ago is that we have on
our hands an administration gravely hobbled. At the best of times, Buhari
is the archetypal definition of cluelessness. More so now because of his
health challenges.
The government deludes itself that it can solve Nigeria’s problems by
believing its own lies.
And by telling new lies to cover up old lies, it pretends, annoyingly, to
be working very hard at tackling the myriad problems facing the country
when it is now obvious that even if Buhari is hale and hearty, as the APC
would want us believe, politically, “rigor mortis set in quite some time
ago,” as the Financial Times put it.
But because this is Nigeria where lying is seen as an art of political
sagacity, the same process that brought us to this sorry pass may be
repeated in 2019.
Shame!
*Ikechukwu Amaechi, former Editor of Daily Independent, is the Managing
Director/Editor-in-Chief of TheNiche, a weekly newspaper published in
Lagos every Sunday. (ikechukwuamaechi@yahoo.com)