A colleague helped to coin this headline. It stemmed from our conversation
on the state of the nation; the anger on the streets; the dismay and
distraught that drape the faces of the people, the frustrations that barb
the souls of men, the bitterness that attends otherwise cordial
relationships, the Hobbesian vitriolic angst that separates neighbours
these days.
Our talk centred on the economy, the erosion and degradation of the
purchasing power of Nigerians; the stripping of men of their manliness,
the corrosion of the pride of women; the savagery of employers against
their employees to the point of sacking them in hordes and driving them
into the streets of stress, into the paths of pain. It was then my dear
colleague, an economist and Chevening scholar, averted my mind to a
trending disease on social media. It is called Buharia, some dubbed it
Buhariasis. And someone even added that it is worse than diarrhea.
The disease is reportedly fatal, more dangerous than HIV/AIDS, heart
attack, malaria or any of the mortal ailments that have continued to
assail the nation. Buharia is the latest malady in town and its hatchery
is the President Muhammadu Buhari government. It should be expected. Every
government in Nigeria comes with its peculiar manifestations. The Umaru
Yar’Adua government was notorious for its self-inflicted inertia, a
government that did not move, could not move and did not even attempt to
make any motion. It was simply inert. The circumstantial Goodluck Jonathan
government was itself bogged down by circumstances of its birth. The man
from Otuoke all too soon lost his streak of good luck and moulted into a
socio-economic gridlock. Both Yar’Adua and Jonathan were weak leaders and
the locusts capitalized on their weakness to feast on the national
patrimony. But even in their weakness, life was still tolerable under both
leaders.
Unlike Yar’Adua and Jonathan, Buhari comes as a strong man of steely
fibre. He comes with a perception of being squeaky clean, reticent,
ascetic and someone who would not condone the feast of lucre or drink from
the broth of corruption. This is the profile that brought him to power.
And he knew it, and made good use of it when he hinged his campaign on the
ramparts of anti-corruption.
But Buhari has a dark side which many of his admirers never factored into
the mix. He is a poor manager, lacking in peoples skill and void of the
cerebral aptitude required of his office. He has yet another weakness. He
is an unrepentant nepotist, parochial in his worldview of the concept of
federalism and nationalism.
It is the clash of the dual personalities in one man that has created the
social discontent that attends his administration. Yes, Buhari the upright
man is fighting corruption, but it is a clearly lopsided fight that tends
to hypocrisy. Buhari is vigorously probing how the Jonathan government
pillaged the national treasury to execute their agenda in the 2015 general
elections but he has failed to disclose the sponsors of his own election
and how such sponsors made the billions of naira splashed in the
electioneering that brought him to office. I commend Buhari’s courage to
tame corruption but it would just be fine, even better and justiceable, if
he starts from his closets.
Buhari’s proclivity to nepotism beggars belief. Nigeria is yet to witness
any leader that has acted in a manner that shows scant or no regard for
federal character. Not even the late General Sani Abacha at the height of
his tyranny was this nepotistic in his appointments. Indeed, President
Buhari deserves an Oscar in this regard.
A more darkling and troubling part of the President is that he is
horrendously a poor manager, an unwilling even unprepared administrator.
Buhari is a slow actor. And even when he acts, his actions do not justify
his slowness because in most cases, so far, they lack thoroughness.
Theresa May became the British Prime Minister, the second female to hold
such position after Margaret Thatcher, on Wednesday, July 13. Same day,
she named six key cabinet members with a promise to unveil her full
ministerial team in a matter of days. Now compare with Buhari’s style of
leadership. He was sworn-in as President on May 29, 2015. He named no aide
with immediacy, had no ministers and trudged on without a cabinet for six
months. Such lethargy from a leader; such inclination to walk and work
alone does no good to productivity. In fact, it is anathema to
productiveness.
But that is the character and nature of Mr. Buhari, the lone ranger. As
you read this most parastatals are without the full complement of their
boards. Till this day, about 38 parastatals do not have budgets; their
budgets are yet to be passed and we are in the second half of the year. It
is a carry-over from the Buhari style. Remember the national budget
suffered the same delay. First, it was submitted to the National Assembly
very late, then it got missing, underwent mutilation and later resurfaced
before it was passed.
Newton’s law says “action and reaction are equal and opposite”. This means
that for every action, there is a commensurate consequence. In the case of
Buhari, Nigerians are already paying for his slowness and inertia. The
delay in passage of the budget, the non-composition of boards of
parastatals resulted in the delay in the execution and payment for jobs
requiring the ratification of a tenders’ board. Up till this day,
President Buhari is still grumbling over the recent devaluation of the
naira by Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Yet, conventional economics and
wisdom suggest otherwise. He would rather no action is taken at all to
save the naira.
This type of logic is what has kept the national economy down. It is the
root cause of Buharia, the trending disease in Nigeria. Its symptoms are
manifold. High cost of goods and services, massive job cuts to the extent
that the Minister of Labour and Productivity tried to use fiat to halt the
job loss, avoidable social discontent typified by the actions of the
pro-Biafra agitators, the Niger Delta Avengers and other upheavals across
the nation.
The Nigerian economy is in stasis but it is not solely down to the dip in
crude oil receipts. It is even much more a function of lack of creativity
and inventiveness in the management of the little drops that still accrue
from the oil and gas sector. President Buhari has demonstrated enough
evidence to show his poor understanding of how to manage scarce resources.
To use the words of President Olusegun Obasanjo: “Buhari is not a very hot
person on the economy and foreign affairs. But he will do well in matters
of military and he will do well in fighting Boko Haram”.
Yes, Buhari may have done well in fighting insurgency, but he has done a
terrible damage to the nation’s economy, first by his inertia and now by
his lack of understanding of the dictates of modern economics.
Way out: Mr. Buhari should reform his ways, be more inclusive in his
appointments; learn to trust people including those he appointed. He would
do well to arrest the drift to anarchy especially by assuaging the anger
of the various agitators. The consequences of Buharia are damaging enough;
he must not add to the distress that hounds the people.