By Simon Imobo-Tswam
The name Muhammadu Buhari is not an ordinary name – it is a brand. And
the man bearing it is not ordinary either: since his advent on the
national consciousness in 1975 when he emerged as the military governor of
North-Eastern State (now Borno and Yobe), he has continued to engage our
attention as minister, coup-plotter, commander-in-chief, high-profile
detainee, religious puritan, politician, and now an elected president and
Nigeria’s chief medical tourist!
And, in the corresponding period too, he has acquired the traits of an
ascetic and the reputation of: a man of truth, known in Hausa language as:
Mai-Gaskiya. In the Nigerian society, where greed and gluttony are the
commonest attributes in the public space; and where honesty and truth have
almost gone on permanent exile, being an Ascetic and Mai-Gaskiya are
unique selling points indeed!
Today, Mai-Gaskiya has become his title. When you mention Mai-Gaskiya, no
one asks: who is that? It is automatically known to be Buhari. This is a
great endorsement from the public. This greatness is better appreciated
when juxtaposed against the backdrop of other names that the Hausas call
former Nigerian leaders: Barai, Mai-Giya etc!
But something important must be pointed out: the sobering truth is that
when people call Gen./President M’Buhari Mai-Gaskiya, it is because,
compared to the average Nigerian leader, they reason that he is relatively
better – not that he doesn’t lie.
So, Mai-Gaskiya is a really a mob-title, a garland of popular endorsement
from the masses of Nigerians, especially the Northern hordes of the
Talakawas.
So, what does this mean? It means the title is really without serious
scrutiny or interrogation. This is because if we interrogate this title,
we may realize that it applies more in the department of financial
integrity – and no more! And if this uninterrogated public perception is
the main basis of a Buhari resurgence, if this is the sole basis for a
Buhari presidency, it means his leadership accent has been uninterrogated!
As I write this, there is no better reference than the account of Gen.
Buhari’s defining exchanges with President Shagari and the civilian
governor of Old Plateau State, Chief Solomon Lar! The account is preserved
for us by the chief publicist of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), Chief
Ebenezer Babatope, in his book.
We are informed of how a brave military officer with the 3rd Mechanized
Division of the Nigeria Army had, sometime in 1983, confided in the then
Gov. Solomon Daushep Lar of Plateau State that Gen. Buhari, then the
General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the Division, was leading out his men
on coup-warm ups in the small hours before daybreak!
Gov. Lar now dutifully reported the matter to President Shagari, who
happened to be visiting Plateau on a State Visit at the time. The normal
thing was for Shagari to order the security agencies to handle it, but the
president chose to handle it his own way – the way he handled everything:
economy, governance, security etc!
And when, upon return to Lagos, the president summoned Buhari and asked
him, the GOC naturally disavowed knowledge of any coup, even reportedly
swearing his innocence on the Qur’an, and offering to resign his
commission i.e. from the army! And Shagari believed him – but which devout
Moslem wouldn’t believe a man like that?
And Shagari, ever naïve (will someone pardon me?), and believing that what
he wouldn’t do, another wouldn’t too, accepted Buhari’s explanation, and
stopped him from prematurely disengaging from the army! If Shagari had
been presidential, if he were commanding like a commander-in-chief, the
political history of Nigeria would have different! But he did not!
And although, he didn’t have to, the president further revealed to Buhari
that the allegation of his crime against the State came from Gov. Lar!
Buhari returned to Jos to rudely and angrily confront Lar. A shocked Lar
handled it as best as he could, and the matter died a natural death. Or so
it seemed.
As it were, President Shagari did not relieve Buhari of his command of the
Division; and neither did he even transfer him out of Jos; but what made
the matter worse was that the matter didn’t even reach the Nigerian
Security Organization (NSO), the ancestor of the present SSS, for
follow-up!
But this was Buhari that had, without authorisation from either his
Commander-in-Chief nor his Chief of Army Staff, invaded Chad in 1982 or
thereabouts to, as he is often quoted, “teach the Chadian soldiers a
bitter lesson.”
President Shagari had not shown leadership then – under a different
commander-in-chief, that would have been the end of Buhari’s military
career, and whatever promises it held. And in this sensitive Solomon Lar
issue too, Shagari didn’t show leadership.
In retrospect, it would seem these leadership omissions or presidential
weaknesses formed the basis upon which Brigadier Sani Abacha would accuse
Shagari, in his first coup-speech, of “ineptitude!”
President Shagari wanted a second term, and his focus was on the UPN, and
its organizational wizard, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. He forgot that there
were really only two political parties then: the NPN and the Army! But in
his naivety, he focused on the party that was the weakest i.e. the UPN, a
party without guns or even gunpowder!
Well, a few months later, Abacha made his infamous announcement, toppling
the reelected government of Shehu Shagari; and who became the Head of
State? The innocent Gen. Buhari! And Buhari’s Fulani mind remembered
(recall Nasir el Rufa’i and his theory?): the new Head of State kept the
mild-mannered ex-President under comfortable House Arrest, but made sure
Solomon Lar received special attention of a different kind! (But then, who
wouldn’t?).
But it is interesting to note that nature is not blind, and what goes
round, as they say, comes round. And so, by and by, it was pay-back time.
Brig. Abacha was close to Gen. Buhari, but even much closer was Gen.
Ibrahim Babangida, popularly known as IBB – the dashing and daring
Ogbomosho armoured-corps officer, who had adopted Niger as his state, and
became a Northerner, in consequence!
Security reports also indicated that IBB was plotting a coup against him;
and Buhari too asked “Ibrahim” about it, but the wily IBB denied it! (who
confesses? Ask: Gen. Madiebo, Col. Ifeajuna, Col. Banjo, Gen. Diya….) It
was the classic case of a “conny man” pitched against another “conny
man!”
In fact, IBB, after his avowals of innocence and pledges of eternal
loyalty, took permission from Buhari, his Commander-in-Chief, to tour
military formations across the country. And it was during these tours that
IBB, ironically, put finishing touches to the coup!
So, the IBB coup was what some people may term: Opendential! Today, we can
say it was the first coup-tour in our history or the history of
coup-making in the country!
And after his ouster, Buhari swore that he “would never forgive
Babangida,” but Shagari, another fellow-Moslem, moved on after Buhari’s
lie and treachery – believing that “Allah permits everything!”
If Buhari made peace with IBB after 30 years, it is not because his Fulani
heart suddenly became forgiving or it got larger – it is because political
considerations made it imperative! And it paid off handsomely.
And Gen. Buhari promised, after 2011, that he would never vie for the
presidency again, but he did. And he neither alluded to the broken promise
during the 2015 campaigns nor explained to the people the circumstances
that necessitated his dramatic change of mind. But a broken promise is
another name for a lie!
Today, Mai-Gaskiya is in the UK, may be he is even England… where we are
told he is holidaying. And we are further told that he is “hale and
hearty,” but he needs our prayers to recover! (As if we can or we need to
recover from good health!).
And he is not in the hospital, but he is undergoing so serious medical
tests that he dares not return home to his country and people and mandate!
There are breaking stories of how he routes his international flights
through the United Kingdom so he can see his doctors there without
arousing public suspicions over one medical tests too many! Today, the
biggest irony is that Mai-Gaskiya, Nigeria’s paramount campaigner against
medical tourism, has become the nation’s paramount medical tourist!
Politics or political incumbency has a way of demystifying human heroes,
especially heroes that are derivatives of hasty, even emotional,
mythographical construction. The overwhelming realities of political
office make super-men become ordinary fellows; it turns demagogues or the
desperadoes of yesterday into stammerers of excuses, and rabble-rousing
critics into just what they are: rabble-rousers! And, we may add,
opportunists!
If Buhari didn’t become president after his lame-duck ouster by the
ambi-dexterous coup-planner -IBB, he would have entered history in the
golden fonts and heroic prints of Gen. Murtala Muhammed – that fiery
general who took Nigeria by storm in 1975, but left too soon 200 days
later in the wake of gunpowder; too soon for Nigeria to form an honest
opinion; and whose ultimate intentions are now permanently entombed in the
realm of speculation, if not romantic fantasy!
This is the Mai-Gaskiya, our Mai-Gaskiya!
I only hope that regular politics doesn’t demystify him further!
I write in terms of hope because nothing has really CHANGED in the
Presidential Villa since the corrupt Jonathan left, and the clean
Mai-Gaskiya took over: the budget is still being hopelessly padded, and
Grasscutters have joined the Villa wildlife; N75m goes for Aso Rock Rent,
a Villa Gatehouse is costing N250 million, Food is still in excess of
N1billion, the State House allocation of over N3billion is bigger than the
combined vote of all of the nation’s Teaching Hospitals….And on top of
these, Refreshments and Honoraria in the Villa are pegged at over N700
million!
One is tempted to ask: What is going on in the State House? Is the place
one big banqueting hall of endless wining and dining?
The solemn truth is that Mai-Gaskiya’s own leadership is an
uninterrogated leadership – it was born of wild emotionalism, and the same
untamed emotionalism sustains it….
There were issues on ground: the skewed stewardship at Petroleum Trust
Fund (PTF), where projects went to the South, especially the South-East,
by administrative default or executive error; the provincial
superintendence of pastoralists and the ill-fated storming of Lam
Adesina’s Government House to protest the “maltreatment of my people,” and
the important trip to Zanfara, in a Field Marshall’s uniform, to boost the
morale of freshly mobilized troops to protect Fulani cattle against
rustlers while neglecting to visit scenes of gruesome Fulani terror
against hapless and helpless farmers!
And there is the not-too-recent Zamfara Declaration by him that “Muslims
should vote for only Muslims!”
(Although it must be conceded that in the case of the primordial religious
appeal, Buhari is not the first culprit as the National Party of Nigeria
(NPN) candidate in the 1979 presidential election, Alh. Usman Shehu Aliyu
Shagari, had made the same appeal to the Old Sokoto State electorate in
1978! And in both cases, the targets of these electoral versions of
religious fanaticism were Southern Christian-politicians, to wit: Chief
Jeremiah Obafemi Awolowo (UPN) and Chief Matthew Akikiola Aremu Olusegun
Obasanjo)!
There is even the issue of the number of his cows as he is reported to
have consistently declared it: 150 since 2003! In 2003, he declared 150
cows. After four years i.e. 2007, the cows were still 150! In 2011 i.e.
another four years, their number was constant at 150! And still the same
150 in 2015 i.e. In the space of 12 years, the President’s cows did not
multiply; and none died! What is more, Buhari did not kill any for meat or
give any out as a gift!
This constant number of his cows has prompted snide remarks about whether
his cows are into birth control or barren! Till today, the correct figure
of Mai-Gaskiya’s cattle is a matter of conjecture!
If to the above cocktail of leadership minuses we add the lingering issue
of his mysterious O’Level certificate; not to talk of his graduating from
secondary school at age 11 at that time, the Buhari brand becomes very
notorious, rather than famous; and, consequently, accumulates many
negative points indeed!
But I still pray for Mr. President, my dear President – the truth being
that we did not elect an angel: we have never had angels on the ballot!
But it is not too late….it is never too late!
My prayer is that God will have mercy on Mai-Gaskiya; that God will bring
him home safely so he can commence the salvage-mission: the redemption of
his name, his reputation, his myth, his mystique, his person, his persona,
his promises and the promises of his presidency….
We must halt this wholesale unravelling! By necessity, we must have
something, someone, in our Hall of Heroes! As we say in the Tiv-Country,
“Kareagh doo ga!”
Imobo-Tswam, a media consultant and public affairs analyst, writes from
Abuja. He can be reached at: simonpita2008@yahoo.com