BY Dr. Aliyu Tilde<\/p>\n
I will start this long piece by a short story.<\/p>\n
It was one Saturday in August 2002 and Buhari was just few months into
\npolitics when his lifetime personal assistant, our indefatigable friend
\nand brother, Malam Sarki Abba, told me that \u201cMalam Mamman\u201d wanted to see
\nme. When I met Mamman Daura in his Kaduna house that morning, he expressed
\ngratitude over the assistance Sam Nda Isaiah and I were giving Buhari in
\nthe The Buhari Organization (TBO). Then he said, \u201cWe have decided that
\nboth of you be given, as an appreciation, a token of N50,000 monthly to
\ncover some of your personal expenses. The money is there in the envelope
\non the cupboard by the door. You can pick it on your way out.\u201d<\/p>\n
I knew the answer I would give the elder but how to coin it was difficult
\nbecause I respect Malam Mamman, being a long time nephew-friend of Buhari
\nand I knew by \u201cwe\u201d he meant people like Dr. Mahmud Tukur, Buhari himself,
\nSule Hamma and Musa Bello \u2014the exclusive members of TBO conclave.
\nNevertheless, I took a deep breath and said, \u201cSir, I am grateful for the
\noffer but I am sorry to decline it. I am here to champion a cause I
\nbelieve in (Na zo nan ne bisa akida) and I have enough to sustain myself.
\nIf there is any help I need right now is a room that I will return to
\nwithout checking into hotels late at night when I return from assignment.\u201d
\nHe again expressed his gratitude and promised to find a place for me. The
\nlarge boys\u2019 quarters of Buhari\u2019s office at Jabi Road, Kaduna, was
\nallocated to me immediately.<\/p>\n
The above story summarized the spirit that started the Buhari movement.
\nPeople were attracted to him based on his acclaimed hallmark of honesty
\nand not by any material gain for there was no material to gain anyway.
\nWhoever was in the TBO then knew Buhari had nothing to offer him
\nmaterially. Through sheer dedication to his cause, the TBO transformed
\nBuhari\u2019s candidature from a politician despised by ANPP politicians and
\nmocked at by PDP politicians into a popular presidential candidate who the
\nANPP could not help but allow its presidential ticket in 2003 primaries
\nand gave the PDP a good run for its money.<\/p>\n
In the time that passed between 2003 and 2015 various people have joined
\nBuhari\u2019s train, many for altruistic reasons as we did in 2002, many
\nothers, including his arch enemies, as a stepping stone to power at
\nvarious levels of government. By the time he became President in 2015,
\nevents have pushed the first category to the sidelines and the
\nlatter\u2014believers in realpolitik\u2014coming from the PDP and other
\nconstituencies of the mega-party have taken over. Many have expressed the
\nfear that Buhari\u2019s ambition to become president has led him to dine with
\nthe devil. But what else could he do if he truly wanted to become
\nPresident, beyond the status of Aminu Kano that self-sacrificing and
\npredominantly northern supporters could afford him?<\/p>\n
Every cause we take has its consequences. Success\u2014especially in the form
\nof Nigerian Presidency\u2014attracts pests of various kinds that will
\ndefinitely live on the fruit of the masses that voted for the President in
\nanticipation of performance. Yet, whatever is the destruction that these
\npests could cause the Buhari brand, one expects that the hallmark of
\nhonesty which he is known for in the past decades will be guarded
\nstrongly\u2014at least in how the administration relates with the public\u2014not
\nonly by him but also by the people he chose to work with. Both the
\nutterances and the methods must remain honest and clean.<\/p>\n
Now here comes the second story. Yesterday morning my wife approached me
\nwith her phone saying, \u201cSo the President has returned last night. See the
\npicture\u201d. She showed me a picture of the President disembarking from a
\nplane with a coterie of staff waiting to receive him at the foot of the
\nladder. I told her, \u201cThis is false. We just heard the early morning
\nbroadcast of the BBC Hausa Service and there was no mention of the
\nPresident\u2019s return. It can\u2019t be true. And please stop believing this APC
\npropaganda.\u201d The picture carried the mark of a known Buhari supporter,
\nRabiu Biyora. I left the matter there, went on writing a post on Facebook
\nand played for the rest of the day. (Meanwhile, keep the name Rabiu
\nBiyora, as it will feature again in this post)<\/p>\n
After sunset, I went on Facebook to find out what news were trending. I
\nwas attracted to Professor Farouq Kperogi\u2019s article, Buhari\u2019s Government
\nof Propaganda and No Substance. In it he mentioned the nine media
\nassistants to the President before dropping the bombshell that took
\neverybody by surprise: \u201cIn addition\u201d, Professor Kperogi revealed, \u201cthe
\nPresident has about 40 paid journalists, bloggers, media analysts,
\ncommentators (whose names I have but will leave out for now), working
\nunder the BMC (Buhari Media Center) in Utako, Abuja. The Buhari Media
\nCentre is a well-furnished one-storey building with expansive premises. It
\nhas security guards, clerks, and cashiers. The team members are paid a
\nmonthly allowance of between N200,000 and N250,000.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is not the presence of the media centre that is the problem. As a
\nPresident, Buhari has come a long way, far from the pristine days of TBO
\nwhen we only relied on our columns in newspapers to write features on his
\nproject, something that led to our sack by the Trust after the 2003
\nelections. The problem is that while in those days we never wrote anything
\nwith the intention to smear anyone or lie about the achievement of Buhari,
\nthe Buhari Media Centre, to my shock and as Professor Kperogi reported,
\nhas a totally different mandate. Hear him:<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are mandated to react to all media contents critical of the
\nPresident, write favorable news items for the president, and
\nattack\/demonize\/smear people critical of the president. They also work
\nwith government agencies such as the EFCC to push narratives to deflect
\nattention from the ineptitude of the government. They work behind the
\nscenes and use pen names in extended articles, and pseudonyms on social
\nmedia. Almost all the members of the APC Presidential Campaign Media
\nDirectorate operate from the Buhari Media Centre, with the exception of
\nthose with appointments. And this excludes Lai Mohammad\u2019s well-oiled lie
\nsquad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, this looks messy, not the clean work that should be associated with
\nBuhari. He does not need this. Something is wrong, I told myself. I
\nsearched for reactions to this story on Facebook and found that I was not
\nthe only one disappointed with the discovery of the Buhari Media Centre.
\nAnd reading the wall of Professor Kperogi further, I came across a letter
\nof appointment indicating that the Personal Assistant (Broadcast Media) to
\nthe President has himself officially appointed Rabiu Biyora as \u201cMedia
\nAssistant 1, Social Media to PA Broadcast Media.\u201d I quickly recalled the
\nfalse picture of Buhari\u2019s return that my wife showed me in the morning and
\nconcluded that something is indeed wrong.<\/p>\n
For the next several minutes the chips started to fall in place. I
\nrecalled how some people I hold in high esteem for their critical minds
\nsuddenly transformed from supporters to followers of the President,
\njustifying every step he takes, whether right or wrong, and downplaying
\nglaring flaws in his administration. They joined the bandwagon of those
\nwho hail the pervasive hunger, unemployment, inflation, free fall of the
\nNaira, hike in fuel price and so many sad developments that have come to
\ndefine the tenure of the President. Sometimes, I would call a common
\nfriend and ask why someone was suddenly holding some strange opinions like
\nthis, that this is not him, and so on.<\/p>\n
I remembered how hard it was to convince some people to accept that
\ncriticism is an essential ingredient of every successful leader, that
\nBuhari needs it too to succeed. It took a while before such people came to
\ntolerate us\u2014the wailers, they call us\u2014on the social media space, but not
\nbefore they called us names and maligning us as frustrated people who
\ncannot secure appointment in Buhari\u2019s government, etc. It took a long time
\nto convince them that Buhari is not an angel but human, who can make
\nmistakes; that he is not God that will not err or treat people unjustly
\nsometimes; that his decisions cannot always be just right; that he cannot
\nbe elevated to a demigod entitled to worship. With stubbornness,
\nperseverance and the evidence on ground that came with every day that
\npassed by, these facts sank in and we can now at least point at a wrong
\nwhen we see it without attracting much recrimination.<\/p>\n
The discovery of Buhari Media Centre will definitely leave a deep dent in
\nthe minds of Nigerians. It will continue to ring a bell whenever we read a
\npost or listens to anyone blackmailing someone or downplaying the obvious
\npitfalls of this administration. It has created doubts that will remain
\nfor the rest of the President\u2019s tenure. I, for one, will henceforth regard
\nevery story from the Presidency and indeed the government as a promo that
\ndeserves to be greeted by the skepticism of the critical mind. Next time,
\nfor example, I here you call anyone a wailer, I will just stamp you BMC!
\nGbam.<\/p>\n
I totally agree with Professor Kperogi that what Buhari Media Centre
\nshould do is to propagate the achievements of Buhari in various spheres of
\ngovernance without resorting to propaganda that aims at hoodwinking
\nNigerians. Nothing speaks better than achievements. When propaganda\u2014which
\nwe in Nigeria term deceptive information\u2014is employed in communicating with
\nus, there is every reason to stir worries in our hearts and even in those
\nof his ardent supporters.<\/p>\n
The same thing applies to religious leaders who are invited to the villa
\n(by the President, said one of them) for the same purpose of propaganda.
\nThey return and tell their followers all sorts of stories that they have
\nmet an angel there and witnessed miracles at the foot of Sinai. I just
\nheard a Whatsapp audio of one of them from Sokoto who was telling his
\nfollowers, amidst Allahu Akbar, this kind of stories: Buhari ya yi kira.
\nKuna ga sai a zauna?\u2026kun san da Nijeriya ba ta da uba. Yanzu na tai uba.
\nNa je villa, na ga abin ban mamaki\u2026 What a shame. In the past, most ulama
\nare known for keeping a safe distance from power and only few of them were
\nmalaman fada\u2014court priests. Today, the most vocal are the malaman fada who
\nare here to justify anything, just anything, the government does for the
\ntoken they will gain through appointments and gifts or the worldly
\nrecognition they will enjoy. Allah ka tsare mu da sharrinsu.<\/p>\n
I will conclude this essay with a piece of advice. Whatever desperation is
\nthere to launder the image of this government, Buhari\u2019s hallmark of
\nhonesty must be strongly guarded against any abuse. That was the
\nfundamental spirit of the pristine TBO. It was what attracted people to
\nhim right then amidst opposition even from his party, the ANPP. Today, any
\nattempt to hoodwink Nigerians by way of propaganda will backfire severely
\non his image and of that of his government. It is left to the seniors in
\nhis media battalion to take this advice seriously or disregard it. They
\nmay decide to forego the reward of an honest deal with the masses, but
\nthey cannot avoid the consequences of deceiving them. Nigerians can be
\npatient but they are not fools.<\/p>\n
Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
\n13\/2\/2017<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BY Dr. Aliyu Tilde I will start this long piece by a short story. It was one Saturday in August 2002 and Buhari was just few months into politics when…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":54867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n