The many lies about Buhari

The Punch - Nigeria's Most Widely Read Newspaper

Lies and myths are regularly woven around leaders, some tending towards an apotheofication, but that of President Muhammadu Buhari is getting too frequent to be useful. Buhari’s mythopoeia preceded him into office and the fantasies fashioned about him are being currently employed to oil the flagging wheels of his presidency. His adoring followers have long believed in him with faith akin to a religion.

 They take him as a god character whose perfectly sculpted essence must be protected and whose transcendent persona must not be scraped with the sharp edges of public opinions. They therefore knit fantasies and myths about him like pink pills; to be swallowed regularly to ease the reality of the demystification that inevitably occurs in the political sphere. The good thing about myth is that it at least functions as a barometer of public expectations and collective anxieties.

Long before he became a presidential candidate, we had been dished stories of his anti-materialism, a consequence of his personal integrity and a spin-off of his military discipline. The Buhari believers circulated the yarn that he is the only past Head of State who rejects a part of the pension accruable to him as past head of state, proof of his asceticism. This story has never been verified but people will not be people if they do not create such tales to soothe their psyche repeatedly battered by decades of despoliation and rapacious leadership. As presidential candidate, we were told that Buhari was so “detribalised” a Nigerian that his daughter married an Igbo man – another lie he refuted.

As president-elect, the stories about Buhari depicted him as the Iron man; the very intervention the Nigerian political class needs to sanitise the clutter, the frustration, and the disorder that had become Nigeria’s order. One of his followers narrated how Buhari locked an ambassador of an unnamed country out of a meeting because the latter was 15 minutes late.

 What was interesting was that those who took up the refrain of this tale did not waste their time on the hassles of verification – when did Buhari hold such a meeting and does that mean Buhari himself arrives at every meeting promptly?

Another of such tales was how he walked Comptroller-General of Customs, Abdullahi Dikko Inde, and the Commandant-General of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, Ade Abolurin, out of his house when the men allegedly visited him with gifts to solicit the retention of their jobs. The Buhari believers listen to these stories and punctuate the air with chorus of “Sai Baba!” while deliberately piping down on their own critical faculties to deny obvious questions. Buhari, once again, repudiated the story but that has not stopped the creators of these chronicles from spinning more tales.

Most of these sham stories have not been so much about Buhari’s effectiveness as they are about the power of his personality and the strength of his mere reputation. The narratives themselves have religious undertones – like Apostle Paul in the New Testament, even Buhari’s shadow can heal. Buhari’s quintessence, these believers say, is so compelling that people who stole in previous administrations have started to return money to Nigeria’s coffers before being prompted. One should be worried why some folk would accept such stories without cross-checking simple facts. Who will self-indict by rushing forward with stolen money when stealing of public funds in Nigeria has never been an individual effort? Besides, what subsisting anti-corruption agency looks poised to pursue stolen funds without some level of restructuring to their organisational capabilities, some changes to empowering legislation and a decent review of structural and operational factors that have hindered the effectiveness of past anti-corruption efforts?

The depth of corruption that characterised previous administration cannot be solely blamed on the leadership’s lack of personal integrity. That sort of monocausal assessment is not only reductionist, it abridges and misunderstands the extent of the problem the nation confronts. Dr. Goodluck Jonathan might have run a thoroughly corrupt administration but such failing was not a mere consequence of his character flaws. Neither can the problem be fixed by merely switching leaders. The trouble is much deeper, more fundamental but escalated under Jonathan largely because of his lethargic approach to matters of urgent national concern.

One should be too circumspect to peddle the story of frightened politicians rushing forward with their hands laden with stacks of stolen currency without at least attempting to answer the question of who returned what and who received them. When Buhari was a military Head of State and he had the whips and jackboots at his behest, did politicians wilfully return money they stole even when slapped with century long jail terms? Why would they now do so under a civilian government that, with its many checks and balances, provides a leeway for people to wriggle out of the punishment of whatever sins they have committed?
The lies about Buhari, it seems, are created to fill a void in his Presidency seeing how underwhelming his administration has been right from its take-off point. They are meant for the public to chew upon but unfortunately are like junk food – filling you up but lacking wholesome nutrition.

There have been reports of Buhari selling off nine out of the 11 aircraft in the presidential fleet as a cost-saving measure in dire times. Considering the contention surrounding the extravagance of the presidential fleet, it is therefore not surprising that it became a useful target for propaganda. Then came the big lie about the President ordering the arrest of his own brother in-law because he collected a bribe!

Here, there are stories of how Buhari is fixing the refineries so they can start operations by July ending. There are excited Buharists who cannot stop gushing about how power supply has improved. The worrying thing about the haste to ascribe these miracles to Buhari is that the President has spent barely a month in office. He does not have a team to work with yet neither has he rolled out an economic blueprint. Buhari has yet to do a single thing.

 The issue of fuel subsidy has neither been addressed nor on the path to resolution. Since Buhari’s inauguration, Boko Haram has not stopped wreaking havoc and those of us who accused Jonathan of acting insensitive while people died in remote villages are worried that Buhari has not unfolded his big plan towards combating Boko Haram. He has travelled around to solicit help but that cannot be all about it. The economy is still in doldrums with a mountain pile of unpaid salaries in tow. Yes, and corruption is still as rife as ever.

So far, Buhari has not solved a single problem nor defined the path his administration will follow. For now, all there is to see is a man who spent so much time wanting a job than he spent working on what to do with it. So, on what basis are the likes of Lai Muhammed scoring his one month in office higher than five years of Jonathan?

The problem with the many lies being told about Buhari is that they will eventually swallow up the true ones about him. These lies have been counterproductive especially with the Presidency having to issue rebuttals tantamount to saying, “I am not who men say I am.” At the rate we are going, his administration will be remembered more for the things he did not do but they said he did and he said he did not do than the things he truly did.