AISHA Buhari, wife of President Muhammadu Buhari, is an outspoken woman, who has strong political and social consciousness. Unlike the fawning Buharists, who whitewash her husband’s administration, she doesn’t suffer fools gladly and has often criticised his government.
However, as President Buhari’s administration winds down, Mrs. Buhari is now apologising for its pathetic performance, begging Nigerians to forgive her husband. But why would Nigerians heed her plea when her husband is a wilful and unrepentant “sinner”? Well, first, the apology!
Recently, at the 62nd Independence Day Special Juma’at prayer and Public Lecture held at the National Mosque Conference Hall, Abuja, Mrs. Buhari said: “The regime might not have been a perfect one, but I want to seize this opportunity to seek forgiveness from the Ulamas and Nigerians in general.” She referred to the economic conditions, which is “causing a lot of hardship and difficulties,” and “the effects of banditry, kidnapping and many other ills in society.” She repeated the apology in an exclusive interview with BBC Pidgin on October 21.
Family honour wouldn’t allow Mrs. Buhari to say publicly that her husband’s government has been an unmitigated failure; instead, she resorted to euphemism: “The regime might not have been a perfect one.” What an understatement! Yet, her past criticisms of her husband’s government show that she believes he has performed well below the expectations of Nigerians, that his administration has failed to live up to the promises of “change”, which swept it to power in 2015 and, undeservingly, in 2019.
In an explosive interview with the BBC in October 2016, Mrs. Buhari said of her husband’s government: “Things are not going the way they should,” adding: “Nobody thought it’s going to be like this.” Alluding to her husband’s obstinacy, she said: “When one is doing something wrong and people talk to them, they should listen.”
Of course, not Buhari! Three years later, in 2019, near the end of her husband’s first term, Mrs. Buhari said his administration’s flagship Social Investment Programme, SIP, “has failed woefully,” averring that the N500bn programme “made no impact”. And shortly after her husband started his second term in 2019, she said: “The people he (Buhari) put in the cabinet should just sit up and do the needful, so that the First Lady would stop talking.”
So, however, much the sycophantic Buharists “give an appearance of solidity to pure wind,” to quote George Orwell, the truth is that the emperor has no clothes, and his wife knows it! Indeed, as I once wrote, Buhari is Nigeria’s most arrogant yet inept leader. He’s certainly the worst president since the return to civil rule in 1999. If you think that’s outlandish, consider how he compares with other presidents since 1999. Take President Olusegun Obasanjo. Well, Buhari lacks his competence and vision.
Obasanjo secured a reduction of Nigeria’s external debt from $38bn to $13bn, and created state institutions, such as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC. By contrast, Buhari has plunged Nigeria into unprecedented levels of debt, with the total external debt stock at $40.06 billion (N16.61 trillion) as at June 30, 2022, while total public debt stock, representing domestic and external debt stocks, was N42.84 trillion ($103.31 billion) as at June 30, 2022, according to the Debt Management Office, DMO. Talk of a debt trap!
As for institution-building, Professors Paul Collier and Tim Besley, who co-authored the Oxford-LSE report on state fragility,said: “Great leaders build institutions.” But instead of building institutions, Buhari undermines existing ones. For instance, he has eroded the autonomy and independence of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, which he treats as an appendage of the presidency.
Then, take President Umaru Yar’ Adua. Well, Buhari lacks his ability to recognise and manage Nigeria’s diversity. Yar’Adua doused tension in the Niger Delta through a political solution. But separatist agitations reached a crescendo under Buhari because he mismanagedNigeria’s diversity and rejected political solution. Think about it. Buhari is the only president since 1999 who refused to convene a national political dialogue. Herejected reports of previous political conferences, and poopooed restructuring. Not a nation builder!
President Goodluck Jonathan? You might wonder why anyone would suggest he was better than Buhari. Well, Jonathan had the good sense to assemble a talented team even though he himself lacked outstanding leadership qualities. But Buhari lacks leadership qualities and surrounds himself with mediocre ministers – a double whammy! In 2015, as he assumed office, Buhari described ministers as “noise makers”. Of course, because he regarded ministers as noise makers, he didn’t care about ministerial qualities. As a result, his cabinets, both in his first and second terms, are the worst in Nigeria; utterly devoid of technocracy.
This is all ironic. Buhari tried desperately for 12 years, from 2003 to 2015, to govern Nigeria. He ran unsuccessfully for president three times, only succeeding at the fourth attempt. For someone who sought power so desperately, he should have hit the ground running when he became president. But as Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, spokesman of the Northern Elders Forum, NEF, put it in one article, once in office, Buhari was “dangerously looking as if power was an end in itself.” Indeed, that’s how Buhari has run Nigeria over the past seven-and-a-half years, aloof and indifferent; enjoying the trappings of power,while watching Nigeria sink deeper into the vortex of decline.
As I write, Buhari is in London for two weeks for “medical check-up”, after just returning from Japan. Yet, floods are ravaging Nigeria and Western countries are asking their diplomatic staff to leave Nigeria due to security threats. Last week, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, said President Buhari “should be on seat, not go anywhere now.” Of course, not Buhari, the absentee president! So, Aisha Buhari is right to beg Nigerians to forgive her husband. But the plea rings hollow when President Buhari’s abject performance is due to his own wilful and deliberate choices.