When curators choose to restore (usually) valuable artifact to its old glory, it is said to be restored. So it will be with the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), who is gradually going back to his old military self.
After a chequered, enviable, career as a war officer, military commander, Minister of Petroleum Resources and Military Governor of Northeastern State, Buhari became Head of the military junta that ousted the democratically elected government of President Shehu Shagari.
Buhari had announced, “In pursuance of the primary objective of saving our great nation from total collapse, I, Major General Muhammadu Buhari of the Nigerian Army, have, after due consultation amongst the services of the armed forces, been formally invested with the authority of the Head of the Federal Military Government and the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
But in a speech after his overthrow months later, Chief of Army Staff, Major General Ibrahim Babangida, painted the picture of a man who was not a good team player, an autocrat who does not take the counsel of significant others.
Babangida alleged, “The principles of discussions, consultation and co-operation which should have guided decision-making process of the Supreme Military Council and the Federal Executive Council were disregarded soon after the government settled down in 1984.”
The testimony of military peers who elected him as Head of State is that General Buhari was unhinged, like a needle with no thread. He and his deputy, Brig Tunde Idiagbon, styled Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters, became the proverbial dogs that didn’t hear the whistle of the hunter.
When they were overthrown in a palace coup, Nigerians, who dreaded their regime because of its high handedness, abuse of fundamental human and media rights, execution of drug couriers with a retroactive decree and implementation of unimaginative economic policies, rejoiced.
But after the disgraceful exit of military dictator Babangida, his successor, who criminally annulled the freest and fairest presidential election in Nigeria, another military despot, General Sani Abacha, repented and appointed Buhari as Executive Chairman of Petroleum (Special) Trust Fund.
The PTF was an omnibus intervention agency for roads, waterways, educational infrastructure healthcare facilities, food and water supplies, using excess revenue from sale of crude oil above the benchmark price.
It was the precursor of today’s Excess Crude Account, the federation purse that warehouses excess crude oil revenue above benchmark price, on behalf of the Federal Government, state governments and local government authorities.
Buhari, who needed political rehabilitation and restoration, accepted to serve under an officer who was several notches below him as a mere General Officer Commanding when he was military Head of State.
Abacha was gracious in offering the condescending appointment though. He offered an apology on behalf of the group that ousted Buhari, their Head of State and Commander-in-Chief.
As Chairman of the PTF, Buhari did his best, though there were allegations of skewed execution of projects in Northern Nigeria. There were also unconfirmed allegations of mismanagement of resources.
The rehabilitation and restoration may have informed Buhari’s quest to become a democratically elected President of Nigeria. Some sceptics however, think it was only a bid to spite and get even with Babangida.
Three times, 2003, 2007 and 2011, Buhari contested Nigeria’s presidential election. He failed three times, until he teamed up with the winning political machine of Bola Tinubu, former Governor of Lagos State, a man who transformed himself from a rookie politician to a master political strategist and tactician.
After completing his two-term tenure as governor, Tinubu decided against seeking any electoral office. He rather chose to extend his political franchise beyond Lagos State by installing governors in other South-West states as well as the South-South.
To convince Nigerians and Western metropolitan powers that he would uphold the tenets of democracy, Buhari showed up at the Chattam House, British Royal Institute of International Affairs, a policy think-tank set up to secure a prosperous and just world-a euphemism for free market economy and democracy.
Buhari told his audience, “Before you is a former military ruler and a converted democrat who is ready to operate under democratic norms and is subjecting himself to the rigours of democratic elections for the fourth time.”
He won the presidential election with his posturing as a “born again” democrat and was accordingly inaugurated President on May 29, 2015. He announced that he was for everybody and for nobody. But soon after, he began to do the unexpected.
First, he elected to work only with civil servants, before unnecessarily delaying when he finally succumbed to pressures to appoint ministers. When it looked like he was ready to work, he began to fall sick in quick succession.
His Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, swiftly took charge on each occasion and delivered good governance. But to the consternation of Nigerians, the President reversed nearly all the positive decisions that Osinbajo took.
Little did Nigerians know that their President would finally bare his fangs, and return to his old self. Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka derisively wonders if a tiger could change its tigritude, and Buhari has clearly shown that his leopard cannot change its spots.
It was difficult for him to release Col Sambo Dasuki, National Security Adviser to former President Goodluck Jonathan, from police custody after the courts ordered his release on bail several times over.
His nepotism surfaced when he argued for extension of railway lines from Kano to Maradi when he disclosed that he had first cousins in Niger Republic, a country with $12.97 billion Gross Domestic Product. He neglected to build the Calabar-Lagos railway line that should serve a GDP in excess of $300 billion.
A former military Head of State who became an elected President and a former Chief of Army Staff, who later became Minister for Defence, accused him, or his government, of being an ethnic champion. He hasn’t tried to shake off that perception.
Just as 13 members of his 1984 Supreme Military Council were from Northern Nigeria, with only five from the South, an overwhelming number of heads of security agencies in his current regime are from Northern Nigeria– and he has no apologies whatsoever.
And the soldier under his babariga is sneaking out in bits and the fist of mail is peering out of the velvet glove. To rework a phrase from American President Ronald Reagan, “(Nigerians) ain’t seen nothing yet!”
In the recent “capture” and return of Nnamdi Kanu, leader of separatist Indigenous People of Biafra, to Nigeria, Buhari reenacted the attempted abduction of Umaru Dikko by his military regime at Stansted Airport in England.
A few days after that, he pulled an astonishing stunt that must have stunned his Western admirers by sending Department of State Services personnel to sack the home of Yoruba nation advocate, Sunday “Igboho” Adeyemo.
While the DSS admitted to arresting 12 of Adeyemo’s stalwarts and killing two others, whose bodies they allegedly took away, unconfirmed accounts suggest that the dead may be up to eight. Only one dead, “Adogan,” has been identified.
If democratically elected President Buhari continuously conducts himself like military Head of State Buhari, Prof Soyinka may once again describe his government as deaf.
