Buhari and Ribadu
It
is settled even in the most polemical circles that Gen Ibrahim
Babangida, had he won the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) nominations,
could never produce the kind of fanatical and almost hypnotic following
Gen Muhammadu Buhari is eliciting in most parts of the North. The
reason, it seems, is not that Babangida is less a humanist than Buhari,
or even less astute a politician and tactician. What sets the two apart,
and puts Buhari ahead of Babangida at the moment, is the cumulative and
sanitising effect of time, or what some historians and biographers
describe as iconoclastic posterity. It is indeed a strange phenomenon
that someone so aloof as Buhari, so cold and detached, so inflexible and
unfriendly can work a crowd so passionately. Stranger still is the fact
that he whips the crowd into frenzy, not by delicately wrought words
and uplifting phrases, nor by calculated
soapbox theatrics and choreographed dances, as perfected by both the
PDP and the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), but by the simple fact of
his unfathomably aloof personality.
There
is nothing in Buhari’s history or in his politics to warn us of the
explosively adulatory reception he is receiving all over the North. In
2003 when he first tried to win the presidency, his almost condescending
approach to seeking votes barely got him notice in serious political
gatherings. Party apparatchiks viewed him with curious amazement, as if
he were an object of comedy from serious literature, and both regular
and rented crowds that thronged his rallies instinctively knew he was
unsellable. The lanky and laconic military officer-turned politician was
too politically and socially awkward to be admired or given a serious
hearing. In 2007, when he again fought for the presidency, he had begun
to make an impression, but the voters were still too impassive and too
judgemental to help him. They didn’t like the ways and impositions of
the anti-modernist, Chief
Olusegun Obasanjo, but Buhari was also too apolitical to make amends
for his dictatorial past, particularly his medieval, if not
inquisitorial, sense of justice.
This
is Buhari’s third and last stand. At 69, he is unlikely to offer
himself for the highest office a fourth time. Even if he wins he is
unlikely to go for a second term. But nature and its curious alchemy
have conspired to sell the retired army general to the electorate beyond
his own political gifts and accomplishments. His rally in Kaduna pulled
an incredibly large crowd, never before seen in the city. On the day of
his rally, it was perilous for anyone to identify with any other
candidate, particularly the PDP’s. The venue of the rally itself was
jam-packed, and so too were adjoining streets on which thronged fierce,
fanatical Buhari supporters looking for a fight. The rage of the
general’s supporters in Minna, Gombe, Yola, Jalingo and Maiduguri was
palpable, with Gombe signposting the looming disaster and dilemma facing
the ruling party. The PDP has often
been regarded as a rigging machine, a reputation they rehearsed in 2003
and secured for all time in 2007. They are suspected to be minded to
rig the elections again in 2011, if not at the ballot, then in the
courts where they appear to be neutralising the Appeal Court and
disingenuously setting up the Supreme Court, with the active help of
court insiders, to predetermine the outcomes of governorship petitions.
But
given the fanaticism of Buhari’s supporters, their intolerance of and
impatience with the PDP, particularly its presidential ticket, and the
intensity of the frustrations and alienations they have had to endure
for more than a decade, it is hard to see how balloting can be
successfully subverted in the region. The ruling party, which is
fomenting trouble in the Southwest, with plans to incarcerate
progressive leaders, has obviously failed to gauge the mood of much of
the North and the whole of Southwest. But thanks to Buhari, the ruling
party is meeting more than its match. Whether it likes it or not the PDP
is fighting a war in the North, a war declared by Buhari’s supporters, a
war unwittingly encouraged by Buhari’s statements that he would not
contest any rigging in court nor dissuade his supporters from lynching
election riggers. If the PDP, therefore, decides
to fight war on two fronts, the voters seem eager to furnish the party
its desire.
Buhari
has become the North’s hero, not because they think he can win or
because other parts of the country see him as competent to rule, but
because they have simply fallen in love with him. After running for the
presidency twice, he has demonstrated that losing twice was not enough
to lure him into the sort of depressing compromises rife in Nigeria. As
presidential candidate of the All Nigeria Peoples Party in 2007, he
insisted on going to court against his party’s wishes, and denounced the
Government of National Unity which his party embraced to its peril. He
has proved to be reliable, dependable, honest, self-assured and has
shown he has the character to rule Nigeria with a steady, confident pair
of hands. He is probably one of the few leaders in the world whose
charisma has little to do with his speeches or erudition, or even his
antecedents. If the turnout in the
April polls is heavy in the North, it will be because of Buhari.
Given
the massive and tumultuous crowds that welcome Buhari at every stop in
the North, it is unlikely any governor in the region, no matter which
party he belongs, and no matter what promises he has given his party’s
standard-bearer, will openly and defiantly work against Buhari. I
suspect, for the sake of peace, they will be relieved to see their
people vote for Buhari. I suspect too that the PDP and its
standard-bearer, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, know that they will have to look
for fishes in other waters. However, in all the talk about Buhari’s
acceptability and the growing fanatical support for him, there has been
little or no reference to his programmes, his suitability for high
office, or even his political competence. They talk about his character,
and he has it in abundance. They talk about his honesty, and he is
unimpeachable. They talk about his courage and
fearlessness, and they are right. And then they talk about his
experience and discipline, and they are also right. Had these been the
only qualifications required to rule this fractious, wasteful and
undisciplined country, Buhari would have received my enthusiastic
endorsement.
If
we are going to get it right, however, it is important we really get it
right. In addition to the many qualities a Nigerian leader must have,
it is inconceivable that these qualities, like an adverb, are not
modified or qualified by other qualities. Of course it is alright to be
disciplined, but it must be blended with a delicate mixture of humanism
that enriches rather than vitiates. To be otherwise is for the lofty
potentials and artistic endowments of the people to be stifled and
regimented, the effect of which is to create an immeasurably dull
society, probably even philistine, and clearly unprepared for the
future. After all, discipline is a means to an end, not an end in
itself, as Buhari sometimes unfortunately gives the impression. It is
true we need someone with courage and character, such as he showed in
trying to probe defence contracts when he was Head of
State and in his military campaign against Chad shortly before he
became ruler, but these qualities must be enabled by politics and sound
judgement. Buhari is neither a politician, as his inability to forge an
alliance against the PDP indicated, though he would have been the
greatest beneficiary; nor is his judgement always sound, as his
execution of drug couriers under iniquitously retroactive laws showed.
Modern
Nigeria is an amalgam of boisterous and sometimes disruptively
competitive ethnic and religious groups in need of carefully measured
but firm handling. However, if the country is not restructured, the
contradictions it is groaning under today will explode in the long run.
We need an iconoclast with a sublime understanding of how to situate
these futuristic but urgent requirements within a wider framework of a
flexible society anchored on disciplined but responsive values. Can
Buhari be that man? I am not certain. Though he is not gregarious, and
needn’t be to be a successful leader, he is a perfectly usual man, an
honest, predictable and dependable person, but without the depth or
scope of vision for a 21st Century society.
By
far the most important reason he cannot get my endorsement is that he
appears to me, through his words and deeds, to be uncomfortable with
democracy. He and his supporters have projected his honesty and
character almost to the exclusion of his views on democracy. What are
those views? It is safe to say they are neither deep nor uplifting; they
are indeed as ordinary as the views projected by the ordinary Nigerian.
I think for us, the next leader must not only have a deeper and
concrete appreciation of the centrality of democratic fundamentals in
social, economic and political development; as candidate for office and
potential custodian of democracy, he must be quite comfortable with the
concept, and his enunciation of it must not depend on whether it is
convenient for him or not. When a candidate admonishes the lynching of
election riggers, he demonstrates poverty of
ideas, a disturbing streak of authoritarianism and a fatally inchoate
understanding of the direction the society should be heading. The fact
is that at 69, Buhari has remained admirably an honest and capable
leader, but he has not outgrown his unease with democracy, nor has he
developed a consistent idea of what kind of society he has the ambition
to lead and what freedoms to allow it even if it hurts his private and
public interests.
The
emphasis, for most of those presenting themselves for high office, has
always been to adumbrate a body of programmes for the improvement of the
material conditions of the people, something a leader of modest gifts
can do. No thoughts, deep or superficial, are spared the constitution or
the framework of our togetherness. The American constitution would have
been an uninspiring document had its framers been obsessed with the
material conditions of its people. Of course the Nigerian constitution,
like a speech worked and reworked by many experts, has no soul. And so
we have a responsibility to rise to the higher levels of existence and
to stand and fight for something much nobler, something extraordinary,
something more filling than food and clothing. I am angry that none of
those aspiring for office has spoken to this special need. Buhari has
not, and indeed cannot,
for his limits are too worrisome to be ignored. Of course he towers far
and above Obasanjo or the late Umaru Yar’Adua, and any day, anytime
would trounce Jonathan in the province of governance. Buhari in the
State House, I must add, would be far better than the three. But there
is a limit to what he can give because there is a limit to what he has
got.
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