Buhari Presidency Needs Fresh Thinking by... Idowu Akinlotan

SINCE the appointment of Acting Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, analysts, politicians and columnists from the Southeast have been exasperated with President Muhammadu Buhari over his seeming deliberateness in disregarding and excluding Igbo representation in the country’s security (military and paramilitary) apparatus. They are right to feel incensed. It is indeed hard to imagine that the president assembled his security team and omitted Igbo representation by accident. If indeed it was accidental, then it is a reflection of the quality of his kitchen cabinet; a cabinet this column has thrice taken to task for its structural insularity. But if the security team was assembled with careful and, as the presidency appears to argue, meritorious deliberateness, then it is even more baffling and provocative, a reflection of something much more insidious in the presidency, something more calculating, more subverting of national ethos.

Shortly after the president began to assemble his kitchen cabinet last year and showed a predilection for parochialism, this column warned that it presaged a dangerous trend that might disallow the president from enjoying a broad perspective of ideas, suggestions, viewpoints and philosophies that conduce to national cohesion and stability. The column also warned that if no one leaned on the president to change tack, the narrow base from which he was recruiting his close staff, not to say the wider cabinet, could get even narrower and ideologically insular. But the presidency’s response to the fears and criticisms was one of impatience. The public should wait until the entire cabinet was assembled, presidential aides growled. Now both the kitchen cabinet and the general cabinet have been assembled, and neither gives any indication that the president appreciates the political, nay, democratic, imperatives of his team, nor of the country. Worse, as it is now evident, even the country’s security apparatus does not reflect the country’s diversity, religion and geopolitics. Is no one embarrassed?

Presidential aides will want to respond testily to Igbo allegation of alienation, for even the president himself seldom reacts to such matters with the urgency and liberal disposition the controversy calls for. The refrain is often that the president would select only those he trusts, and that in any case, members of his team, or teams, merit their appointments. Perhaps, too, presidential aides would suggest that the shape, structure and colour of the security team are a safeguard against unforeseen circumstances that may be triggered by the president’s tough and unsparing measures to sanitise Nigeria, and a reflection of the intensity and quality of the work he plans to do to revamp Nigeria. Both responses would not only be misplaced, they would be insensitive and wrong-headed. For a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society like Nigeria, the conclusion many have drawn is that the president’s kitchen cabinet, general cabinet and security team are polarising, unrepresentative and damaging of national ethos and cohesion.

The first and indeed most significant consequence of these skewed and absolutely indefensible appointments is that it definitely constricts the representativeness of the president’s policy options. This column gave this warning last year at least three times. But at the time, many top government officials read meaning to the warnings, believing self-servingly that this column, though not being this paper’s editorial, spoke the minds of the paper’s owners. Today, after the composition of everything there is to compose, it is evident that the Igbo have virtually been shut out. If they complain, the president has a duty to regard the complaints as sensible and justified. The complaints are to help him make solid and meaningful adjustments, and lay an even solider foundation for Nigeria’s future. Nigerian unity, as he must be painfully aware, is not cast in granite. It must be serviced, nurtured and groomed.

Given the unfortunate skewness of the president’s appointments and the general inappropriateness of his policies, not to talk of their ad hocism and disregard for ethnic fairness and social justice, it is beginning to look like even the ongoing anti-corruption campaign is nothing but a smoke screen to rally people behind the president. As this column has maintained, the anti-corruption war is still a battle against the symptoms of corruption, not a systemic attempt to tackle the malaise from its very roots. Had it been a well-structured battle, one that is underpinned by an uplifting, coherent and structured philosophy, the collateral damage being witnessed would have been feeble and short-lived. Had that structured philosophy been identified and enunciated, it would have led to a wider and more encompassing campaign to remake the country and put it on a sound, stable, peaceful and solid footing to compete with other nations in the 21st century. The anti-corruption war, which is virtually the only serious campaign being waged by the Buhari presidency, would have been just a subset of the whole, organised and executed brilliantly, perhaps more effectively and without distractions and fanfare.

Had that structured philosophy constituted the government’s policy framework, an overall picture of where the Buhari presidency wants to go or where he wants to take the country would have been evident. That philosophy would have averted or destroyed the impunity of unlawfully sacking 12 vice chancellors and their councils last February, not to talk of the embarrassing appointments of at least three of their replacements from a single university and region. Irrespective of the internal politics of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), it would also have made the unlawful sacking of its governing council also impossible. That philosophy would have made the meddlesomeness and deliberate perpetration of injustice inspired by certain forces in the federal government and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the Kogi governorship election conundrum unthinkable. That philosophy would have keenly recognised the lopsidedness of the country’s security appointments and redrawn a more viable, inclusive and lasting security structure for Nigeria. Furthermore, the sensitive portfolios in the general cabinet would have been widely distributed to eschew any feeling of alienation and, conversely, exceptionalism.

Apart from obviating the danger of alienating almost the entire south from the key and inner workings of the Buhari presidency, that structured philosophy would have engendered fresh thinking on the economic, social and political crises facing the nation. Notwithstanding the best efforts of the Buhari presidency, it has failed to recognise that there is a desperate economic emergency that must be tackled with new and brilliant ideas. It now seems that an economic emergency may never be declared, for the president apparently appears fascinated with jaded economic ideas, many of which he has startlingly repeated in flagrant disregard of economists’ advice. He has, for instance, grudgingly allowed market forces to determine the value of the Naira. But a few days ago he still wondered aloud about the efficacy of a measure he loathed and publicly denounced.

That structured philosophy simply does not take cognisance of the horrifying social dilemmas the country is also facing. Anarchy is overwhelming the country, and whole regions and communities are unsafe, some as a result of poverty and hunger for which no methodical and lasting policies are directed, and others as a result of the government’s pussyfooting over herdsmen attacks. Cultists, kidnappers, impersonators of security officers (which by itself is a reflection of the consistent abuse of power by the government and its agents), and all manner of perversions have taken over the country. Worse, by its misinterpretation and misuse of the constitution, the federal government and its agents are stoking political disharmony in many areas of the nation, including Ekiti, Kogi and Rivers. It presumes rightly that in some of the states governed by execrable characters, the public would support its unconstitutional moves.

In short, the absence of a structured philosophy of government has created a vision vacuum, subverted or weakened the justice system, begun to crowd out free speech and dissent, and is failing miserably to tackle the urgent existential problems confronting the country. It is clear that even this government will fare worse in terms of laying a solid foundation for democracy and the rule of law. It lacks the requisite temperament, discipline, patience and brilliance. It wrongly believes that if it somehow stabilises the economy — a feat that is looking increasingly doubtful — it would have succeeded in its assignment. Nothing could be wronger.

If President Buhari did not directly orchestrate the deliberately skewed arrangements being complained of by the Igbo and other groups in the south, he should take the complaints and criticisms against the skewness of his appointments seriously. He has the power to right the wrongs. He should exercise it. His predecessors refused to lay the needed foundation for democracy, economic rejuvenation and rule of law; but he should assemble a team of economists and advisers to bring about the new ethos he promised the country, an ethos which is now sadly being pursed superficially by a crowd of presidential aides and ministers whose perspectives are coloured by a single and insular idea. Things should not get worse than they already are in order for alienation not to breed defiance