I recently had a phone conversation
with a dear compatriot who just
shared with me a desire to support
Muhammadu Buhari for president,
come 2015 elections. The
conversation we had convinced me
to put down these thoughts that have
been
with me for quite some time now.
Let me start by saying that it is a
sign of how much military rule
destroyed our sense of what is right
and our relationship to history that
dictators like Buhari and Ibrahim
Babangida are still respected
figures in our public life. But that is
a topic for another day.
Here are my reasons why no one
who is exercised by Nigeria’s and,
by extension, Africa’s future, as well
as that of African-descended
peoples everywhere, must actively
campaign against the likes of Buhari
and, while we are at it, Abubakar
Atiku, when it comes to our future.
Buhari is an unrepentant,
unapologetic, unreconstructed
dictator in whom I am yet to see the
requisite democratic temperament
beyond persistently presenting
himself for elections. In case
Nigerians need any reminder—that
we do is itself a scandal—this was
the man who, with Tunde Idiagbon,
presided over a military regime that
dehumanized Nigerians in the name
of some spurious “War Against
Indiscipline”. It was a regime under
whose jackboots the dignity of many
Nigerian women was assaulted at
airports and other points of entry
with humiliating body cavity
searches in the name of some crazy
war on drug trafficking. It is
interesting that while the country
that manufactured the original war
on drugs is beating itself up on its
stupidity, we are about to honour the
man who led a regime that
perpetrated indignities on Nigerians
in the name of that same war! Is it
any wonder that we don’t get any
respect from the rest of the world?
As if the indignities were not enough
by themselves, this was a man who
signed execution warrants for three
young Nigerians convicted of drug
trafficking under a law that also
recognized their right to appeal their
conviction to a higher court. They
were executed while their appeal
had not, repeat not concluded. I do
not recall that under military rule,
the suspension of the constitution
included the suspension of the
doctrine of the presumption of
innocence of the accused until such
a person is convicted. Might I add
that that conviction is not final until
all appeals have been concluded. In
other words, Buhari and the goons
he led murdered three young
Nigerians who were still presumed
innocent according to our legal
system, even under military rule. In
a decent society—and ours is not a
decent society—Buhari will be in the
dock answering charges for his
shameful and illegal behavior. But
we are such amnesiacs; we think he
could and should be president.
Meanwhile, his so-called war on
corruption for which everyone
pretends to celebrate him was not a
model of consistency. Neither was
the ethnicity-inflected justice that
his tribunals meted out to erring
politicians. For me, the matter of
the emir’s suitcases pales into
insignificance against the
ethnically-modulated pattern of
(in)justice in the trials of so-called
corrupt public officials of the
Second Republic. I am sure that not
many Nigerians now recall the first
public office-holder jailed for
corruption by the Buhari\Idiagbon
regime. That would be Olabisi
Onabanjo, the first civilian governor
of Ogun State. I recall telling people
then that there was something wrong
with that picture; I still think there
is. It probably was one reason why
Fela wondered why Shehu Shagari
was not put on trial but governors
and other office-holders were. In his
inimitable parlance: “Driver get
accident; na conductor you charge
to court”. The Niger State governor
who was found with six million
naira overseas did not quickly come
up for trial; neither did the Kano
State governor for whom there was
no trouble with banking government
money in government house. Their
trials would all come later.
More noteworthy was the fact that
no, repeat, no Unity Party of Nigeria
(UPN) governor, not Ambrose Alli,
not Bola Ige, not Onabanjo, was
convicted of personal enrichment;
they were guilty of using
government funds to enrich their
parties. Yet, they were the first to be
sent to jail! The irony is completely
lost on Buhari’s apologists when
they proclaim his personal
incorruptibility; a similar claim
could be made of the UPN governors
he was eager to imprison for
presiding over a corrupt system.
Please don’t tell me about his
stewardship of the Petroleum Trust
Fund (PTF). First, anyone who was
associated with the Abacha regime
does not deserve any place in
Nigeria’s public life and, definitely,
in Nigeria’s future. In the second
place, PTF, EFCC, ICPC, and the
innumerable extra-judicial organs
that litter the Nigerian political
landscape are relics of failure rather
than icons of administrative genius.
Saudi Arabia, Mexico, the Gulf
States did not need a PTF to put
their oil windfall into proper
financial institutions to ensure that
their oil was turned from income
into wealth. Does PTF have such a
record? When did it become a sign
of good economic management that
you sit on accumulated money while
your economy contracts? So, if part
of what recommends Buhari for
president is his stewardship of the
PTF as an organ of development, it
must be that amnesia is even less a
problem than economic illiteracy
that borders on collective idiocy.
Beyond his military service, I do not
see any evidence that Buhari is
interested in the project called
Nigeria beyond the insistence of the
dominant elite in the northern part of
the country that their sons must be
at Nigeria’s helm. I do not say this
lightly and I say it in spite of the
risk of being labelled. I am not
worried about being labelled. He
has never publicly opposed Sharia
and that is one of the most toxic
features of contemporary Nigerian
polity and politics. No politician who
is ambivalent about Sharia can be
part of a salubrious future for a
country like Nigeria. Incidentally, he
could borrow a leaf from Mahathir
Mohammed on this score. But
Nigerian Islam and contemporary
Christianity are not about Reason or
ideas. His Congress for Progressive
Change (CPC) definitely did not
acquit itself well after the last
presidential elections and his
ominous wait to condemn the
violence still rankles. Where is the
evidence of any change on his part
on this score?
Finally, it is a matter for great pity
that the All Progressive Congress
(APC) has proven itself to be more
interested in power than in making a
country that we all can be proud of.
No thanks to its unthinking addiction
to winning power and its even
greater thoughtlessness in believing
that it can do so by gathering the
rejects of the ruling party, the APC
can only deepen the cynicism and
apathy of the electorate. It is a
disgrace that the best the party that
styles itself ‘progressive’ can do is
to tout two retreads as its change
agents when what the country needs
are spanking new treads! If the
permutation is to win in the north, I
wish them luck. But it is the surest
path to giving Goodluck Jonathan a
second-term he does not deserve
but will get because the other party
has not shown itself to be any
different from the PDP. Jonathan did
not win the north that last time
around; neither does he need it this
time. APC can still withdraw from
this path to self-destruction. Buhari
is part of a past well let alone. Only
the future should matter and nothing
about him speaks to this future.


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Tamibua is the best cadidate for APC.