President Muhammadu Buhari faced criticisms recently about a statement he made in the United States, which some people have described as divisive. GBENRO ADEOYE weighs the statement against his inaugural speech that preached unity
It is said that political analysts had a hard time criticising President Muhammadu Buhari’s inaugural speech, delivered on May 29, 2015 at the Eagle Square.
It was simple, direct and devoid of the usual rhetorical statements common with politicians, who on such occasions, heap praises on their parties. He promised to reform the judicial system and fight corruption and terrorism, among other issues addressed.
But the part that probably struck a chord with most Nigerians dwelled on the dream of a united country and how he intended to be a Nigerian President rather than that of a political party or region.
“Having just a few minutes ago sworn on the Holy Book, I intend to keep my oath and serve as President to all Nigerians,” he told Nigerians.
“I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody. A few people have privately voiced fears that on coming back to office I shall go after them. These fears are groundless. There will be no paying off old scores. The past is prologue.”
Standing before the world, President Buhari spoke about how like prodigal children, recent generations have disrupted the mission laid down by Nigeria’s founding fathers.
Subsequently, the speech received commendations locally and internationally.
But about two months after, President Buhari’s tone seemed to have changed and it happened in faraway United States of America, while he was answering a question on amnesty and inclusive governance for the Niger Delta. His response seemed to contradict his initial statement about belonging to everybody and to nobody, at the same time.
Buhari, in the US, said it was fair to treat those who gave him 97 per cent of their votes better than those who gave him five per cent. Although, he later added that the constitution would prevent him from favouring a particular constituency in the country even if he had wanted to.
President Buhari, in the interview said, “I hope you have a copy of the election results. Literally, constituencies, for example, that gave me 97 per cent cannot in all honesty be treated on some issues (the same was as) some constituencies that gave me five per cent.
“I think these are political realities. While certainly there will be justice for everybody; everybody will enjoy their constitutional rights. Where the party in constituencies that by either sheer hard work made sure they got their people (to vote) and ensure their votes count, they must feel that the government has appreciated the effort they put in putting the government in place. I think this is really fair.
“(But) by the constitution, no state can be excluded from government, so there is no way even if I were to show gratitude to those constituencies that voted heavily for me against those that didn’t even vote for me, they have the protection of the government.
“And I have made an undertaking that I belong to everybody, I belong to nobody. I cannot come clearly and marginalise a certain group because they didn’t vote for me, then I have already contradicted myself and I am sure people will be quick to pick that against me.” The controversial statement attracted a barrage of criticisms from the Nigerian public including political analysts and opposition parties.
Olisa Metuh, the National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, swiftly described the statement as divisive, saying it showed that Buhari’s government would be discriminatory.
“Never in the history of our nation has a president made such a divisive and vindictive declaration,” he said.
“Never in the history of Nigeria has a president made such tendentious, biased and partisan statement, a blade on the chord of unity of his own country and people.”
He demanded to know if the statement would “form the basis for distribution of infrastructural development projects and other essential interventions rather than the principle of equity and equality of federating units as stipulated by the constitution.”
Although, the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, told Saturday PUNCH, that Buhari was being unfairly quoted, analysts have insisted otherwise.
For instance, Adesina said those making issues out of the comment had deliberately refused to include the President’s concluding statement on the issue.
“People should just have been patient to listen to the entire trend,” he said.
“The President said it truly that people who gave him 95 per cent may get more attention in terms of reward and all that.
“But he also said that fortunately, the constitution has guaranteed the rights of every part of the country.
“What that means then is that even those who voted five per cent will get their dues and will not get things commensurate with five per cent votes.
“Some people deliberately decided to take part of what he said and refused to balance it.
“The balanced perspective of what the President said is that it is natural politically to give more to those who supported him but then those who did not support him will not be given the shorter end of the stick because the constitution already protected them.”
But in spite of Adesina’s efforts, some analysts said that the more the Presidency tries to defend Buhari’s comment, the more confused they had become.
For instance, Adesina’s statement had been described as ambiguous after failing to categorically state that constituencies that supported the President would be treated equally as those that did not.
Also in spite of ‘damage control’ efforts by the Presidency, analysts had described the statement as irreversible, saying President Buhari’s admired inaugural speech had already been dented.
A constitutional lawyer and social commentator, Mr. Liborous Oshoma, described Buhari’s comment as “unpresidential”, adding that the concluding part of the statement was an afterthought.
“The statement was actually a goof and it dented the initial statement the President made in his inaugural speech, which was why in his explanation, he quickly added that even if he wanted to do that, the constitution does not allow him,” Oshoma said.
“In terms of governance and providing the dividends of democracy, once you are elected, politics end and governance begins. You are now the President of the entire country, whether people voted for you or not is immaterial.
“And out of the population of about 150 million people, less than 30 million people voted, which is not up to 40 per cent of the entire population. So when you talk about distributing governance according to the voting capacity, then what happens to those who did not vote at all?.”
Another lawyer and political analyst, Mr. Ebun Adegboruwa, described the President’s inaugural speech as a “fraud” meant to deceive Nigerians.
He described statements delivered publicly by President Buhari as “statements and texts put together by other people.”
“It is only when you allow President Buhari to speak extempore that you know what is on his mind,” he added.
“Once he is reading a prepared speech, it is not his mind. So what he read on May 29 was not his own speech, it was a document drafted by people who do not know his mind. To say that he’s a President for all and for nobody is a deception; he’s just coming out to show us his real self. It’s when you allow him to talk that you see his real self. So what he delivered to us was a grand deception to put himself in the minds of Nigerians and get legitimacy by fraud.”
Adegboruwa also faulted the notion posed by President Buhari that some areas deserve some measure of gratitude for their support during the election that brought him to power. According to Adegboruwa, Buhari’s gratitude should rather spread across the country because he will not have assumed the position if he had not won two-thirds of the votes in, at least, 25 states.
“It is even not right to mention only those who scored 97 per cent of the votes as deserving gratitude because if the president had not scored two-thirds of the votes in 25 states, he would not have won the election,” Adegboruwa said, threatening to sue President Buhari if his appointments do not reflect federal character.
“So the votes of Lagos, Akwa Ibom, Edo and the rest enabled Buhari to become the president. The major issue portrayed by the statement is that the President is a man who wants to rule based on vendetta given the signs we have seen so far. And that is not the way to rule this country. Nigerians have decided to be one in spite of our ethnic and religious differences; the President should not divide us.
“He should govern as the father of all- the All Progressives Congress, Peoples Democratic Party, Labour party, lawyers, journalists, Muslims and Christians. So he should be a tolerant person, so we should get him to remove that regalia of dictatorship, tribalism, sectionalism, nepotism, because we will not tolerate it. If by the time he constitutes his cabinet, it does not reflect federal character, I’m going to go to court.”
But beyond fairness in appointments which is guaranteed in the country’s constitution, as noted by Adegboruwa, some other analysts said that the President was not bound by law to ensure fairness in the siting of developmental and infrastructural projects across the country.
For example, Oshoma said, “Since the rights of Nigerians as enshrined in Chapter 2 of the constitution are not justiciable because they are not the rights that people can go to court on, if tomorrow, the President decides not to site any developmental project in an entire region, nobody can go to court to compel him to do that. They can only plead that government presence should come to their locality.
“The constitution says you must spread your ministerial appointments one per state, but in terms of providing the dividends of democracy, the constitution cannot compel you. That is why I think the President ought not to have made that statement in the first place, because people are always going to refer to it when he begins to develop the areas that gave him the votes or when development is not getting to the areas that didn’t give him votes.”
Oshoma, however, advised President Buhari’s handlers to work harder to ensure a less turbulent administration for him as some of his statements have become subjects of controversies in public discourse.
“The reason for our concern is for his advisers to know how to guide the president and assist him in making public speech next time because the meaning that people are going to give to his statements might not be the one he intended,” he said.
“Once the President voices out a statement, it will be subjected to various interpretations, most especially, when it is ambiguous. Also, when a President comes to the public to explain the meanings after making statements, then that President is going to have a problem throughout his tenure.”
http://www.punchng.com/politics/hard-knocks-for-buharis-double-talk/ |
