By Ehi Ekhator

It was astounding the day the Nigerian Presidency announced the release of a documentary about President Muhammadu Buhari's human side. IT dawn on everybody that even Buhari knew that majority of Nigerians believed he was a beast.

For somebody with obvious human side, he didn't have to make a narrative to show that he has mankind in him. As Nigerians were more occupied with the loss of their brothers and sisters, the Presidency was caught up in persuading the general population how human the President was. It neglected to jump out at them that the loss of Nigerians introduced an adequate open door for the President to show his human side without having his representatives to disclose to Nigerians how he enjoys watching kid's shows.

Whoever initiated the documentary overlooked that displaying humankind implies giving occurrence in the video where Buhari would be seen doing the unforeseen. The documentary assembled Buhari top officers who were seen portraying their encounters with the President. There was no space for Nigerians in the street to include their voices, no scene caught Buhari helping a tyke or playing football in the street, the video didn't indicate Buhari paying visits to casualties of assaults, it was the longest almost 1hr and a trivial exercise in futility.

Since 2018, a great deal has occurred in the country. As many were celebrating a fresh start, others, especially in Benue State, were grieving the loss of their friends and families. There has been a long fight between the herders in Benue, and the farmers and more than 3000 Nigerians have been murdered in various assaults and reprisal from 2013 till now

The general population had criticized the quiet of the President while the presidential associates keep on convincing the abused, that Buhari isn't upbeat about the steady attacks by the Fulani Herdsmen who are of late, turns into a creature and specialist of death in their place of residence across the country.

The attack on the 1st of January, 2018 which ended the lives of more than 75 individuals was a strong road for the President to show his human side without the documentary, be that as it may, he released a condemnation statement and requested the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris to relocate to Benue.

The president likewise stressed in his January 25 letter to the Senate that he had “instructed the Inspector General of Police to relocate to Benue State” and “redeploy forces to the most sensitive areas.”

The statement made available to the press reads “Following the recent unfortunate killings of innocent people in Guma and Logo Local Government Areas in Benue State and the intervention, and ongoing efforts of the Nigeria Police Force to restore peace in the State, the President and commander in Chief of Armed Forces, Federal Republic of Nigeria, His Excellency President Muhammadu Buhari GCFR has ordered few hours ago, that the Inspector General of Police moves immediately to Benue State to restore law and order, prevent further loss of lives and forestall the crisis from escalating and spreading in the State.Mr. Idris initially obeyed the president’s order and arrived Makurdi, the state capital, on January 10, meeting with Governor Samuel Ortom on January 11.

But the Inspector-General spent only three days touring the state, including holding talks with Benue political and religious leaders and visiting camps of the internally displaced persons in Logo Local Government Area.

In his defence, a former director at the State Security Service. Mike Ejiofor, said there’s no rationale for the Inspector-General to remain in Benue or anywhere else in the crisis-ridden north-central.

“I don’t think it’s reasonable for him to remain there and leave all his administrative work at the headquarters,”

One month after, the President is yet to query the IGP why he moved back to Abuja instead of his order to station in Benue like his counterpart, Buratai against the Boko Haram terrorists.

It explained while the people believed the President doesn’t’ care and why Buhari has to try too hard to convince Nigerians that he has a human side.

It is not only the commoners complaining, a former President of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in a daring move in January, released 18 pages memo advising the President not to seek re-election in 2019 for lack of understanding of the dynamics of politics, and his tendencies to pass the buck of his government’s inadequacies to the immediate past administration, nepotism and corruption within his cabinet.

“But there are three other areas where President Buhari has come out more glaringly than most of us thought we knew about him.  One is nepotic deployment bordering on clannishness and inability to bring discipline to bear on errant members of his nepotic court.  This has grave consequences on the performance of his government to the detriment of the nation.  It would appear that national interest was being sacrificed on the altar of nepotic interest.  What does one make of a case like that of Maina: collusion, condonation, ineptitude, incompetence, dereliction of responsibility or kinship and friendship on the part of those who should have taken visible and deterrent disciplinary action?  How many similar cases are buried, ignored or covered up and not yet in the glare of the media and the public?

“The second is his poor understanding of the dynamics of internal politics.  This has led to wittingly or unwittingly making the nation more divided and inequality has widened and become more pronounced.  It also has effect on general national security.

“The third is passing the buck.  For instance, blaming the Governor of the Central Bank for devaluation of the naira by 70% or so and blaming past governments for it, is to say the least, not accepting one’s own responsibility.  Let nobody deceive us, economy feeds on politics and because our politics is depressing, our economy is even more depressing today.  If things were good, President Buhari would not need to come in.  He was voted to fix things that were bad and not engage in the blame game.”

Few days after, another former President Ibrahim Babangida through his spokesman Mr. Kassim Afegbua released a disputable memo similar to Obasanjo, advising Buhari to step down for the younger generation.

“In the fullness of our present realities, we need to cooperate with President Muhammadu Buhari to complete his term of office on May 29th, 2019 and collectively prepare the way for new generation leaders to assume the mantle of leadership of the country,” Mr. Babangida, who led Nigeria as an army general between 1985 and 1993, said.

“While offering this advice, I speak as a stakeholder, former president, concerned Nigerian and a patriot who desires to see new paradigms in our shared commitment to get this country running. While saying this also, I do not intend to deny President Buhari his inalienable right to vote and be voted for, but there comes a time in the life of a nation, when personal ambition should not override national interest.”

In spite of their parts in conveying the President to power, the duos had understood that their falcon couldn't fly, exhorting the Human President to venture down and enable fit hands to proceed in 2019.

Over a month since the Benue Massacre happened, Buhari is yet to visit the state rather, he attended to a neighboring state, Nasarawa where he commissioned a few projects. The human side didn't bounce out to urge the President to spend no less than 2 hours to reassure with the families of the individuals who lost their lives.

In its defence, the Presidency on Thursday said there were many attacks in the country and the President couldn’t visit everywhere. Buhari’s media aide, Femi Adesina made this known in his response to a columnist on Thisday Newspaper who queried the President on his romance with the Fulani and his compromise to take drastic action.

Adesina acknowledged that “Nobody can deny that Nigeria has a serious problem on her hands, as constituted by crises between herdsmen and farmers in different parts of the country. Lives are being taken wantonly, sorrow, tears, and blood visited on many homes, and dread descending on towns and communities. It is a national emergency, which is being responded to by the concerned authorities.

But added “talking of visits, in the latter part of last year, there were massive killings in Mambilla, Taraba State, in Numan, Adamawa State, in Zamfara, in the southern part of Kaduna, and Omoku, in Rivers State. The loss of one soul is bad enough, particularly when done in cold blood. But where does the President start from? He sympathized with all those who lost loved ones. Nobody can call that ‘inaction,’ except when mischief is involved.”

The above explanation revealed that the President himself was overpowered by the ceaseless killings in the nation. Sympathizing on the face of the media resembles Obasanjo public memo without first discussing the issue with Buhari.

The President who is so worried about his compassion as it's seen by the general population should know the significance of "live broadcast" or "national address" to share the agonies of his people. On the off chance that the attacks occur 20 times in a month, Buhari ought to have addressed the country 20 times.

Adesina said Buhari's government has a mission to bring equity to everybody overlooking that the people of Benue is yet to feel the compassion and equity he alluded to.

“Which sensible democratic government anywhere in the world would approve the massacre of its own people? Definitely, not this one led by President Buhari, which I know derived its legitimacy from the overwhelming mandate of the people. And not a government, which seeks to do justice to all the people, whether they are an ethnic majority or minority.”

Adesina, in his standard style, cast the fault on the Goodluck Ebele Jonathan's political party. He believed that the circumstance is poilticitized by those crushed in 2015.

“No matter the unjust labels being stamped on the administration by people who remain marooned in pre-2015 elections mode, this is one government that is doing well for Nigeria and Nigerians, and if only people would purge themselves of long-held biases, they would then see better. “

The bulk passing was addressed by Obasanjo and the present government has declined to halt or gained from the past. The administration has, at whatever point it comes up short on thoughts, accuse the past government without consideration.

Buhari's government needs to figure out how to make legitimate remarks without disregarding and irritating individuals when managing a touchy issue like herders murdering.

The President has a ton of work to do to persuade the Southerners and Westerners that he belongs to nobody but belongs to everybody as he stated. He ought to have the capacity to call his employees to order when eating craps amid a touchy issue and furthermore sack the degenerate and wasteful among them.

Buhari's rate dribbled as Nigerians who saw the moon when he assumed controls are as of now battling for their lives in Mars.

Read more on https://www.naijacenter.com/editorital/fulani-herdsmen-vs-benue-state-action-human-president/

Ehi Ekhator is a freelance journalist and the Publisher Naija Center News...

He can be contacted at ehidan@naijacenter.com
twitter: @ehiehidan