Buhari’s Burdens

Personality Focus

Segun James writes that President Muhammadu Buhari is subtly fighting some political battles and this may have consequences on the 2019 permutations of the ruling All Progressives Congress

There is no denying that the race towards 2019 presidential election is already on, but what is unclear is whether or not President Muhammadu Buhari has realised this as he continues to wallow in allegations of ethnic favouritism, religious bigotry and political naivety. Hardly had a day passed without Nigerians waking up to yet another negative headline in the media suggesting that they are facing an existential crisis. If the nation is not fighting terrorists masquerading as Muslim fundamentalists in the North-east, it is engaging economic saboteurs claiming to be liberators in the Niger Delta. At the same time, the Biafra agitators are still pushing their agenda and as all these go on, the dollar-naira exchange rate continues to confound the government. All these are disheartening to the citizenry who, feeling the pangs of poverty, are blaming it on the Buhari government, either rightly or wrongly. Like at no other time, Nigeria is now unpredictable, polarised, and volatile and the economy is in both recession and stagnation. Hence, some say President Buhari got his first baptism of political fire by inheriting a nation with weak economy and incessant agitations from different sections. While President Buhari must deal with the acrimonious state of affairs in the country,  how he handles the growing perception that he remains a dictator even as a civilian president and that he has never hidden his disdain for the political class in the country is surely an assignment for his handlers. He is considered to have used every opportunity to label politicians as corrupt, inept and untrustworthy. At a point, he openly expressed his low perception of politicians when he told newsmen that ministers are noisemakers. It took him all of six months to fulfill the constitutional requirement that at least one minister must be appointed from every state of the federation, requirement the president scuffed at.

The politicians are sure to fight back and this is reflective in some first of its kind actions seen lately. The presidency was jolted when the Nigerian Senate in an unprecedented move rejected the request by the executive to obtain about $30 billion loan. The Senate in rejecting the request insisted that the government did not sufficiently convince them as to what infrastructural projects it will apply the loan to, and that such huge borrowing will only burdened future governments. This was indeed the first big confrontation between the executive and the legislature since the coming of Buhari as president. He certainly did not take kindly to the affront of the lawmakers. They have simply told him that democracy is not a military dictatorship. It was indeed the beginning of another baptism of political fire for the president. Before that, the National Assembly had enacted a law drastically curtailing the powers of the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) and placed the control of its operation from the executive branch to the legislature. They even went as far as overriding a presidential veto on the new law. The president never batted an eyelid as he knew he would never implement the new law. But then the die is now cast and there is no going back. If the president had expected that to be the last of such affronts, he was soon surprised again when the Senate rejected his nominee for the chairmanship of the economic watchdog, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr. Ibrahim Magu. They even went as far as asking him not to re-present the nominee as it will amount to a waste of time. Although the rejection was hinged upon security report from the Department of Security Services (DSS) implicating him of some crimes and abuse of office in the past, but it was the first of such high profile rejection by the National Assembly in direct opposition to the will of the executive branch.

Although the government tried to wash its hands from the plight of Magu, it was obvious it was a face saving action as both the report and the nominee were directly from the government. This was another baptism of fire for the president. The debate about who – between the executive, legislature and the judiciary – is responsible for the gradual decline of the country is still ongoing and intensifying. However, it has generated more heat than light because nobody has been held responsible as the nation inches towards 2019 as politics resumes in earnest. The president, his government and party have always heaped the blames on the previous government of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) even as the nation gradual slipped towards the precipice. So far, the President has refused to focus attention where it should be – the way forward for the nation! Who should bell the cat and who should take the bull by the horn and give direction? From all indication, the president and his team have failed in critical areas such as the economy, infrastructural development and above all, political management. Although the president is still popular among the people who endorse his war on corruption, but the situation remains that he is fumbling from crisis to crisis. His standoff with the justices of the Nigerian judiciary and the leadership of the National Assembly has galvanised the political class against his regime. Each day, doubts are growing about his ability to stir the economy of the state out of the woods it was plunged into by his government barely two years after taking office. Growing militancy in the Niger Delta, the region whose land produces the oil that is the mainstay of the nation’s economy, and how he manages it will have greater adverse effect on the polity.

At no time in the history of the country have investors fled as they are doing now. Even foreign airlines are fast running out of the country because the economic direction of the government has left them stupefied. The nation has never had it so bad. Some people may say that some reforms are already underway both politically and economically, but it might be too late as the recession bites hard and the political class becomes desperate to have a change in the national leadership. But perhaps most dangerous for the president is the growing uneasiness from within his political party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), as many leaders who are unhappy with his style are now joining forces with the opposition or forming alliances with others to truncate any move for a second coming by the president. The muttering of discontent are growing louder and louder in the polity. With opposition to the president growing, no wonder that politics has come rather early even as the proverbial 2019 is till over two years in the making. There has been a coming together of strange bedfellows as it was when the APC was formed in 2013. Unlike then when the reason was to take power from a party which has held it for so long, this time it is to forcible collect power from Buhari at all cost by people both within his party and outside who believe that the president is not only a dictator, but out to rubbish the political class who brought him to power. The leaders of the much touted mega party that will be used to wrest power from the president and his APC have started coming out of the shadows, an indication that politics has come rather to the country early.

The first person to publicly declare his membership of the party is the former governor of Anambra State, Mr. Peter Obi. This may also be an indication that the death knell may have been sounded on the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the main opposition party that has been embroiled in crisis since it lost at the last general election