BUHARI VS BUHARISTS: A SPAT OR A SPIN?

Is the President intent on bequeathing an enduring legacy or merely playing a spoiler’s game? asks Kunle Jenrola

It is, perhaps, only the allure of charitable analysis of events that stretches the imagination of a keen observer to look at issues relating to the naira swap or “naira seizure” policy of the current administration from a less scalding perspective. 

To this end, questions arise on what could the Buhari administration be up to. Is it a quixotic attempt to cut one’s nose to spite one’s face…Or is the whole thing just a deliberate infliction of pain to create a legitimate inflection point?

Could President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB), knowing he’s statute barred to run again, be intent on bequeathing an enduring legacy or merely playing a spoiler’s game?

Some have even drawn a literary parallel from George Bernard Shaw’s “Arms and the Man” which profiled soldering as “a coward’s art of attacking mercilessly when you are strong and staying out of harm’s way when you are weak.” How strong or how weak is this soldier- PMB, in his lame-duck days? On another note, is Mr Godwin Emefiele, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor taking a pound of flesh from those who” truncated his political ambition”?

Trying to wrap one’s head around why a ruling APC administration, would, on the eve of an election that registers as a referendum, decide to implement a policy that does not bode well for its own electoral gains, has thrown up some suspicions.

It may be necessary to recall that, the government, through its agent, the Central Bank of Nigeria(CBN) began to excite suspicions when it assumed the sanctimonious posture of an electoral umpire by suggesting that the introduction of new currency was aimed at curbing “vote buying”. Out of sheer mischief or miscue, the other raison d’etre of the policy such as discouraging criminality and curbing inflation was puffed away by the anger of customers denied access to their money at the banking halls and Automated Teller Machines (ATMs).

Many had wondered why the CBN, egged on by President Muhammadu Buhari glossed over the gulf between money politics and monetary policy. It was not difficult for a casual stakeholder to predict that a policy which supplied far less new currency (N400b) to meet a supersaturated (N2.6tr) demand for cash was going south.

No. Not at a time when the structures for a cashless economy were grossly deficient and the Indian experience which failed in spite of its Information Technology (IT) advantage, stared us in the face.

Needless to chuckle at FG/CBN naivety and underestimation of the capacity of politicians to control and stay atop the “less-cash economy” by disingenuous proactiveness. With self-preservation being the first law of human survival, why would the moneybags and politicians whose huge deposits make bank vaults tick be expected to not blunt the CBN onslaught by mopping up the first supply insufficient new notes, ab initio?

Whatever legitimate tactics the politicians used to feather their nests and ready themselves for the all expensive presidential electoral system may well be the definition of the game.

Now, all of a sudden, the Buhari/Emefiele offensive chickened out into a defensive strategy in the wake of a gale of unintended consequences typified by untold hardship visited on the ordinary Nigerians.

By the way the concept of Unintended Consequences, according to psychologists, can be grouped into three types as follows: Unexpected Benefit in form of luck, serendipity or a windfall; Unexpected Drawback occurring in addition to the desired effect of the policy such as scarcity, occasioning hunger and frustration and violent protests.

Perhaps, the most unflattering aspect of unintended fallouts resides according to psychologists in the phenomenon of Perverse Result typified by an effect contrary to what was originally intended. It is when an intended solution makes a problem worse such as is being experienced at this moment.

Understandably, the defensiveness of the powers – that- be in the face of failure soon took the shape of desperation with threats on the banks and pronouncements that bothered on contempt of a Supreme Court decision mandating a status quo position till February 15, in the first instance and February 22 – the day slated for hearing of the substantive suit initiated by some APC governors.

The situation, once accentuated, by. long queues at fuel stations, had remained dire with intermittent spats within the APC family. Indeed, the Presidential candidate of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu had fired a salvo of criticism at Aso Rock, insinuating at a campaign rally at Abeokuta, Ogun State that negative impact of the money swap policy was aimed at scuttling his chances at the Feb 25 polls. This position was amplified by Mallam El Rufai, the effervescent governor of Kaduna State who echoed the presence of fifth columnists misadvising President Buhari.

But an inclination to accord some measure of intelligence or even guile to the ruling APC government could well inform an introspection hinting at a ploy to deploy a deliberate arsenal of errors to portray its presidential candidate as no less a victim than other contenders.

This deft political style known as “Dering Effect” is said to be a counterintuitive phenomenon replete in commitment of errors to influence perceptions and produce superior learning; particularly when these errors can be corrected by the seemingly incorrigible perpetrators. Perhaps, it’s in a desperate bid to correct these ills and strike a delicate balance between saving his face and easing the sufferings of the populace that President Buhari on February 14 made a controversial nationwide broadcast that skirts the rinks of contempt of an earlier decision of a Supreme Court judgement. 

With all the skein of contradictions within the APC, the out- of- the -box marketing gimmick of their presidential candidate becomes a legend stuff. It seems a curious or contrived coincidence that the only selling point that the candidate of a party that wears the ordinate or inordinate toga of “the oppressor of the masses”, could parade is the “I’m a victim too” jingle.

Talking about selling points also throws up the issues surrounding the marketing and demarketing of product Tibubu.  While the fifth columnists may seem to be demarketing their product through subtlety and ill- timed policy, the progressive governors of northern extraction have retained utmost faith in candidate BAT. Indeed, their conviction in a Tinubu presidency compelled an emergency APC meeting February 19, where the Chairman of the ruling party issued a statement reposing confidence in their standard bearer just as President Buhari, uncharacteristically, made a broadcast from Ethiopia to assure all stakeholders in the Nigeria Project including the international community that the Presidential Election would hold as scheduled of February 25 2023.

Another opportunity for Buhari to remarket the signature APC product you’d say!

The tone and timbre of the unintended consequences of this stymied monetary policy approaches a crescendo which might well nigh legitimise Tinubu’s victory and quench the embers of incumbency factor, same faith ticket, tribal bigotry and vote rigging being stoked currently.

 Jenrola, a veteran journalist and communication consultant, writes from Lagos