The Nigerian 2015 presidential election became an ominous political showdown with the nomination of Muhammadu Buhari as the candidate of the main opposition party APC. The immorality and irrationality of his candidacy impose risks which should not be lost on the Nigerian electorates. Indeed, the claim by his supporters that he possesses the moral force to fix the country is a most irrational assertion.
Buhari wants to become president of a democratic Nigeria. But he overthrew a democratic government in 1983, suspended the constitution and refused to institute a process of returning the country to democracy before his government was overthrown in a palace coup in 1985. The same man now insists, rather inordinately, on ruling the country again in a democratic dispensation.
Buhari is contesting the national office of president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. But his mindset is notoriously sectional. As a military head of state, his despotic actions were well rivaled by his nepotism. Through highly prejudicial trials by his government when he was military Head of State, politicians from the southern part of the country were sentenced to longer jail terms than their counterparts from the north where Buhari hails from. Although he has contested the last three presidential elections, his support base is overwhelmingly the northern part of the country.
Buhari’s ethnic chauvinism is matched by his religious bigotry. He has been a protagonist of the controversial Sharia system. The strict Islamic code was mischievously introduced in some northern states of the country during the regime of a Christian president from the south, undermining the secularity of the country and curtailing social mobility of citizens from the predominantly Christian southern part of the country. In spite of the fact that so many Nigerians from the south and northern Christians have been victims of religious violence perpetrated by their radical Muslim compatriots in the north, Buhari is quoted to want to spread the Sharia system to every nook and cranny of the country.
Buhari wants to reform the Nigerian political economy. But in more than 30 years that he has been known as a Nigerian leader and as a northern leader, he is not known to have promoted education, economic participation and social advancement amongst his supporters who are some of the most educationally and socially backward hapless Nigerians in the north. He failed to do so by his words and by his personal example. On the contrary, Buhari’s multitudinous supporters in the north are fellow citizens who have been deliberately disempowered by the oligarchs whose creed is perpetuation of class disparity.
Buhari’s misguided supporters, spontaneously unleashed mayhem in the northern part of the country when the result of the 2011 presidential election went against him. Electoral officers were hacked to death including several young Nigerian graduates of the National Youth Service Corps. The gale of violence further targeted non-indigene Nigerians in the north as well as non-Moslems. Buhari didn’t find it necessary to immediately call his supporters to order. As a result, the campaign of death went on and on. Buhari’s decision to contest the next election, right after this episode, shows conclusively that he has no respect for the dead just as he is insensitive to the feelings of the relations they left behind.
Buhari flaunts an austere lifestyle. But being austere does not mean one should not be productively engaged as he has been since leaving office as military Head of State and leaving his position at the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF). Around the world, there are people who are hugely successful in business or social enterprise but who are notable for austere lifestyle.
Buhari takes his ambition to be president to be of overriding importance. It doesn’t matter if his personal ambition heats up the polity to the boiling point. This is incongruous with the messianic role he has arrogated to himself. Thinking that the unfortunate insurgent activities were beneficial to his presidential ambition and to his sectional and sectarian interests, he became a known sympathizer of the Boko Haram insurgents. He antagonized efforts of the federal government and those of the military to confront a group of social misfits who have unleashed the most wanton destruction of lives and properties in the country since the end of the civil war.
Buhari’s candidacy represents the delusion that leadership requires no preparation, and that Nigerian public offices are the training ground for their occupiers. With very meager formal education, it is very presumptuous that he felt he didn’t need to acquire sufficient knowledge that would enable him function as president. His hat is in the ring to be Nigerian elected president for the fourth consecutive time, nevertheless Buhari appears very rusty and long disconnected from political and economic thoughts. Journalists spend unproductive time with him trying to know his economic policy.
Buhari also represents a growing Nigerian malaise whereby we tend to believe what is rationally improbable. Buhari is expected to run a modern Nigeria with antiquated mindsets. He is expected to fight corruption as president when, as a military head of state and head of the PTF, he practiced nepotism and failed to deliver value for money. Now the party platform on which he is currently running is populated by corrupt politicians including those who defected from the corrupt ruling party that runs profligate governments. With his unflattering antecedents, many seem to believe we will realize progressive political change from this ultra-conservative politician as President.
The ‘change’ that the Nigerian people want is already personified in the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan. Since independence in 1960, no civilian or military government has unleashed the potentials of the youth or drastically invested in infrastructure or agriculture to the level we have seen in just four years.
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