It is no longer news in Nigeria that APC was swept into power as a result of mass dissatisfaction with the performance of PDP in its 16 years of political stewardship in Nigeria. Before the 2015 elections, PDP was purported to be planning to perpetuate itself in office for 60 years before the party would let go. Like everything Nigerian, APC was a hurriedly cobbled political party of strange political bedfellows, a hotchpotch of progressives, conservatives and even political jobbers littering our political landscape. Politics has turned out to be a very serious business, in fact a more serious business than any other occupation in Nigeria. Unlike PDP, which dominated Nigeria’s political firmament for 16 years, APC is a sort of coalition party that brought under a single platform other strong opposition political parties across the country. Despite being a formidable political party, APC clearly lacks coherent and clear-cut ideology or program in place.
Even though the APC clinched power through its parade of seemingly attractive manifesto, in practice it proves to be a party that is abysmally characterized by failure to transform itself into alternative political platform to PDP. President Buhari started behaving as if the party machinery that saw him into office is no longer important in his decision-making processes, and in the processes of delivering the promises made to the electorate. The moment its presidential candidate was sworn in, he took Nigerians by surprise when he announced his intentions to be guided by a strange apolitical dictum, call it political oxymoron if you will, of belonging to everybody and nobody. Perhaps this explains more the nature of President Muhammadu Buhari’s uneasy relationship with the party that offered him the crest that zoomed him into office.
The implication of Buhari’s political oxymoron should be seen from the way he quickly jettisoned the structures of his political party for his own personal initiatives and arrangements, which included the type of people he personally mobilized to populate his transition team, and the non-APC elements and cronies he deliberately opted to surround himself with as soon as he settled down to execute the enormous task ahead of him. Perhaps the action of the APC flag-bearer could also be seen as his strategy to avoid the stranglehold of APC that was under the control of such powerful party apparatchiks like Ahmed Bola Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar, Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso, Bukola Saraki and many other party stalwarts that carpet crossed from other political formations when it became clear that the APC momentum in the country would irreversibly dislodge PDP from power, particularly when its ship set to dock at the gates of the Presidential Villa.
Although even with President Buhari’s bid to at least control the machinery of government, he could not have it his own way without the visible input of other strong party members like Asiwaju Tinubu. Anxieties, expectations and delays in the processes leading to Buhari’s cabinet appointments apart, other political bigwigs in the APC had eventually overpowered the President in that regard. He could not help but come up with a cabinet, strictly not of his personal wish and desire but one full of Tinubu’s men. Though other political heavyweights in the North could not have their way with Mr. President as much as Tinubu, not just in cabinet appointments but in all other strategic appointments into government positions. The casualty in all this is the APC, the political structure that nursed and nurtured Buhari into becoming a formidable political force in Nigerian politics, which can at best be described as mercurial. This was the only reason he could galvanize a broad national support base to clinch the number one position in Nigeria. Developments afterwards have however shown that lack of cohesion between the ideals the APC spelt out in its manifesto and the policies Buhari’s government started implementing can be costly.
Anyway, Buhari’s style of governance was caught up in a dilemma, an identity crisis of some sort between the aspirations of his staunchest supporters who looked forward to having a General Muhammadu Buhari that would rule with the iron fist of a benevolent military leader in the context of the limitations imposed on him by our democratic system, and a President Muhammadu Buhari who is learning to be a civilian ruler, a born again democrat struggling to convince Nigerians that he too can operate in a democracy pretty well with all the baggage of a military career that dominated the pages of his curriculum vitae. For sure, President Buhari did everything possible to shed the toga of his dictatorial past. He is quite conscious of the self-contradictory disposition trailing his personality as he gradually learns the rope in the art and craft of his becoming a democrat. The ambivalences of Buhari’s style of leadership are partly traceable to his inability to reconcile his desire to rule as a civilian leader under a democratic system and the promptings of deeply embedded spirit of the former military ruler that bestowed on him absolute powers to rule through the barrel of a gun.
How did these irreconcilable impulses play themselves out in the last two years? First, the state of insecurity gripping the nation in the dying days of the PDP government has gradually ebbed away with Buhari in the saddle. The Boko Haram insurgency in the North has also considerably subsided. Other flashpoints created by MEND and Biafra agitators in the South have retreated. Successes recorded in the fight against all forms of insurgency have been achieved due largely to rejigging of the entire security apparatus. It could only be done through a leader who knows what it takes to quell insurrections or to secure the territorial integrity of Nigeria by all means, you may say. Nobody could tackle our state of insecurity better than one who knows how to go about it, a retired military insider in the workings of security institutions. Once again, nobody can take away the knowhow to handle deplorable security situation in Nigeria from Buhari’s government. Even President Obasanjo had to commend Buhari’s administration for achieving great feats in the fight against threats to the corporate existence of Nigeria.
The other area in which President Buhari should be given credit is in his war against corruption. So many political office holders and public officials have been made to cough out monies they were alleged to have stolen. The Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) has been, through its whistle blowing initiative, exposing large caches of stack of dollar and naira notes hidden in unusual places. The TSA policy and putting the activities of Nigerian banks under the radar of security have significantly reduced the quantum of theft by public officials. However, the government needs to resist the temptation to overlook financial crimes committed by close associates of the President. Indeed, allegations have been making rounds of how EFCC is selective in choosing its quarry. It was believed by a cross-section of Nigerians that EFCC has deliberately failed to put some members of the President’s inner circle under its radar. Nevertheless, Buhari’s war against corruption has recorded appreciable successes.
On the economy, PDP has left behind an economic system that was apparently on life support. As a matter of fact, even the blindest of PDP supporters have accepted that the economy, despite generating high oil income, was in bad shape due to profligacy, mismanagement, incompetence and corruption. However, President Buhari could not make serious inroads in his determination to revamp the Nigerian economy due to his poor economic preferences. He has demonstrated some degree of uncertainty as to the best way forward in economic direction – whether to toe the line of neoliberal economic options or not. In the second coming of the former military Head of state who used to reject IMF and World Bank economic panaceas in 1984, Buhari has now appeared to have been converted into the neoliberal economic creed. With the set of economic and financial experts he surrounded himself with, it is quite not unexpected of him to get convinced by their argument and logic. This clearly explains the hastiness with which he rushed cap in hand to the neoliberal camp.
As always demanded upon those nations that accepted the neoliberal economic reform package, Buhari single-handedly proceeded to devalue the naira as he also instructed the removal of oil subsidy with dispatch without engaging in broad consultations with other stakeholders. He did not mind a bit the social coasts or consequences of the painful options he selected. Potentially, this will turn out to be a huge tragedy for the President that comes to power through the popular support of Nigerian youths. The youths as a social category have harbored serious expectations of a better future from the tenure of a President Buhari. It can be argued here that peripheral dependent economies like Nigeria, herewith considered as unequal partners in the global economic system, cannot claim to lack the wherewithal to source alternative economic models, now that the global neoliberal economic order is no longer certain of its future.
At this juncture, President Muhammadu Buhari needs to do a serious revaluation of his policy options and programs. War against corruption will be futile if the existential problems faced by Nigerian youths have not been tackled head on. In this light, the President needs to assemble an economic team of experts who are, by all measures, very creative and innovative. He needs an economic team that can fashion out a more realistic and viable economic blueprint that would minister to the aspirations of the Nigerian youths and ordinary folks alike, people that went to great length to elect the APC President into office. The youths have paid their dues through their unalloyed support for Buhari’s change mantra. They are indeed the most dependable constituency that the President cannot afford to lose. He cannot therefore ignore their plight. The Nigerian youths are the future of this country. The wellbeing of our youths will always translate into the collective wellbeing of the nation, whether we like it or not.
Mr Liman is professor of Comparative Literature and Popular Culture at Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, Nigeria
