President Buhari’s Mortality- My perspectives

It’s been a week plus since this noise started flying around purporting that GMB has died in London. In that time a lot has happened; curses have been pronounced on the people wishing him dead by his loyalists; arrests have been made and further threats of arrests have been issued from different arms of the Nigerian security apparatus; there has been loud threats of civil war from some of our Hausa brothers; and there have been many meetings amongst our politicians, I am sure debating their options should this news be true.

Let me start with the politicians. We know that our politicians are like vultures. They circle around a dying man’s house, and if he is dying on the field, they patiently wait, singing dirges to him, knowing that soon, his flesh will be their food. Our politicians, instead of continuing to govern, have started re-assessing positions, and trying to work out who will be what in case the rumour is true. I say shame on them, and I hope that like in the US, a wind of change will blow them away, replacing them not with a Trump-like character, but with someone who will actually rescue this nation at last.

Then to all the people who have freely being airing their opinions, I don’t have anything to say to you really, since it is your considered opinions and you are entitled to it. However, a sick man deserves our empathy and our prayers, no matter who he is. I am not sure that any of us will be happy with the treatment we have meted out to GMB if indeed he is sick. He deserves our compassion and prayers, not our vengeful statements and rash celebrations over his demise.

To the handlers of the Mr President, I am surprised that history is not teaching you anything. The same set of people that went to court, went on demonstrations and were vituperating about 6 years ago denouncing the unethical and immoral acts perpetrated by the handlers of former President Musa Yar’adua are now the ones repeating the exact same sequence of actions that generally goes to satisfy the saying that, “power corrupts”.

I read a newspaper where one of these people was quoted as saying that Nigerians cannot force Mr President to talk if he does not want to talk. Well that is true, but it is only to the extent that he is a private citizen. In this case, he is not a private citizen. He is the president of the country, and the leader over 170million people. He must remember his famous words, “I belong to everybody”. If the President is fine, then why don’t you advise him to speak to Nigerians. Why overheat the polity unnecessarily? A phone call to the Senate President, or a picture of him on the Tube in London, or of him doing something in the present will help, rather than the pictures of him and his wife that could have been taken years ago, or him and that of Gov Amosun having a meeting in London.

I think all of these grandstanding points the fact that all is not well. The president is not dead. I don’t want to believe that people will be so corrupted by power and their own self-preservation as to sin against their religion and keep a dead Muslim’s body beyond the sundown of the day he dies. No, I don’t believe GMB is dead, but I don’t believe he is fully well either. If he is, he would do his nation a lot of good by appearing on live television to show us he is alive so that we can focus on other things and not get fixated on what will happen if he is dead.

Now to all the people shouting about his death, most especially the misguided ones clamouring for a continuation of the Hausa presidency, I ask, what do you expect to happen? We have a constitution! We have an agreed order of things. That is why the VP is the No 2 man and the Senate President is the No 3 man, both of them after the president. To the people insisting on someone not in this hierarchy to replace the president if unfortunately, he dies now or at any time before his 4-year tenure closes, I can only say shame on you, for being illiterates while purporting to be educated, and for being narrow minded and obstinate when sense and sensibility is an easier path to tread. If you ever thought the VP may be president and you didn’t like the thought, you would have made sure he was never VP in the first place. So ask me what options do you have? Well there are many unreasonable options, but the only reasonable one is to wait for 4 years and put back a Hausa man by way of democratic voting.

Up to this point, I have typed out 825 words just trying to deal with a rumour! This man is not certified or shown dead. The north has not said they will never agree to the current VP becoming President in the case of the death of the president. None of the assumptions that we have made that has caused us to spend sleepless night and fruitless days discussing this issues have happened so far. Yet, we leave productive work and discuss nuances and rumours!

Haba Nigerians! We spend far too much time in the silliness of things instead of doing the needful and dutiful. Now, everyone is juggling and positioning to be president. In a few months now, the whole country will be at a standstill as we go through the rituals of voting for mostly corrupt and wicked people to hold on to power for another 4 years either as president, governor, senators, reps, LG Chairmen and Councillors! Leading people and governing a nation is not an easy task. Take a look at Obama before and after! But of course, our own people just want to go and enjoy their life and amass wealth at the people’s expense. If whoever is president of Nigeria has to be held accountable and made to work his tenure like real presidents do in the free world, I don’t think there will be this much clamour to rule.

I will say the same thing to the people who are organising a rally to reject the president. That is fine as far as peaceful rallies go, but this movement will make better sense if we all vote wisely in the next election, rejecting all the leaders or rulers who have failed us, and presenting people that we believe will do the right things by Nigeria. But if we all approach the next election only intent of feathering our own nests and being parochial, ‘nepotic’ and bigoted in thoughts, words or action, then we will have failed ourselves again, and it will be like a mad man’s dance in the market!