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
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