#2019 – IS BUHARI REVVING?

By Joseph Edgar…

Buhari’s last visit to Kano reminds me of an old Hollywood movie I once watched. It was a Babra Streisand Movie and she played the role of a fading movie star driven as usual with ego and a very unhealthy fascination with public adulation. So each time she needed a fix, she would go to a Mall in disguise with her Assistant and, at an agreed time, she would remove her disguise and her assistant would scream’’ …. Ohhh its Lola’’ and the crowd will come running and screaming seeking autographs and pictures. After the whole charade she would go home happy that she still had relevance.

This is exactly what I think our President just did with that Kano visit. The need to soak up some public adulation and to remind himself that he was still very popular must have led to that quick fix. After suffering so terribly in the hands of arm chair critics and talking heads on TV, someone would have told him that these are not the voters, that the real voters are on the streets especially in Kano where he had an overwhelming support during the last election. They would have told him to send a strong signal to the system and his growing critics that he was not on the floor just yet.

True to the calculations, the crowd was deafening and thunderous, so much so that even the usual taciturn Buhari could not help but go into a boastful rant saying that this is a signal to his critics and opponents. On the face value, this could be very true as that crowd could easily be turned into voters and they will surely be voters and this in he hands of any leader is electoral goal.

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But tarry a while, let’s look at the situation very critical. The prospects of seeing a sitting President live once in a lifetime would have been just too much for a street urchin to resist. After all, what else would he be doing with his time being jobless and less busy? Then add, the very real prospect of food or other inducement would have made the argument very compelling. So gauging popularity on the very strong prospect of the almost involuntary urge to go see something they may not see again can be a tard misleading. In this situation even Abacha could have pulled the same crowd and in fact he did at some point in his chequered career.

Secondly, the number of people that emerged should have immediately given the economy managers a cause for sorrow. As you gaze into the crowd you will see the sheer number of people who have dropped off the radar. Those that no economic model has captured and as such cannot provide for. What Buhari should have been seeing in that crowd was a failure of his policies – employment, social services and the rest. It should not have been a reason to gloat but an opportunity for objective reassessment.

The painful thing here is that this motley crowd which can be found in every city of the country will be turned to a willing tool in the hands of vote seekers.

Instead of crafting implementable policies that would reduce this kind of crowd, our leaders will continue to wallow in the plaid notion of popularity based on the quantum of jobless and desolate that have come out to welcome a sitting President harbouring a continuum in hollow service delivery.

Lets seek the truth and as our great Uthman Dan Fodio once said, only truth can heal a wounded conscience.

 

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