Buhari: Losing Support And Appealing To Hungry Citizens

By Levi Obijiofor…. I start today with a question I posed 11 years ago. If you were asked to rank the following people in terms of unscrupulous conduct or crooked behaviour, which of them would top your list? I list the people in no particular order: public office holders; presidential advisers and assistants; politicians; state governors; National Assembly legislators; state parliamentarians; ‘419’ swindlers; bank managers; police officers; pastors; lawyers; medical doctors; members of the judiciary; journalists; newspaper and magazine publishers; university and polytechnic teachers; secondary school teachers; carpenters; bricklayers; accountants; advertising executives; public relations/public affairs officers; mortuary attendants; pickpockets, prostitutes, and commercial vehicle drivers.

While I acknowledge the list is not comprehensive, many people are likely to nominate ‘419’ tricksters, pickpockets, and prostitutes as the most dishonourable, unethical, and fraudulent people. That choice could have been made on the basis of public perceptions which may or may not be accurate. The way we perceive people is often based on incredible assumptions which may be far from reality. By picking on ‘419’ scam masters, pickpockets, and prostitutes, we reveal our fundamentally flawed assessment of the sources of Nigeria’s economic troubles, lawlessness, and endemic corruption.

Every country places a different value on its institutions and the moral conduct of people who drive those institutions. For example, in December 2000, the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun, arguably the world’s largest selling newspaper, asked 2000 people to record the institutions they considered as most trustworthy. The office of the prime minister was ranked last. The result of the survey showed the extent to which the Japanese people placed little trust on their politicians. A majority of us hold a similar view of Nigerian politicians many of whom we perceive as innately corrupt, morally unprincipled, and undeniably dishonest.

In the past two weeks, virtually every minister in President Muhammadu Buhari’s government has been talking loosely in the public domain, extolling Buhari’s performance in office, and at the same time appealing to distressed and impoverished citizens to be patient with the government, to make sacrifices to help the country to recover from economic recession, and to await the elusive “dividends of democracy” the President and his party promised during election campaigns in 2015.

All these indicate a government in a panic. The government is rattled because the miracle changes the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the President promised more than a year ago now appear to be out of reach, unattainable, and more like a mirage. So, when we read reports about Buhari and his ministers begging Nigerians to support the government, to be patient, to cooperate with the government, you know the government has boxed itself into an uncomfortable corner.
In 2015 many people believed in, and preached the parable of Buhari as the long-awaited magician who could turn Nigeria around for good. How mistaken those judgments and expectations were!

The excitement that accompanied Buhari’s majestic entry into the presidential throne in Aso Rock has subsided. It is either that the miracle is yet to be invented or configured, or that the propagandists have been exhausted, or that the miracle man has run out of ideas. Against the background of citizens buffeted by economic hardships, I do not think the President is still seen as a political pearl many people once felt he was.

Why has Buhari’s government and the APC not lived up to public expectations? Why has a political party that enjoyed unprecedented public support and goodwill before and during national elections failed to live up to public hope? Did we expect too much from the APC and Buhari within so short a time? Were the citizens unrealistic in what they expected the President to achieve within 16 months?

These questions have dominated public conversations in traditional and online media, as well as on social media. Only Buhari and the APC leadership can answer these puzzling questions. Unfortunately, the APC is now engulfed in a major internal warfare between its leaders. Last weekend, APC national leader Bola Tinubu deployed harsh language against the conduct of party chairman John Oyegun over the alleged role the chairman played in the way the Ondo State gubernatorial primary was conducted. The feud has exposed the cracks in a political party that had positioned itself as unblemished and invincible. APC leaders have given Buhari an additional problem to grapple with. It is a distraction the President does not need at this moment.

The anger that many people hold against Buhari’s government is that APC officials, including those in government, made lofty promises about how they would turn Nigeria into a paradise even when it was obvious they did not possess the resources to fulfil those promises. It has been said that rising expectations long unfulfilled lead to rising frustrations. This statement captures the mood of the nation today.

The APC and Buhari were swept into office on a groundswell of public support. The excitement propelled these politicians to the Seventh Heaven, where they rolled out promises to the citizens. Sixteen months later, those who made the promises went silent but the citizens never ceased to live on hope. In defence of the government he serves, one presidential adviser even had the temerity to argue recently that everyone must suffer first before we can expect to experience the “dividends of democracy”. That arrogant statement implied we must first experience purgatory before we can get near the Kingdom of good life. How misleading, insensitive, and conceited!

The supercilious statement shows how sycophantic, how grovelling, and how obsequious people can be once they are appointed as the President’s adviser. Over the years, Presidential advisers in Nigeria have demonstrated an uncanny capacity to make statements that are at odds with public sentiments. Someone once said that fawning adulation of a President or Prime Minister is not a crime. Perhaps that is true.
When Buhari was sworn into office in 2015, everyone had hoped his government would signal a new era and new direction for the country. Buhari was promoted as the face of a new Nigeria, a country in which all citizens would be regarded and treated as equals. It was hoped the new government would usher in a much invigorated economy, an economy in which many foreign investors would be hurrying to invest.

While some people continue to debate the APC, Buhari, and his style of government, certain views are already entrenched in the minds of citizens. The most dominant view is that the government is insensitive to the plight of the less privileged. This may be true or false but it does not detract from the fact that this perception is widespread regardless of the citizens’ political party affiliation, geographic location, and ethnicity.

The second view is that Federal ministers and advisers are living in an imaginary world quite disconnected from the practical world in which citizens continue to grapple with economic hardships and the difficulties of everyday life.

Read also: Nigeria’s economy may slip into depression –Dangote, MAN

On account of all these, including the fiction propagated by government officials who are shielded from the hardships of life, it is now widely believed that Buhari’s bubble has burst. The charm that attracted the people to the president is wearing off fast. Many people hold the view that ministers are not telling the President the truth about the scope and depth of suffering that has overwhelmed ordinary people. If the ministers have been conveying the true picture to the President, Buhari would have changed direction and focus a long time ago to address the needs of the less privileged. Still, no one knows why the government has shut its ears to widespread accounts of misery and deprivation across the land.

It is not a surprise that the government has overlooked the needs of ordinary people. Ministers and advisers live in a rarefied world in which common people don’t count. No one thinks of ordinary people because they are expected to look after their own welfare. Government has made the point that people who did not vote for the ruling party in last year’s presidential election should not expect to receive significant Federal attention as the people who voted for the APC.

No matter how you interpret that statement, it is in plain language the politics of vendetta. In the government’s language, however, it is nothing but politics of fair and equitable distribution of scarce resources. You make your judgment about the meaning of fairness.

The difficulty the government and APC leaders have today is that many citizens are angry because they are suffering and experiencing unparalleled hardships. That is why the public sphere is filled with unpleasant commentary about the inability of the government to live up to public expectations. At this moment, many people have started weighing on their palms the party they are likely to support in the next federal election. The fact that citizens who were heavily weighed down by the sins of the PDP for 16 years are now openly expressing disappointment with the APC shows how disillusioned people are with the ruling APC.

These are ominous signs for the APC and the Federal Government. On a positive note, there is still time for the party and the government to initiate a systematic programme of changes that will bring some comfort to the lives of disadvantaged citizens. However, the outlook is not good. Everywhere you look, you will find the prices of basic food items have gone beyond the reach of ordinary citizens. The price of a bag of rice is shooting toward N30,000 and may exceed that by Christmas time. Government must do something to halt the intolerable situation. You cannot expect people battered by hunger to line up in support of the government.

Ripples Nigeria…without borders, without fears

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now