President Buhari As I Have Never Seen Him But…

By Femi Orebe

“Two Southwest governors came to me to say cattle breeders are destroying farms in their states. I asked them what happened to the grassroots security panels from traditional rulers to Local Governments who meet regularly to identify the root of their problems and identify crooks within their environment and apprehend the criminals. Who destroyed this system? Go back and fix it and give your people a sense of belonging. I don’t like it when people campaign to become governors and people trusted them with their votes and after winning, they can’t perform. Rather, they’re trying to push responsibility to others. We have three tiers of government: Federal, State and Local. We have killed the Local Government totally. We will send N300m as allocation to a Local Government, one governor will ask the LG Chairman to sign that he collected N300m but he will give him only N100m and the Chairman will keep quiet. Is that how we will continue?” -President Muhammadu Buhari.

President Buhari would have completely missed it if he thought that by so cavalierly throwing those two Southwest governors under the bus, he succeeded in washing his hands off responsibility for our incomparable insecurity. The import of his statement quoted above is that Nigerians have been very poorly served by those they voted into office at both the Federal, and state levels. What this means, in essence, is that the president’s words can be described as a double – edged sword which cuts both sides, and brought into bold relief, how Nigerians have been ill- served by politicians.

I shall now proceed to explain my take, beginning with the culpability of not just the two visiting governors, but state governors in general and will conclude with how the president, by being dead set against much needed actions that should have, at the very least reduced, if not  completely remove,  the country’s insecurity problems.

Whoever those two Southwest governors are, they demonstrated a grave misreading of President Buhari. If they had expected him to read the riot act to Fulani herdsmen, a group for which he had never hidden his enduring admiration, being himself culturally a herder and herd owner to boot.

They grievously misfired and, by showing such unnecessarily effusive respect, if not docility, they provided Nigerians the rare opportunity to see the President at his very best, ever. It must be assumed, however, that the primary reason for their visit was to complain to the number one citizen about their total helplessness in handling hundreds of gun- wielding herdsmen  militia when they do not even control their state commissioner of police. But the President cleverly outwitted them by bringing up issues of Local Governments, Obas etc who are even far more impotent than state governors in dealing with security issues.

That said, the belief all over the country has been that President Buhari  is the reason, and the pillar, behind all Fulani herdsmen’s – inspired criminalities – either because he has given specific  directives  to all the  security chiefs, almost all of who are, probably deliberately, Northerners, or because the chiefs, had themselves chosen to read his body language, and concluded that nothing must touch any Fulani herdsman, lest they see the president’s red eye. They must not be arrested, and if mistakenly arrested, must be promptly released, and if in court, that  the case must be aborted by orders from higher quarters, no matter the offence.

With his statement here, President Buhari seems eager to blow off all that, and thereby, threw state governors, probably with the sole exception of  governor Ortom of Benue state, smack in the market place, right before Nigerians, to answer to charges of outright incompetence in the discharge of their primary responsibility of protecting the lives and property of their citizens.

Nor did it stop there as the President was most unsparing, following up as follows: “We will send N300m as allocation to a Local Government, one governor will ask the LG Chairman to sign that he collected N300m but he will give him N100m and the Chairman will keep quiet”. He  went on, quite logically: “I asked them what happened to the grassroots security panels; from traditional rulers to Local Governments, who meet regularly to identify the root of their problems and identify crooks within their environment and apprehend the criminals?

Who destroyed this system?

Go back (home) and fix it, give your people a sense of belonging. I don’t like it when people campaign to become governors and people trusted them with their votes and, after winning, they cannot perform. Rather, they try to push responsibility to others”.

What the President means here, simply, is that state governors have killed the Local Government system and that what remains of it is only an effigy.

This is an indictment like no other, and state governors, not just Southwest governors, have copious explanations to make to the people

since herdsmen have become a complete nuisance all over the country. But since the president was specific on two Southwest governors, it becomes inescapable that they must own up to this visit and explain to their people.

I can, however, hazard two reasons for the visit.

As far as security matters are concerned, Northern governors are far luckier than their colleagues in the South. For the life of me, I cannot imagine how a governor in Yoruba land would survive if he were faced, on a daily basis, with the kind of killings and kidnappings in states like Kaduna or Zamfara. While I think this is a function of the relative values attached to life in the two zones, I equally have a feeling that Northern governors are not a little disdainful of their people. Take, for instance, how the Kaduna governor completely watched off his hands from the series of kidnappings in the state. No Southwest governor could ever have done that.

The governors visit to the president may, therefore, have been prompted by a fear of killings by herdsmen and the fact that famine was looming as farmers in their states could no longer go to their farms for fear of being kidnapped or even killed by marauders who are seemingly above law.

This columnist has never shied away from criticising President Buhari for the many sins I believe he has committed against the South especially in his ensuring that  nearly all consequential appointments in his government are held by Northerners, almost to the total exclusion of Southerners. Unfortunately, the President was still justifying this in his ARISE TV interview, in a country with over 250 ethnic groups.

Given the level of the menace arising from the activities of Fulani herdsmen, President Buhari only tangentially exculpated himself from bearing sole responsibility for Nigeria’s security conundrum since he was saying here that state governors are also not forbidden from dealing with Fulani herdsmen.

This exculpation, however little, assumes a greater significance when one realises that the Fulani militia is rated  the fourth most dangerous terrorist group worldwide, in the Global Terrorism Index, 2015 report. It can safely be said, therefore, as the revered Sultan recently said, that they contribute the most to Nigeria’s insecurity. Apart from raping and kidnaping, they must have killed not less than one thousand people in the first 5 months of 2021.

If state governors are the ones who self-sensor themselves into inaction, probably out of fear, or respect, for the President, then state  governors too, without a scintilla of doubt, can be held responsible, at least, for the audacity of the murderous Fulani herdsmen because by not arresting and trying them to get the guilty ones jailed or killed for murder, the governors have encouraged their impunity.

If, by any chance, the governors believe that the President held some things back in his statement, it will be their bounden duty to call the President out and let Nigerians know the whole truth  because these are truly perilous times in our country.

But then, that is only one side of the problem.

How does President Buhari, for instance, expect the governors to arrest, and bring to justice AK47 hugging aliens from  places like Mali, Niger, Chad etc when his government would not allow even Amotekun operatives carry guns? Despite the support given for the establishment of state police by all Northern governors, the president is yet to indicate his support or do anything in that respect even when it is obvious that our security forces, having been spread too thin, are clearly overwhelmed and could make do with this additional support.

It is fair enough that the President nailed his visitors this publicly, but the larger responsibility for their inability to handle Fulani herdsmen criminalities and others must, at the end of the day, lie with the President.

Or does he also tell the governors of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe to use LGS and Obas to deal with Boko Haram or those of Zamfara,  Kaduna and Katsina the same thing regarding bandits?

And in terms of governance, why is the President so dead set against restructuring the country in a manner that would positively impact security management? Must we lose everything for the mere protection of hegemonic interests, while the country totters? What also about  putting in place the process of getting a peoples’ constitution; one that will be approved by Nigerians voting at a referendum, instead of the 1999 constitution which has proved totally unhelpful?

Concluding, the president said that whatever legacy Nigerians ascribe to him would be okay by him. History will be much more dispassionate. While two different legacies will be awarded the president, as things currently stand, one by the North, where he is mostly deified, it is obvious that the South would not be so inclined, for reasons already stated in this piece.

I believe, however, that President Buhari still has enough time left in office to emerge on the positive side of history.

While sufficiently keen about the place of our Obas and Local Governments, the president must do everything to concentrate his mind, and all, and lay more emphasis on those things within his remit.

Nigerians saw a statesman in electing him President twice.

He must do his utmost not to disappoint them.