by Lasisi Olagunju
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Character is what you have and no one bothers about anything else. It is also what one lacks and nothing else matters to no one again. It is the definition of the man. A man’s character is his shadow posting him always on the superhighway of societal scrutiny. President Muhammadu Buhari made some key appointments last week. Things have not remained the same since then. The entire southern Nigeria was riled at the audacity of this president who obviously thinks his north is Nigeria. The far north where he hails from got all the key posts. His key friends even in the north are quiet, exasperated. His enemies are taunting his friends down south “omo Oduduwa how market na?” Someone from the South East posted on Facebook on Thursday in a sly broadside to the Yoruba who provided the national canvass upon which Buhari mounted the horse that landed him in the Villa. Another from the South South wondered why Buhari could not even dignify Ita Enang, a man with 16 years stint as a National Assembly member, with the post of Special Adviser instead of the “miserable” Senior Special Assistant he was given. “Even if it is hunger, just come home,” the Akwa Ibom man wrote on Facebook.
There is danger wherever the leader adopts puritanical self isolation as a personal policy. A leader who takes pride in being alone and acting alone is a King without clothing. He will be naked and alone. Buhari believes so much in being away from everyone. He couldn’t have consulted beyond his north and come out so dismally with those appointments after 90 days of searching for saints. But the president is the Head of State. That “state” is Nigeria. He is also the Head of Government. He is the chairman of the Federal Executive Council. He is also the Chairman of the National Security Council. He occupies the same position in the National Council of State.
The Secretary to the Government of the Federation is the engine room of the government. The bureaucracy reports to him. We have a president who was well aware that the Speaker of the House of Representatives is the nation’s number four and is from the North East and yet did not give a damn as he appointed the SGF (number three in the Federal Executive Council) from the same North East. We have a president who appointed both the National Security Adviser and the Chief of Army Staff from the same Borno State in the North East. And he thinks he is serving the entire country!
Let me ask, what will be the official language of government business now that the president speaks Hausa, his Chief of Staff speaks Hausa, his ADC speaks Hausa, his Chief Security Officer speaks Hausa, his Principal Secretary speaks Hausa? I suggest our president does a simple exercise: let him find out how many of his predecessors from 1999 to date appointed their key personal aides only from their language area. Let him also find out how many former and current state governors considered or never considered ethnicity in the choice of their personal aides.
I understand Buhari’s men are saying performance and personal integrity of the appointees took precedence over other ‘mundane’ consideration of geopolitical balancing. Foul! That sounds very much like the excuse of the British in their justification of colonialism. Nigeria may be a family, but it is not a product of monogamy. It is polygamous. Even in the best-run polygamous homes, each wife and her children are still allotted their place(s) in the multi-room apartment. Vital family decisions are taken with the interest of all in mind. Can Buhari think of what happens to peace where one wife with her children sleeps in the main building and others with their children sleep in the gatehouse? Any homestead without justice and fairness is home to strife. Every ethnic group in Nigeria has a history of struggles against internal and external domination. The Yoruba wars lasted over 100 years. They were wars against internal and external colonialism. The scars are forever there. If what is unfolding before our very eyes is a form of continuation of some expedition aborted by the British in the 19th century, let someone pause and reread history.
So, I appeal to Buhari (if it is not too late already and if he will listen) to stop frittering away the enormous goodwill that made him president of Nigeria. If it is not late already, tell him to simply step back from the cliff of far northern presidency and govern the entire country. Tell him that Nigerians are not different from any other people in history anywhere. Tell him no one wants to be ruled by “others”. Tell him that is the meaning of democracy. You do not cast away one domination in exchange for another.
