The Hypertensive Hypocrisy Over Gen Buhari's Health

A fable goes thus: One afternoon, the King of Baghdad sent one of his favourite servants to fetch him commodities in the market and the servant eagerly obliged. However while in the marketplace, the servant came face to face with Death, and Death starred hard into this servant’s eyes. Badly shaking, the servant ran back to his master, the king, telling him of his encounter. ‘O master’, he said, ‘while at the marketplace running your errand, I saw Death and he looked me straight in the eyes. O master, kindly give me one of your horses let me ride far away from Baghdad to Tikrit, where I shall be safe from him’.

The king granted his request and off went the servant, galloping on a horse to Tikrit. After the servant had left Baghdad, the king immediately went to the market. When he got there, he too saw Death and he asked him “O Death, why was it that when I sent one of my servants to the marketplace to fetch me some items, you starred hard into his eyes and so frightened him off?”

And Death replied the king, ‘I starred hard at him because I only was surprised to see him still in Baghdad at noon when I am to kill him this same evening in Tikrit’.

In another similitude to the above, an account of the Islamic Prophet Idris was reported as thus: When the time for Prophet Idris to die came, he desired that he should spend a couple of more years on earth. So he asked his Angel friend, ‘can you take me to God Almighty in the highest heavens for me to table my request to stay further years on earth?’ .

‘Why not?’ replied the Angel. ‘Hump on my back and let me take you to Him’.

So Prophet Idris climbed the Angel’s back and aloft they went into the sky. They went past the first heavens, went past the second heavens and went past the third heavens. Into the fourth heavens, they saw the Angel of Death descending towards them and the Angel of Death said to them, ‘God has just informed me to take the life of Prophet Idris in the fourth heavens and I was wondering what I was to do to bring him from earth into the fourth heavens’.

From the above, is then safe to say humans have control over when, where or what will kill them?

The two examples and the above question should be directed to Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose . Perhaps, it may serve well to cure his paranoia over General Buhari’s health and death.

This is because ever since General Buhari emerged as the main opponent of Gov. Ayo Fayose’s patron in Abuja, President Goodluck Jonathan  for the 2015 general elections, Fayose have been going on rampage all over the national space wishing the General either dead or that he should meet with a misfortune of health of some sort.  His latest foray is that General Buhari was “flown in an air ambulance to London because of ill health”. The Governor even went as far as describing the place where the hospital in which the General was admitted as “Cavendish Street, Cavendish Square in London with a postcode of W2”.

Ayo Fayose’s idiocies looks to be a delusional obsession situated in the pitch darkened emptiness of irrationality of madness. To be stalking a senior citizen over what God has decreed of his health and existence and making false proclamations over it is akin to daring the Decree Maker Himself. Make no mistake about it, Ayo Fayose is daring God.

Six months ago, Ayo Fayose showed as much concern over Gen. Buhari’s health as he showed over my own health, so why the sudden interest today? It is quite a simple answer.  Fayose is afraid.
Yes! He is afraid of losing his Governorship seat in Ado Ekiti for a second time should General Buhari win the 2015 elections. Should this happen, he would be the first Governor to be impeached twice in Nigeria’s democratic history. An unholy record to have amongst, even the worst set of groups in Nigeria’s politics of cataclysm. This is why he is throwing everything at the General including the kitchen sink. 

In Fayose’s latest accusation, he failed to inform us of the name of the said hospital of which the General was admitted; and why Cavendish Street in London have a “W2” post code instead of W1G 7AR? If indeed General Buhari was airlifted as he said, why was seen in a photographs waiting to clear customs at London Heathrow Airport standing without any need for medical support? Fayose’s allegation becomes an automatic ruse when one considers that, it is actually easier to know the name of a place than the actual post or area code of it. Mr Ayo Fayose failed to name the hospital Gen. Buhari visited but he could actually name the postcode.

Even if all Fayose’s current claims were to be true does it now mean that he now controls death? If indeed he has powers over health and death, why did he not save his younger sister of ill health and death?

Or how many times have we seen people infirmed with the most deadly terminal illness outliving those with a supposedly sound health? Even in the forest, we have seen withered looking; sapped leafless trees outlive lusciously fresh and exuberant ones. Those that presided over the extensively incarceration of Nelson Mandela, Mandela outlived.This in itself is a lesson for reflective individuals.

Ayo Fayose should therefore know that there is life outside being a Governor and there is life outside the Presidency of Jonathan. He should tread gently and draw a lesson from the case of Aondowase Chia, the Benue State Commissioner for Rural Development and Cooperatives, who recently described General Buhari as 'quarter to go', only for him to slump and die just yesterday at the young age of 46. Or weren’t there some healthy persons who President Yar’adua outlived even while his terminally ill?

  Fayose and his likes should be careful.

WHY PRESIDENTS FAIL IN RE-ELECTION BIDS AND JONATHAN’S ALBATROSS (1)

 

 

Except when personal reasons were cited, only few known Presidents had not sought re-election after a first term in office. From the United States where Nigeria copied her brand of presidential democracy, President James Polk (1845-1849) was the first willing one term US President after he decided not to seek re-nomination from his party based on personal reasons (health). The others who followed this trend were Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-1881) who promised only to serve a single term and fulfilled his promise, President Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909) who declined a second term because he did not want it to look as if he had spent three terms in office after taking over as a vice-president with the assassination of William McKinley in 1901. President Harry Truman (1945-1953) took over from FDR after the World War II President died in first few months of his 4^th term in office.  The last President in this category was President Lyndon B. Johnson who took oath of office after the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963.

There are also quite a number of American Presidents who wanted a second shot at the office but lost out during the polls. The first President to lose a re-election bid in the US was President John Quincy Adams, US 2^nd President. Others are Presidents Van Buren, B. Harrison, Taft, Hoover, Ford, Carter. The last was President G.W. Bush who lost to President Bill Clinton in 1992.

 

In Nigeria, no President has ever lost a re-election bid, although we have only had one re-election situation since 1999, President Shagari won a re-election in 1983 during the 2^nd Republic while President Obasanjo won a re-election twenty years later in 2003. Tuesday’s declaration of President Jonathan for re-election in the 2015 general elections makes it a third time in Nigeria’s history that a President would be seeking to face the electorates for the second time after a first 4 year term. Though many would cite the incumbency factor as a reason why a Jonathan re-election is bankable; the odds are not that in his favour as compared to his first shot 2010. Mind you this is not a trait associated with President Jonathan alone. Odds are that most Presidents who seek re-elections after a first term experience a kind of diminishing returns by the time they face the people again.

By his declaration, President Jonathan seeks to test the waters again by asking Nigerians to entrust another four years of their lives in his hands. But the question is would Nigerians oblige him of his request? Answer to the above lies in obtaining the inferential of the President’s appeal of 2010 and then compare it to 2014. 

In 2010, the electoral appeal of President Jonathan was almost similar to a movement. The “I had no shoes” slogan cut across the different layers of the Nigerian society, especially those of the educated middle class. Even the said elites would admit not having shoes at some point their lives as kids.  Muslims and Christians identified with the slogan which in turn gelled with the victimized image of a humble man being denied his legal right by the cabal of the Yar’adua Presidency. Perceptually, Nigerians keyed into Jonathan’s Cinderella’s story and his candidature was not much of a hard sell. Then again, there was the factor of him being new in the landscape when compared to his opponents. The extent to which Nigerians accepted Jonathan was manifested even when Jonathan himself said he had little or no experience in handling a high profiled post as the President of Nigeria and many ignored that fact and still voted for him. Such was the level of his societal acceptance.

But in 2014, President Jonathan, like most second term seeking politician is not as bridal as he was in 2010 in the minds of Nigerians and the work of his hands is largely to blame for this.

Firstly, that the President had spent five odd years in office means his performance rather than anything else would be the most scrutinized. Tried as much as he could have in resolving many other things(as claimed by his supporters), the monumental inability to resolve the security challenges facing the country would be the altar upon which President’s re-election chances will be laid; and every enlightened soul including the opposition are aware of this.

Let’s go to the United States to draw two parallels from the George Bush senior and junior administrations to shed more lights into what not to do and what to do as a first term President. President George Walker Bush Snr. Was the Vice President of President Ronald Regan from 1980-1988 and he won his own term in 1989. While in office, he led a coalition of US allies to the first Gulf War in 1990 against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.  By the time the war ended in February 1991, it was just ten months to election time. Although the war was successful, the economy of the US was in shambles and Bush’s rival Bill Clinton knew this. And so Clinton spectacularly exploited this weakness with his “it is the economy, stupid” slogan and before anyone knew what was on, a small time Southern State governor had dislodged the most qualified American President of all time from the White House. Analyst would later say George Bush Snr did not exploit the security issue of the first Gulf War enough to his advantage.

 

But when his son came on board with similar circumstances prevailing in 2000, he did things rather differently.  When faced with a re-election hurdle in 2004, George Bush Jnr simply sold fear to Americans to win a second term by telling them, the US was still under threat of the Al-Qaeda terrorist attacks. Although like the time of his father the economy of the US was also in crises, George Bush Jnr held on to his strong forte of security to defeat John Kerry of the Democrat 10 years ago. The key lessons of these examples is that the security of a nation is paramount at all times in the mind of the people be it in the form of physical protection or in economic terms.

 

For President Jonathan, he might have bungled a very good opportunity for his re-election with the discordant handling of the security situation of Nigeria since 2010. The unprofessional manner upon which security matters has been handled under his watch has made all other possible developmental progression subjective.  Even the greatest of statesmen that organs like TAN made us believe Jonathan is equal to would not survive an election anywhere based on the how Jonathan has handled the security situation of Nigeria.

In fact, it would have been more favourable to President Jonathan had three quarter of his declaration speech been on his victory over Boko Haram during his first term. This is a big albatross on President Jonathan’s chances...

OPPOSITION POLITICS AND THE NIGERIAN PERCEPTION

 

In a statistical representation, it would be an abnormal distributional situation should all of Nigerians support and vote President Jonathan come 2015; likewise would it be abnormal should the whole of Nigeria vote against him. However, the normal distributional scenario would be if 68.5% or (just around that figure) vote for or against him. If it falls down to between 49-59%, it would still be considerable either way but in reality, the President’s popularity as compared to 2011 the way things are right now in Nigeria cannot give him up to 70% of the votes as made believe by TAN and other groups supporting him. The reason for this shall be explained in the second part of this article, coming up later in the week.

Right now, let’s explore what the average Nigerian term or perceive as opposition.  It is quite evidenced with the many mud fights going on in our national space as we approach 2015 general elections; that Nigerians (including the politicians) do not understand what the basics of opposition politics entails. The manner at which everybody seems to be hurling bricks at each other from across the divide makes mockery of what we have made of democracy in Nigeria even after fifteen years.

In simple terms, I think it is wise enough to reiterate that there is no democracy without opposition and that any contradictions to this notion means democracy is not in place in the system.

For some Nigerians including members of the ruling PDP, the mentality is that any opposition to the government or the President is just a scheme to discredit or bring down the President because of where he is from, his religion or who is family, friends are.  This is a wrong assertion. In the real context of democracy as we have today in Nigeria, the PDP is as much an opposition to the APC just as the APC is to the PDP.

Now just before some apologists of the PDP and the President starts discrediting this article as a pro-APC article, let me quickly be clear here that it is imperative that any one opposing this PDP led government must do so strictly on issues based discuss and not based on malicious discrediting. Nobody should be allowed to hurl insults on the President or his family just because they can. The number of physical abuses of which President Jonathan has had to entertain since 2011 cannot be catalogued well enough; and in my opinion it is undeserving of him or his family to be physically subjected to insults by Nigerians no matter what. However, it becomes awkward to defend this stand when aides of the President or people sentimentally attached to his government go ghetto on the average critic of the President to deflect away perceived faults of the President in administering the Country. This surely, would bring negative acerbic attacks in retaliation.

Having said all these thus far, it is important to know that the politics of opposition in a democracy operates in a circularly causal fashion. This simply means that the idea which operates opposition politics in any existing democracy is a function of the type of politics at play in the system at that given time.

In order words, in any given political system, occurrences of a given time would usually generate sentiments amongst the people and then polarize them into for or against lines. Usually, this type of practice is seen mostly in third world countries where political parties lack prevailing driving ideologies or foundational political philosophies.  Unlike in matured democracies like the US, UK, France and Canada where accountability to the ideologues of political parties are fundamental to societal reflections, most third world countries are still drawn in the politics of basic needs which consequentially promotes violent opposition.

In this day and age, no American Presidential or British Premiership candidate would campaign on a what we call “stomach infrastructure” mantra and win.  But in Africa most especially Nigeria, campaigning on stomach infrastructure is an integral part of a serious candidate’s slogan. If you don’t promise Nigerians food or electricity during your campaign, then you might as well forget being elected, that is if the election are not at all rigged from source.

In the real context of this article, the elementary question to ask is why is it that President Jonathan is getting bashed left right and centre by the opposition in Nigeria?

We may as well seek the answer from every country where democracy is being practiced. Or better still; ask why Governors Fashola, Ajimobi, Amosun and Oshiomole are being harangued by the PDP in their respective States.

In most cases in a democracy, opposition thrives in the many gaffes of the incumbent and we can hardly say the current incumbent has not committed any gaffe since 2010. Worst still are the many aides of the President who keeps attracting insults to their principal through gross incompetence and corrupt ways. They have made the avenue of criticizing the President way more than what can be patched all together, thereby increasing the number of opposition for the President .

On the other hand, the opposition APC have not been really that far from the politics of the PDP in contrast by way of operation. But rather than condemning both parties, I think it is wise to just accept that both of them are a reflection of the politics of the average Nigerian.  Not until we can fashion out a well-entrenched, deeply sourced people oriented democratic nodes upon which we can operate by through the grassroots; parochial opposition may just stay with us for a while to come.

 

WHAT GENERAL BUHARI DID WRONG IN 1983

General Buhari in 1984

I was just hovering on seven years of age when the military struck off the wobbling and corruption riddled democracy of the second republic in 1983;and my goodness, it did not take me long to notice a marked difference with the way Nigeria instantly became.

 Quite frankly, I was rather too young back then to know how rudimental intricacies of governmental policies work but what wasn’t lost on me back then was a certain term called Austerity given to Nigerians by the Shehu Shagari administration in the latter part of its existence. To those who are of younger age reading this piece; let’s just say Austerity is akin to the word Subsidy being thrown about again today. My little understanding was that Austerity was an oddity put in place to squeeze life out of the Nigerian masses in the midst of aplenty and the adjoining simple basicity informed my conclusion.

At about the time of Alhaji Shehu Shagari’s administration between 1979 and 1983; my mother ran a small business of grocery store in Lagos that sold what we Nigerians generally call provisions to the immediate consumers in the neighbourhood. What this means was that as children of those opportuned to sell these wares; we never lacked the bread, sardines, sugars, salts, milk and so on and so also did the average Nigerians. We also did not lack the small monies in our pockets too because business moved very well.  But when Shagari introduced Austerity, things took a dramatic turn for the first time in the lives of average Nigerians after the civil war.  Basic commodities like milk, sugar and wheat became scarce and expensive due to hoardings perpetuated by Government Ministers, public servants and politicians in the favourable books of the then ruling NPN because they were the importers of these items. A tin of milk which went for 20 Kobo became 40 kobo and consequentially it went out of reach of the masses. Even at 40 Kobo, milk became mostly available in secret warehouses of politicians serving in the Shagari cabinet. Products like Parmalatt which was nothing but a glorified yoghurt became alternatives for milk while saccharin was substitute for sugar. There was also a huge cut in public spending as hundreds of thousands got laid off and in essence; jobs that was hitherto left for Ghanaians and other West African migrants became the fall back jobs for Nigerians.

But this spending cut was only for capital and not recurrent expenditure as politicians smiled to offshore banks with obscene chunks of the national cake unabated. Corruption was rife as public office holders abandoned their jobs to become drug mules and thereafter became richer overnight. 

You may wonder how a young boy of my age was able to comprehend all these things but when you consider the amount of time the average Nigerian adult discusses national issues daily; then you would not be surprised at the amount of information at the disposal of intelligent young children of even today.

 

So when the jackboots came back on the last day of 1983 to terminate Shagari’s government, a lot of Nigerians thought it was business as usual. They thought the soldier boys had only come to read out usual promises and then continue with the ways of the politicians.  However, those who were observant enough understood that things were about to change. The disposition of Generals Buhari/Idiagbon was more than enough to draw inferences from. I mean, these guys would appear on TV barely smiling as they read out policies to change the attitude and image of Nigeria. In all honesty they were scary with their military uniform and stern faces but Nigeria was in dire need of that posture to get back on track.  For eighteen months that they were there as Nigerian leaders; sanity returned to the nation and I don’t think anyone can argue otherwise, except if hypocritical. Thieves were thieves whether highly placed or otherwise to General Buhari. Efficiency accountability and dedication returned to public service. Back then, it wasn’t uncommon to see parents rushing home to ask their kids to teach them the National Anthem and the National Pledge as patriotism became a watchword in civil service. Queues and sanitation became a national emblem worn all over Nigeria by the citizens. Believe me, there were neither any dirty looking policemen on the streets nor were they ones who openly solicited for bribes.

Of course to achieve all these wasn’t easy as Nigerians were already rotten with the ways of the Shagari administration. So what it meant was that soldiers were deployed to make people conform to government’s rules and laws like crossing of the expressways while a pedestrian bridge is just by the side, urinating and defecating openly on the roadsides, coming to work after schedule and leaving work before schedule, selling items outside the government stipulated prices, hoardings of commodities, gross indiscipline, stealing of public funds etc.

Back then, if you saw soldiers on the streets, they only came to enforce the good laws of the government and not to hound Nigerians off the road for government officials as we see today.

These were some of the wrongs General Buhari came to correct in 1983 Nigeria that some people are now  trying hang him for. They say he ejected a "democratically elected government" as if the said democratically elected government did not violate the constitution of Nigeria by stealing recklessly from Nigerians.

Right now  the question we should be asking ourselves is if we can see similitudes in President Shagari’s administration and that of President Jonathan?

Like I always say, it took America eight years of George Bush’s lacklustre Presidency to realise that they need a better replacement regardless of whatever differentials the replacement would have.

At this stage of our nationhood, it is rather ironic that we should still be in need of this same General Buhari's 'wrongs' of 1983.

TEMPORALITY AND THE OBSOLESCENSE OF RESOURCES

 

If ever there is a particular relativity of which the entire human race just couldn’t collectively conquer in unison, that relativity would be the concept known as time. If actually deeply reflected, one may say that what we perhaps think to be the concept of time together as humans can be just mere valuables produced within an agreed period and these valuables may differ greatly in space. In other words, we don’t actually agree on time itself but we agree on the achievement produced within a systemic allocated period in order to appreciate time. For example, if a speechwriter failed to produce the speech for a President or chairman of a company in given specific within a period, the pressure will crank up on those within that line of duty. Meanwhile, in another space, a nursing mother of that same establishment, that same office who is on maternity leave would not feel an atom of this pressure whatsoever. In fact, the appreciation of the concept called time in that same unit differs. The President would not appreciate the speech delivered outside the deadline while the nursing mother would cherish her much needed rest from work with her new born baby without equating with deadlines. For the President or chairman however, the concept of time becomes deadline related. Therefore, the value of time has become relative in space in accordance to relative usage. Consequentially, it is easy to say time remains constant while yet in motion.

And so to my astonishment a few days ago, I saw something online on the Mind Blowing Facts twitter account; which says that the distances between the years 1998 and 2030 are the same. Now for those of us who are nearing our fortieth years on planet earth, it sounds absolutely impossible that 1998 which is not too far away in our minds is exactly the same in distance to 2030; which seems so far away also in our minds. What it simply means is that sixteen years ago is 1998 and in another sixteen years is 2030. And as time continues to spin, turn while remaining constant, it blurs old phenomenon and evolves new ones. These acts then produce valuables or otherwise of which we measure time with.

 

It is therefore within this concept that I seek to explain the obsolescent of resources in relation to the recent fall in the global price of oil. Without much over flogging of the importance of oil to Nigeria’s economy; let’s delve directly into the catastrophe the Nigerian economy would experience should oil becomes obsolete or unimportant as a resources in the nearest future. The idea of what is a resource or what is not a resource is directly proportionate to time; which in turn influences the demand and usage of it.

What we use as oil today is a product of time, locked up over time and now being used in time.

Back then in the early 1800’s when Great Britain detected oil in the North Sea, the economic cost of extracting the oil immediately was way over the gains of the oil; therefore the oil was not of economic value to Britain until sometime around 1853. Likewise, what made Ghana a very rich nation in the past was gold. In time, gold’s economic demand became obsolete to the yearnings of the world.  Though gold is still there in Ghana and other places as we speak, its value has reduced overtime.

Same thing will happen to oil over time and Nigeria will need some of her best hands in dealing with the crisis that will emanate when the world decides that our oil is of no use to them as much again. Maybe by then we would rush back to agriculture which was our mainstay before 1960.

It is time to start serious relations with time and its relativity in Nigeria.