Buhari’s search for an Apartheid script

So, it took the Americans 28 years to re-establish diplomatic relations with Somalia. Since 18 American soldiers were savagely ambushed and killed on October 3, 1993, in Mogadishu, America has kept Somalia at arm’s length. Three weeks after South Africans unrestrainedly killed fellow Africans including scores of the citizens President Muhammadu Buhari promised to protect, looted their property and sent them parking; our president has donned his Sallah best, rented some governors, ministers and senior aides on a visit to Pretoria.

We are not Americans. Donald Trump dodged the draft five consecutive times, but last July, he took the salute of American troops in the first exhibition of America’s military might by any American president in recent memory.

On the other hand, Buhari may have passed his school certificate by affidavit; his credentials as a retired general are incontrovertible. Soldiers are quick to remind bloody civilians that generals don’t retire, they are granted a long leave of absence. Their wealth of experience and professionalism are counted on as reserves whenever the nation requires it. Thankfully, Buhari with American military training avoids using his acquired rank. He dropped it for the more prestigious title of President.

As a military ruler, most civilized countries avoided Buhari’s khaki like ebola. Although he looked, talked and acted tough, Buhari resented that global snobbishness. From the celebrated smile that lightens his wrinkles whenever he mounts the flight of stairs on his many junkets, this president loves global adulation more than local performance. His close aides tell him how the world loves to see him around.

Buhari and his friends went to Pretoria, apparently to pee on the ashes of his citizens that were burnt on South African streets; victims whose forebears sacrificed their all to see to the eternal defeat of the apartheid that could have prevented their birth. Ironically, three weeks ago when a plane was needed to evacuate citizens from the pogrom, Buhari had none for them even with ten or more at his command. An unelected citizen offered his own, a gesture that Buhari is yet to publicly acknowledge.

While Buhari was being comically greeted by those he travelled with and a foreign minister, evidence that the man he claimed had invited him was too busy to receive him; scores of Naija citizens are still stranded in Johannesburg. South Africans won’t let them leave. They want evidence of how they entered their country or such sundry ridiculousness.

By the time Cyril Ramaphosa found time to shake Buhari’s hand, there was basically more banter and backslapping than protest. Ever wondered why Trump described somebody as lifeless! Like the beggar that he represented, Buhari could only ask for help and more cooperation from a government that supervised the slaughter of his own citizens. The glands that produced tears for failure to make Aso Rock three times has no sympathy for the murder of hapless citizens.

Visit completed, a worthless paper signed, Buhari and his overfed entourage jumped on their plane without a tractable assurance that this perennial carnage would not happen again.

In hindsight, that visit could not have been better targeted. Buhari’s Next Level agenda bears an uncanny resemblance to the apartheid script of the Ian Smith era. Buhari obviously admired Ian Smith and his predecessors. Nepotism, a Buhari wand is a local variant of apartheid. One lives on the idea that only colour matters, the other mixes no words in telling the country that only a few friends and members of the ethnoreligious group could be trusted with the job of governance.

Next Level uses subterfuge and pure chicanery, weapons of the apartheid era to escape responsibility. It blames others for the errors it was elected to correct and pretends not to understand what the nation requires of it. Buhari promised to pay the N30,000 minimum wage only to renege because he did not put pen to paper. While workers wait, the presidency has issued a decree changing the five per cent Value Added Tax, VAT fon consumables to 7.5% Value Added Terror just because it can. Government has ordered banks to milk its customers on every transaction above N500,000 of their hard-earned money; a move that would signal the death knell to a saving culture recognized globally to help shore up a country’s economy. Who wants to save in a country where nothing works if they could take the money to anywhere it could yield interest?

Just before travelling to read up on the apartheid script, Buhari’s Works minister announced taxation on the gullies, craters and potholes that pass as roads that they have failed to fix. The minister who made the announcement said they did it because they could! This same minister agreed to tax citizens for darkness when what they demand is electricity.

Ian Smith’s apartheid kidnapped and jailed critics just as Buhari is doing at home. Smith’s security forces unleashed dogs on protesters armed with nothing but placards, Buhari’s security shoots at peaceful protesters at point-blank range. Under apartheid, critics were silenced with questionable detention orders signed by conniving judges, Buhari’s Next Level uses a similar script.

This visit could not have come at a better time nor its outcome any more predictable. With more than three years ahead Buhari has lots of grounds to cover, may the nation survive his antics just as South Africa survived apartheid.

This article was first published on September 6, 2019. Tunde Asaju will write a new piece next week.