Buhari and the logic of presidential silence

President Muhammadu Buhari’s handlers discovered that he is a dialogue disaster and have excused us of his venal views. Believe me, there is immense value in the silence of our president. But last week, after the storm over the draconian ban on Twitter and the threat to punish citizens using the app, they decided it was time to unleash another plethora of presidential verbosity on the nation. So, the president was ‘made’ to grant not one but two video interviews.

Government lost control of the print media and radically controls the electronic so TV is often preferred. For one, it is not impromptu and two, it offers the choice of edit. Tirade one slot went to Arise TV, perhaps the only ‘independent’ media worthy of the presidential trust. The next slot went to the baby of every government in power, the government-owned megaphone – NTA with its 30 million viewers.

Before those interviews were scheduled to air, the presidency sacked the erstwhile director-general of the Goebbelian National Broadcasting Commission, the strong-armed Armstrong Idachaba. Idachaba, like his predecessor, surpassed himself as the chief censor of content palatable to the regime’s ears. It demands to veto guests before airtime. Those who break these codes were severely dealt with via the imposition of huge fines, suspensions and even arbitrary shutdowns. Idachaba’s last act was to order all electronic media stations to deactivate their Twitter handles. Under Buhari, independence has a totally different meaning.

It is too early to breathe a sigh of relief when one considers the published resume of Balarabe Ilelah, the new NBC DG. A part of his resume that stood out was that he used to live in the Soviet Union with his lovely family. There is something about the Bolsheviks that does not rhyme with the BBC Charter or anything like the liberal press in America. Is a Soviet-era sheriff now in charge?

Taking judicial notice of these incidences is germane to interpreting future events. In the annals of presidential interviews, Buhari’s latest was not a disappointment if you are a fan of soporific, incoherent and disturbing harangue ever given by an elected leader of any democratic nation since the exit of Donald Trump.

In a pluralistic setting like Nigeria, laced with its ethno-religious fault lines; the president betrayed his parochial emotions. He employed the terse and inconsiderate syllogism of a tribal warlord handing down the manifesto of his cause. National leaders confronted with the kind of challenges Nigeria currently faces should not employ or deploy such language. This president’s boundary of decorous language is only second to those of his verbose spokespersons.

In one of the interviews, the president employed impetuous innuendo to portray an entire people by the actions of a few. He described them as a dot in a circle. This description is far more pernicious than the incendiary language that got him deleted by Twitter. A dot could be a period; put in the wrong place it could render a prose meaningless. Some circles become tohu wa-bohu without the dot. Such language was deployed as by the Hutus prior to the Rwandan genocide, before the Srebenica massacre and in India by Koo-using Hindu nationalists against compatriots of other faiths.

Ironic that this government dropped Twitter and walked straight into the waiting arms of Koo, a social media group that buys into the genocidal verbiage of its publics the way some sections of society buys into the verbiage of Buhari.  Genocidiares use a language that subjugates other humans to justify their maltreatment or even killing. Before we hail this language as some have done, let us look in the mirror.

The president’s responses to most of the questions were totally out of sync. It would appear that Buhari comes to these interviews with the mind of an imperial conqueror. He wilfully ignores the questions and bites into the ill logic of an anachronistic mindset.

A leader of his presidential pedigree and experience should not use verbiage unacceptable to being used at a dinner table. Tact is a virtue for political office holders; those who lack it must learn it to prevent plunging society into a cauldron. Citizens are called barmy if they employ racial verbiage; the president of a nation does incalculable damage when he does. True leaders are conscious of the interpretation of their words and actions on their followers and the larger society.

After stints in the military and a second term as an elected leader of a multi-ethnic nation and the wisdom of age, President Buhari ought to be building society, not tearing it down as he does with his words and actions. Portraying the characteristics of a sectional bigot is not a befitting attribute of any leader, not even a rural elder. Buhari needs to learn from traditional rulers and be the father of all not the leader of a chosen few.

In the midst of the grinding poverty in Nigeria, Buhari claims to have pulled 10.5 million people from poverty! Are these figures the result of a census, satellite imagery, dream or pure wishful thinking? Eleven million from a population close to 300 million is what percentage of the people?

The president justifies allegations of nepotism by putting the interest of his cousins in the Niger Republic above the interest of the Yagba in Kogi, the Margi in Adamawa or the Etulo in Benue who gave him votes? He punishes an entire state with uncontrolled insecurity for the perceived disrespect of a few or their leaders. He withdraws help to rebuild Lagos infrastructure but shares its taxes.

He wants to reconstruct grazing routes with scant regard to population explosion or modernity. His government hires thugs to violently counter peaceful protests because he believes protesters were marching to Aso Rock to unseat him. The videos are out there of government thugs damaging property in Lagos, from the Lekki Toll Gate massacre to the last June 12 protests. With Buhari, protest is sedition. It is almost unpardonable to have a president who takes pride in punishing peaceful protesters for the crimes of the violent thugs his government hires to pull them down.

This president is never wrong, there’s always someone to blame for everything. Governors are to blame for the insecurity in their states, but you could deploy soldiers to the east to forestall the breakdown of law and order.  The civil war ended over 50 years ago, what happened to integration in which every region could produce a general worthy of the command of his troops? Do non-northerners command all formations in the army? Is that a legacy worthy of sustenance?.

Until Buhari learns the attributes of a national leader, there will always be wisdom in presidential silence. Every time this president speaks, the fault lines expand just as he exposes his lack of tact and understanding of the basic ethos of good governance.