Echoes from Buhari’s meet-the-people-tours

The circumstances surrounding the recent meet-the-people-tours by President Muhammadu Buhari to some violence hit states have lent credence to several considerations of significance. From March 11th 2018, the President embarked on a five-state tour described officially as taking him to states that had witnessed scenes of violence and killings. The benefitting states were Benue, Yobe, Niger, Plateau and Taraba. Welcome as the gesture was it still generated ripples with at least one of them – the trip to Benue putting the President on the spot. If nothing is significant about the Benue trip, the excoriation of the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Ibrahim Idris over an alleged defiance by him of a Presidential order, gave accent to it. The trips to other areas also had their side shows. 

Beyond the side shows, the trips also generated echoes deriving from their timing and scope. In the first place the timing of the Presidential visits to these states ostensibly in sympathy with them over the unprovoked killings in their lands, was largely lampooned by not a few Nigerians who saw them as the playout of an afterthought, coming as too little and too late responses by him in assuaging the pains of the bereaved. This is apart from the fact that the visits have not stopped the bloodletting outrage. Killings were still ongoing even as the President was exchanging courtesies with the leaders of some of the affected communities. And as some say this is even as the culprits and their masterminds are not unknown.

The second consideration is the issue of motive of opportunism which some may associate with the timing of the tours given the proximity of the 2019 general election, and the debate surrounding his re-election bid. Given Buhari’s body language and the debate as well as drama associated with his likely bid to run for a second term in office come 2019, many found it difficult to separate the trips from the politics of a second-term race. Did he then use the trips for an early campaign salvo, to make a point that he is still active and relevant? Is Buhari launching a tacit campaign to test run the political machinery for his second term electoral bid, just in case…?

Whatever be the reason for his trips the snag here is the seeming playout of the sectionalism and tendentiousness which many commentators have long   associated with his administration. For instance if violence remains the basis  for visiting any state by the President, then the five benefiting states are not the only ones with the problem. The truth is that virtually all states in the country are infested with one political crisis or the other with violence and killings in the bargain. For the yet to explode situations they remain so only due to their possibly wider threshold of tolerance, or just waiting for the opportune time to hit with maximum impact.

 In the same vein if the trips are to predispose him for a successful electoral race in 2019 then such even justifies why his trips should spread to the rest of the country as they all possess political credit that will be to his advantage to tap. This is also why the president’s visits should have been more liberally distributed to benefit at least each of the six geo-political zones, if not every state. Because every Nigerian, especially those that will never have the privilege  of entering the Aso Rock Villa, has a sad and painful story to tell Buhari. And from the feedback he must be receiving from the visits, the President must have been confronted with the reality that just as all that glitters is not gold, so are all the briefing he gets from his lieutenants not necessarily true reflections of the state of affairs in the country. In that context therefore, the scope of the visits need to be expanded, to enable him see more of the true state of affairs in the country.

In sympathy with him, it must be conceded that due to no fault of his, the early days of his administration was marred by serial trips to hospitals in Nigeria and abroad and through the grace of God he recovered. By the ordinary meaning of recovery Nigerians assume that he is back to work with the accomplishment of his goals in sight. But events around the Presidency since his return to work tell a different story of administrative slips, impunity in high places- all of which place in doubt where the President’s personal touch lies. The situation reeks of a playout of the classical game subterfuge game of the “voice of Buhari and the hand of someone else”. 

This is where the need for the President to rejig his administrative style becomes imperative, with the most viable option being to adopt a more definitive image as the people’s president; an image which he may have since lost, and needs to regain. This is only possible if the very Nigerians who saw Buhari during his presidential campaign mixing and blending with the ordinary folk, but suddenly witnessed his transformation by the cabal surrounding him into a dictator that was beyond reach by lesser mortals, can once more touch base with him.

With the echo that his administrative style had all along presented him as a one man band, he can at least commence the fence mending process. And as it is traditional in all fence mending exercises the starting point is the foundation. For Buhari a top to bottom shake up in his administration remains urgent and well advised.