Buhari's loyalists

Also published in Daily Trust

As the 2015 presidential election approaches while political activities gather momentum, Buhari’s presidential candidacy continues to generate controversy particularly ever since the release of Dr. Ahmad Gumi’s open letters to him and President Jonathan respectively in which he advised them to rescind their decisions to contest.

The barrage of the largely critical responses against Dr. Gumi’s letter further highlighted Buhari’s phenomenal hence politically intimidating popularity particularly at the grassroots level where his ardent loyalists rightly or wrongly believe and indeed vehemently argue that he represents the only hope for Nigeria at the moment.

By the way, though this view may sound too myopic, it is admittedly hard to convince the average Buhari’s loyalist to change his mind even with superior counter-arguments, especially in view of the lack of any other presidential candidate with comparable moral credentials and also the acute scarcity of non-corrupt and incorruptible politicians among the country’s politicians.

Perhaps if it were in another country, political scientists and other academics would have identified the potential of Buhari’s political phenomenon to develop, out of it, a substantive, realistic and implementable socio-political and economic theory with distinctive ideological characteristics that reflect our values and socio-political and economic realities.

Anyway, Buhari’s apparently intimidated political opponents who lack matching credentials to challenge his moral superiority often resort to unethical tactics in their desperate but futile efforts to discredit him. They have always falsely accused him of ethno-religious bigotry or harbouring a sectional agenda, in what appears to be a systematic political onslaught against him.

Nevertheless, notwithstanding the validity or otherwise of Dr. Gumi’s arguments as they relate to Buhari’s presidential candidacy in particular, also despite Buhari’s obvious credential superiority over the other candidates, which even Dr. Gumi never disputed, I believe it is not Buhari’s candidacy or even his presidency, for that matter, that actually matters under the current circumstances. What instead matters is the sincerity and willingness of Buhari’s loyalists to draw inspiration from him by going beyond mere rhetoric and slogans to actively put into practice the values he represents and promotes.

This is because the reluctance and failure of the average Buhari’s loyalists to distinguish themselves, in terms of discipline, from their average countrymen put a big question mark over their sincerity and credibility and indeed question their supposed moral right to classify people into pro-Buhari, who they regard as trustworthy reformists, and anti-Buhari who they regard as corrupt.

In other words, they have effectively adopted loyalty, hypocritical or sincere, to Buhari as the yardstick for measuring the amount of individuals’ patriotism and desire for positive change in the country, as though the destiny of Nigeria revolves around Buhari and his presidency.

Unsurprisingly, opportunists have always disguised as Buhari's loyalists to achieve their selfish goals before dumping him or even turning against him for that matter. For instance, many hitherto obscure politicians and other nonentities have immensely benefitted from their political association with Buhari and rose from oblivion to prominence and influence only to turn out to be as corrupt as the notoriously corrupt officials they had always criticized, or even worse.

The ease with which such cunning politicians exploit Buhari’s reputation and take advantage of the political gullibility of the average Nigerian electorate to achieve their self-serving political ambitions explains why this trend is not likely stop anytime soon.

If only the so-called Buhari’s political loyalists who have over the decade held various legislative and executive offices at various levels of government actually acted according to what Buhari stands for, the situation would have greatly changed in the country particularly in the states that make up Buhari’s political stronghold.

Likewise if only Buhari’s loyalists in the Civil Service actually drew inspiration from him, as they often claim, corruption and impunity would have been substantially reduced and contained at a manageable level. The same also applies to the generality of Buhari’s loyalists in all other formal and informal sectors in Nigeria.
These contradictions explain why though more than a decade since Buhari joined politics the so-called Buhari’s political loyalists have not yet been able to come up with a single possible Buhari successor with comparable moral qualities to step into his shoes when he finally quits politics. As a matter of fact, I wonder if this thought has ever occurred to them in the first place.

Besides, they don’t seem to have any socio-political strategy that would sustain the culture of decency, social discipline and transparency that Buhari, if elected as president, is expected to establish, even though it is obvious that the corrupt politicians, civil servants and their cronies will definitely be hell-bent on restoring the status quo by all means.

It is quite unfortunate that, despite decades of despair, disappointment and frustration, which have created unprecedented desperation for change in the country, Nigerians’ attitudes towards that change has persistently failed to reflect the magnitude of the mess as well as the seriousness and urgency necessarily needed to tackle it.

Obviously, Buhari is not a supernatural being to be expected to singlehandedly turn things around in the country. He will inevitably need not only a dedicated team of like-minded subordinates but also enlightened citizens with a genuine passion for change and willingness to, individually and collectively, imbibe the concept of positive change and practice it accordingly. And until Nigerians realize this and resolve to change their attitudes towards positive change, no single individual no matter how trustworthy, including Buhari, can make any appreciable difference, after all.