If there was any time when President Muhammadu Buhari would see insecurity as a national emergency which poses a threat to national unity, that time is now. With the unending massacres from terrorism, kidnappings and incessant clashes between Fulani herdsmen and farmers across the country, Nigeria is headed for a crisis, this time on too many fronts and with such devastating effect as could engulf the whole nation, and threaten its very survival as a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country. This is indeed a dangerous development and it is unnerving that the President has not responded with any sense of urgency to the danger already in our midst. This is no time for political correctness. It is just as well that Nigerians in London organized a protest rally to force the absentee president to return to Nigeria to tackle the life and death challenges facing the nation.
Just yesterday alone, more than 1,800 inmates reportedly escaped after heavily armed men attacked both the Imo state police command headquarters and the correctional facility in Owerri, in one of the most spectacular jailbreaks in Nigerian history. It came as parents of the 39 abducted students of Federal College of Forestry Mechanization, Afaka, Kaduna, resolved to negotiate for the release of their children, after Governor Nasir El-Rufai said the state government will not negotiate or pay ransom to kidnappers. The students were abducted from their hostels on March 11. This was as residents of communities attacked by bandits in Shiroro LGA of Niger State on Monday cried out that they have been abandoned by the Niger State Government, saying their communities are now safe havens for bandits and terrorists. Following the massacre of seven security men last Thursday, men of the Joint Security Taskforce were withdrawn from communities in the LGA. Also, five persons were confirmed killed by gunmen during an attack on Katarma village in Chikun LGA of Kaduna State. The list is endless and one question begging for an answer is: where is Mr. President?
From the comfort of his hideout in faraway London, President Muhammadu Buhari directed all security and intelligence agencies to ensure the arrest and prosecution of the perpetrators of the deadly attacks on. Buhari, in his characteristic tepid statement by his media aide, Garba Shehu, condemned the deadly insurgent attack, describing it as an act of terrorism; urging the public to be vigilant as everyone had a stake in preserving “our way of life from disruption by terrorists and anarchists.” To add insult to injury, Buhari in another statement sought the collaboration of Miyetti Allah in a bid to rid Nigeria of bandits, terrorists and kidnappers. This came after the “Harass Buhari Out of London” rally held in London, last Friday after the London Metropolitan police called in by the Nigerian High Commissioner refused to stop the rally at Buhari’s residence, Abuja House, 2 Campden Hill, Kensington, London W8 7AD. The protest rally was an international embarrassment to Buhari devoid of any perfunctory exaggeration.
Speaking at the rally, the organizer, Reno Omokri said: “Buhari is most irresponsible. He left his country on the day resident doctors began a strike and came to the UK to take care of his own health. He has been in office for over 5 years, and he is yet to initiate, start and complete even one hospital. Will Boris Johnson fail to build hospitals for the British then run to Nigeria to treat himself? Buhari has budgeted over ₦10 billion naira ($27 million) for the Aso Rock State House Clinic in the five years he has been in office. Is that not enough money to build a hospital and train doctors that can treat him and other Nigerians? Yet, his own wife said that the clinic can’t even provide ordinary paracetamol. Google it.”
Continuing, Omokri added that: “when Buhari’s son, Yusuf, was injured in an accident, we prayed for him to get well. I prayed for him. How did this man reward us? He sent soldiers to Lekki to kill peaceful, unarmed #EndSARS protesters. These are the children of the men and women who prayed for his son. Muhammadu Buhari is not running a government. He is running a criminal enterprise. He killed peaceful, unarmed #EndSARS protesters asking for good governance, and now he is in London to secure his life and enjoy the benefits of British good governance? Send the coward back home to fix the mess he created.” Omokri said: “only 5% of Nigerians are covered by a doctor. This man forced himself on Nigeria. He promised he would do better, but he has turned Nigeria into the world headquarters for extreme poverty. He has bequeathed us the highest unemployment in the world at 33%. We have the highest number of out-of-school children at 13.5 million. And having destroyed our economy, he has run to London that is on Covid-19 lockdown to restore his health.”
Beyond the disquieting statistics and public embarrassment to Buhari and the country, a comparison of Nigeria’s experience in the quest for development with other countries provides a clear answer to the question: why has Nigeria failed or why is Nigeria failing? That answer, poignant and direct, is what the late Chinua Achebe described as a failure of leadership. That there has not been a steady supply of good, selfless leaders to galvanize Nigeria’s potentials for greatness is no longer debatable. This leadership vacuum has, of course, left in its trail, insecurity, economic crises, political turmoil and wanton impoverishment of the people. Worst still, the prospect of prosperity for all in a land so materially blessed in every other respect is undermined by corruption.
President Buhari, presumably a good student of history and a dramatis personae angry enough at the nation’s steady decline, has a golden opportunity to change the narrative. Ironically, Nigeria started out on an excellent note as good leaders were not in short supply at the nation’s independence. With their sterling qualities, the likes of Nnamdi Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo, Michael Ajasin, Ahmadu Bello, Tafawa Balewa, Aminu Kano, Sa’adu Zungur, Anthony Enahoro and many others of that era illuminated the political horizon with ideas for a nation bound for the greatest of heights. They were men who till date remain beyond compare.
But the tragedy of Nigeria is that the kind of leadership these gentlemen offered has consistently defied replication since their demise. Now, the country is bedeviled with unabashed pretenders to the positions of leadership, men and women who are only actuated by the impulses to acquire more material things for themselves and their families. Their hearts do not throb with the questions of how to improve the lot of the people they seek to serve and they are not jarred into altruistic service by the stark, pestilential misery of the citizenry. In every political dispensation, the hope rises that there would be a break from this pattern of selfish leadership. But Buhari has proven to be worse than his predecessor. And Nigerians are haunted by a sense of a misplaced hope as they often soon realise that expecting good leadership from those in power is nothing more than an exercise in delusion.
But the nation needs to break this cycle of perfidious leadership by having in power and in offices men or women with the right qualities to fulfill the desire of Nigerians for a just, equitable country, leaders propelled by a vision to make Nigeria the best place for its inhabitants. Nigeria needs leaders who are not suddenly attracted to public office by the prospect of primitive wealth accumulation. Not leaders ferried into public office by auspicious circumstances but ones who, before seeking a public office, thought of what to do with the office and planned for the office’s execution.
In Nigeria, there are too many areas where big ideas are needed. Education, for instance. A visionary leader could reflect on the nation’s huge population and consider making its educational sector the best in the whole of Africa. Then it would train its nationals and export the manpower to other nations of the continent, and even the rest of the world. The leaders Nigeria needs are those who look beyond here and now and offer a direction. They may not have all the answers but do not lack the will to dream big dreams as well as the wisdom to galvanize the nation to dream with them. They would be leaders who make huge sacrifices to develop the country, propelled by the knowledge that leadership is for service.
In 2015, the Buhari-led APC government was given a fresh opportunity to correct the failures of their predecessors but they’ve blown all their chances. They must now acknowledge that nations fail or succeed because of leaders and that if Nigeria must develop, it is up to them. The leaders who have promised change must chart a trajectory of values in sync with the promise, values that are clearly different from those that have retarded the nation’s development. They must articulate to the citizens a vision and lay out the plan for its attainment. Needed now are leaders who, in words and in deeds, make Nigerians feel secured in the confidence that they belong to the best nation in the world.
