One of the greatest misfortunes of this country is that it has never had a visionary and competent leader. Successive Nigerian leaders have been either utterly inept or woefully visionless or both. But few have combined incompetence with brazen arrogance. However, President Buhari stands out! He is both extremely incompetent and unbelievably arrogant.
Recently, Eurasia, the international consulting group, said in its 2019 Top Risk Report that Buhari “lacks the energy, creativity or political savvy to move the needle on Nigeria’s most intractable problems”.Yet, Buhari is also known to be stubborn, with a didactic “my way or the highway” approach to governance. How can a leader be both inept and arrogant? It’s a double whammy, a double tragedy, for any nation!
Of course, President Buhari’s arrogance and ineptitude span the entire spectra of policy and governance, but I want to start with his recent seemingly symbolic gestures that show his conceit and insensitivity.
Have you noticed the APC’s new two four-fingered sign? President Buhari started it when he raised two four-fingered hands in the National Assembly while presenting the 2019 budget. The picture went viral. Buhari’s wife, Aisha, further popularised it when she and APC women used the sign during the launch of the women’s wing of Buhari’s campaign council. Then, at the launch of the main campaign council, the president, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, APC party leaders and everyone else present at the launch used the sign. You may wonder, why am I focusing on this sign? Well, two reasons.
First, the use of the sign in a self-entitled manner to suggest four more years – each four-fingered hand represents four years – is so in-your-face, presumptuous and arrogant. Buhari’s presidency has been internationally-adjudged to be a failure. But instead of showing humility in asking to be re-elected, he and his supporters are arrogantly raising two four-fingered hands at Nigerians. It is provocative and insensitive!
When Buhari marked his first year in office, the outcries across the country were: “this is not the change we voted for” and “shattered dreams”. One newspaper started its coverage this way: “Bitterness, complaints, unending sighing and gnashing of teeth have been the lot of Nigerians since the inauguration of the Muhammadu Buhari administration a year ago.” Less than six months to the end of his term that sense of despondency remains palpable.
Do you remember the late Chief Bola Ige’s famous phrase, “Two fingers of a leprous hand”? Well, to put it bluntly, the APC’s four-fingered hands are “four fingers of two leprous hands”. The first leprous hand represents Buhari’s woeful first term; the second would, if he is re-elected, represent another dreadful second term. For, quote me, Buhari’s second term, if it happens, would be disastrous for Nigeria. The simple truth is that Buhari lacks the vision and intellectual wherewithal to generate economic prosperity and social progress. To make matters worse, he is stubbornly self-willed. These are recipes for disastrous policy and governance failures. Anyone expecting a miracle from a Buhari second term is living in cloud-cuckoo-land!
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