By Olu Fasan
BEFORE he became president in 2015, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari (retd) had a reputation as a man whose lifestyle and politics had a strong moral compass. For instance, he was supposed to be a frugal man who shunned any kind of extravagance. He was also supposed to be a principled politician whose body language alone would scare the daylights out of dubious politicians.
Yet, these were all myths. In power, Buhari is just a typical amoral politician, who enjoys the lure of lucre, and would do anything to gain and retain power! As we know, President Buhari’s latest act of political expediency was the red carpet he rolled out for Femi Fani-Kayode, one of Nigeria’s most opportunistic politicians, who recently defected to Buhari’s party, the All Progressives Congress, APC.
The defection itself is of little interest to me, although one must say that unprincipled politicians who put self-interest above everything else, perverse democracy and destroy the party system that underpins it. They corrode public confidence in politics.
In that context,of more interest and concern to me is how President Buhari abuses his incumbency and uses his office to encourage party hopping by luring opposition politicians with all kinds of inducement and giving them a red-carpet welcome at the presidential villa.
Truth is, President Buhari’s indulgence of turncoat politics, and poaching tendency, have damaged Nigeria’s democracy and party system, and undermined his government’s supposed anti-graft war. Of course, unprincipled politicians will switch parties at the drop of a hat.
But when a president uses his office and state resources to encourage party hopping, that’s political corruption, an abuse of power. And, certainly, Buhari’s red-carpet treatment of turncoats has busted the myth about his political morality.
Well, before we proceed with that, we must bust another Buhari myth. And the one that really fascinates me is how a man once described by the Economist magazine as a “sandal-wearing ascetic” has suddenly become attracted to the trappings of power and the epicurean life of extravagance.
Last year, I wrote a piece titled: “Buhari is succumbing to profligacy and the trappings of power”(Vanguard, January 16, 2020), in which I argued that President Buhari’s lifestyle was contrary to his reputation for asceticism but betrayed an endearment to the trappings of power like, for instance, as then reported, allowing his daughter to use a presidential jet to attend a private event.
So, was Buhari’s famed ascetism a myth? Well, Farooq Kperogi, the academic and columnist, thinks so. In a fascinating article titled: “Top five lies about Buhari that won’t go away” (Tribune, August 14, 2021), Kperogi wrote: “The notion that Buhari is ascetic is another lie that has refused to go away”, arguing that the president always enjoyed the pursuit of pleasure and the good life!
Recently, Daily Trust launched a trenchant criticism of the tenuousness of Buhari’s reputation for prudence. The newspaper was so piqued by the opulence displayed at the wedding of President Buhari’s son that it wrote a stinging editorial titled: “The ostentatious Yusuf Buhari’s wedding”(Daily Trust, September 1, 2021).
In the editorial, Daily Trust said: “One of the attributes of President Buhari that endeared him to Nigerians pre-election in 2015 was his simplicity and the fact that he was not given to waste”. It added: “That is why the scenes and pictures from Bichi were shocking and disappointing: the whole event cut a picture of opulence”.
The newspaper continued: “The arguments that most of the gifts and activities for the day were sponsored by well-wishers should not even come up at all as the president should not be accepting such considering his position”.
Of course, if President Buhari accepted such lavish gifts, he shouldn’t have. You can’t be fighting corruption and be receiving stupendous gifts from politicians and businesspeople, especially if you won’t disclose their identities, as it’s done in civilised countries.
As the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, UNCAC, noted: “The acceptance of gifts by public officials is a factor fuelling corruption”. But corruption is not only pecuniary; it’s also about abuse of office. And, so, the president should also not be using his position to induce party hopping. Which is why President Buhari was wrong to roll out the red carpet for political turncoats.
Femi Adesina, Buhari’s spokesman who enjoys insulting Nigerians with his utter sophistry, framed the president’s red-carpet treatment of Fani-Kayode as an act of mercy. Adesina said: “Buhari displayed amazing capacity to forgive, to show mercy and let bygones be bygones”. Really? What an appalling sophistry!
Think of it, President Buhari is mercy personified, right? Yet, the same Buhari, who hands out congratulatory and condolence messages like confetti, still cannot, as I write, bring himself to condole the family of Dr. Obadiah Mailafia, former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, who died nearly two weeks ago. Where’s the mercy? Where’s the forgiveness? What negative things did Dr. Mailafia say about Buhari that Fani-Kayode didn’t say far worse and many times over?
Well, here’s the difference. Dr. Mailafia refused to kowtow to Buhari or join APC, whereas Fani-Kayode did, despite vowing that he would “rather die than join APC or bow to Buhari”. That’s the difference. APC is determined to weaken the main opposition party, PDP, to boost its chances in 2023. Luring political turncoats is part of its game plan.
But that raises key questions. Why are prominent defectors to APC not joining the party at their wards? Why, as Adesina said, are they making a “triumphal entry at the Presidential Villa, with President Buhari himself as the host”? Given his ego, would Fani-Kayode have agreed to defect to APC if Buhari had refused to roll out the red carpet for him at Aso Rock?
Truth is, turncoat politics damages the party system, undermines democracy and breeds corruption. And it’s wrong when a president uses his incumbency to encourage it – as Buhari is doing!
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