Wednesday, December 17, 2014 marks the 72nd birthday of General Muhammadu Buhari, a former military dictator and now presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress. As it is customary in this country, one must join millions of Nigerians in wishing General Buhari a happy birthday and many happy returns.
This year’s birthday must be especially pleasurable for the former dictator because he has just trounced the better organised former Vice President Atiku Abubakar in a five-man contest for the APC presidential ticket in which Atiku, always the eternal optimist, ended up in third place.
Beyond the celebratory birthday messages and expected prayers and kind wishes, one wishes to use this occasion to conduct a modest review of the man Muhammadu Buhari. After all, as he steps forth at 72 to once again offer himself for service as Nigeria’s president, it is only fair to ask about the records of his past service to our dear country.
The followership that has grown around Buhari mainly in the North of Nigeria is based on the perception of the man as “Mai Gaskiya”, or, as this writer understands it, the incorruptible one. Among Nigeria’s past governing elite, Buhari is one of the few who cannot be counted as wealthy. Not that being wealthy automatically implies corruption. For instance, former US President Bill Clinton was practically bankrupt by the end of his time in office, but he has become fairly well-to-do through honest earnings mostly from the speech-making and lecture circuits.
So the fact that Buhari continues to flaunt his status as a man without means may indicate that he is not interested in earning more money than his Army pension. Or, it may mean that he might not have the entrepreneurial capacity to make himself rich. Or, it may be a pointer that he is downright lazy and likes playing the poverty card for popular empathy.
One thing his lack of self-generated financial capital clearly shows is that he lacks the ability to create wealth and bequeath the same to a new generation — in this case his children and grandchildren. How then can his supporters honestly expect him to create wealth for the Nigerian nation and her teeming population?
Moreover, on closer examination, the perception of Buhari as being incorruptible raises an important question. If he is incorruptible, does that also mean he has stopped those around him from being corrupt? This is a question that the verifiable facts surrounding Buhari amplify. In the late 1970s when Buhari was Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources under then Head of State General Olusegun Obasanjo, N2.8 billion oil money went missing. One is not accusing Buhari of stealing. However, as the oil Minister, did he not have the responsibility of knowing where the money had disappeared to?
Similarly, when General Ibrahim Babangida led the coup that kicked Buhari out of power in August 1985, one of the reasons the new junta gave for their action was that the nation’s mineral resources were “once again being wasted on unproductive ventures.” Supporters of General Buhari may say that the late General Tunde Idiagbon was the one taking economic decisions, but that then raises the question: who was the ultimate boss?
In the same vein, during Buhari’s days as the overlord of the General Sani Abacha-established Petroleum Trust Fund, PTF, it is on record that he engaged the services of the late Ahmad Salihijo, his brother in-law and head of the all-powerful Afri-Projects Consortium, as a super-consultant. It was well-known that absolutely nothing happened in PTF without the express approval of Salihijo’s Afri-Projects Consortium.
When Obasanjo assumed office as a civilian President in 1999, he disbanded the PTF and set up an Interim Management Committee. Members of the committee were: Dr. Haroun Adamu (Chairman), Alhaji Abdu Abdurrahim, Barrister Achana Gaius Yaro, Arc Edward Eguavoen, Mr. T. Andrew Adegboro, and Engr Baba Goni Machina. The committee discovered that, under Buhari’s watch as Executive Chairman of the PTF, N25 billion had been stolen largely through Afri-Projects Consortium out of a total of N181 billion that had accrued to the fund. So the dilemma resurfaces: Agreed that Buhari himself is not corrupt, but who is to be held responsible for the corruption that took place under his nose?
Even the recent APC National Convention, where Buhari beat the wealthier Atiku to clinch the party’s presidential ticket, is not without sordid revelations. Whereas Buhari, as usual, played his poverty card before the APC delegates, The Cable, an online newspaper, has published a report that paints an entirely different scenario. Buhari told the delegates, “I am not a rich person. I can’t give you a pocketful of dollars or naira to purchase your support. Even if I could, I would not do so.” However, part of the report by the online newspaper reads: “A delegate told The Cable that he got $2000 from one camp and $3000 from another, and even though he did not reveal who gave the money, he gave a hint: “Pro-Buhari governors were encouraged to take care of their delegates better than Atiku. Our governor took good care of us. To be fair to Buhari, he knew nothing about the welfare distribution.”
Despite the attempt to exonerate Buhari of the corrupt deals perpetrated to assure his APC victory, discerning Nigerians must wonder if the retired Army General is really an ostrich with his head buried in the sand not to know about the deals that go on around him; or, he is simply behaving like the chichidodo bird referred to by Ghanaian prose stylist, Ayi Kwei Armah, in his tour de force-“The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born”-which hates faeces but feeds on the maggots therein.
He sure fits in between duplicity and ignorance. Duplicity? Mostly probably so! Ignorance? Perhaps, not exactly! But, if, indeed, he is so unknowing, why should Nigerians allow a man so easily manipulated by his subordinates and acolytes anywhere near the nation’s Presidency?
Mustapha Abdullahi contributed this piece from Kaduna via [email protected]
