By Dan Onwukwe
When things go wrong in a country, it’s fair to ask: why? Why are things steadily getting worse rather than better since Bola Tinubu was sworn in as President of Nigeria a little more than eight months ago?
Is the worsening insecurity, unbearable hardship and a near collapse of the economy, the result of his incompetence, or simply, that of a leader who was badly packaged and sold to a large segment of unwary public, but is now completely overwhelmed by the weight of the challenges confronting the country? Better still, and curiously saddening, has Tinubu become the biblical Rehoboam, of Nigerians? You still remember Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, and king David’s grandson who became the instrument to punish and divide Israel? (I Kings 11:11-13).
Every passing day, Nigeria is looking more like the Rehoboam era. And you ask, Is Tinubu’s underwhelming performance and the untold hardship on Nigerians the result of his much-suspected, much-talked about falling health, a case of living in denial, or that classic case of Rome’s emperor, Nero who was playing the fiddle while his city went up in flames? If not, how can an elected President abandon his Constitutional duties at home and embarked on a “private visit” to a foreign land when the situation in his country is dire and calls for his urgent attention? Many more questions than answers. Any of these questions you try to answer leads to even more troubling ones.
It’s simply the summary of Tinubu’s troubled presidency. Indeed, history is replete with, and clear about Presidents who run aground in the office. The first step downhill is that they confuse the destiny of their nation with their own. Second, they exaggerate their accomplishments to give an image of a superstar. But it’s all facade, a deception. It’s not unkind to say that hope is fast fading in Nigeria. Anger and resentment currently pervade across the country. You can feel it, you can touch it.
Everywhere you look, sorrow, hunger, frustration, disillusionment are written in many faces. As Prof Pat Utomi told The Punch newspaper two days ago, ‘every Nigerian is distressed except those stealing money’. Last week, a 32- year-old mother of nine, hacked a fellow woman to death in Abua area of Rivers State, in her bid to escape with a bunch of plantain she stole from the deceased shop. Insecurity has squeezed everyone to a corner. It has reached unprecedented level.
In less than nine months in power, his policies have broken many hearts. Million of families are in mourning for loss of dear ones kidnapped by terrorists. Hundreds of businesses have collapsed, some have relocated to neighbouring countries. Many multinational companies have exited the country. Nigeria is nearing being declared a ‘failed state’, a country where the political and economic system has become so weak, so vulnerable that the government seems no longer in control.
That’s where Nigeria is today under the leadership of Tinubu. As cleric, Bishop Mike Okonkwo of TREM last year, alerted anyone who cares to listen, “it is only somebody who is blind or downright dishonest that will say he or she is satisfied with how the country is today”. “Everything”, he lamented “has been run down, everything has been levelled to the ground, everyone is on ground zero now”. Speaking almost in the same vein, a chieftain of the PDP in Lagos State Dr Adetokunbo Pearse, told Arise News last week that Tinubu has destroyed the economy and the country. He urged the National Assembly to impeach him.
But we know that is a tall order. They lack the courage to do so, even though the country in serious trouble because of the president’s missteps. Nobody should pretend anything is working in the country. All the indexes with which to measure a country on the right path of development is in the negative territory. The trust that holds the people together to their leader like a glue has been completely torn apart. As historians will tell us, nothing happens to people that is not exactly like them. In other words, the nuanced picture of a leader could not be different from who he truly is, no matter how nice he is packaged, because you cannot mend a broken egg, no matter the ‘alternative reality’ that a legion of president’s surrogates may put forward to burnish a tattered reputation and hoodwink the public.
For all that has so far unravelled about the president’s leadership deficiencies, any keen and analytical observer will have noticed that his exhilaration in politics has almost always, accompanied by deep insecurity of self, the consequence of sense, which is deeply concealed from conscious or unconscious awareness, that his entire political career, the authority, and power he had hitherto exercised, have been wrongly acquired.
His so-called ‘private visit’ to Paris, France, is still raising dust. What manner of visit is that, that has been concealed from Nigerians? Is the trip for health reasons or what? Who did this to Nigerians? If the private trip is for health reasons, why hide it and leave everyone guessing? I made this point during the campaigns last year why the health of a president of any country matters. The office is not an entitlement, it’s a trust. It’s the hardest job anyone can give his brain. That’s why, Americans would say, ‘if you cannot stand the heat, don’t get close to the kitchen’. From his stuttering and wobbling on the campaign trail, it was clear that Tinubu lacks the sustaining energy to go through the tough job that is required. Nigeria is not Lagos State. The presidency is a 24/7 job, requiring all eyes on the ball, and the ability to chart a new course for Nigeria.
Let’s get the point straight: Anyone can be sick, but a president’s health is not a private affair. He is a ‘public property’, right from the day he took the oath of office. It’s, therefore, not unkind to say that Tinubu’s health has not been in fine fettle. The task of governance has laid it bare even before he took the oath of allegiance. Nigerians will not want to walk that sad road that they did during the short term of late President Umaru Yar’Adua, and difficult eight years of Muhammadu Buhari presidency. Both men (Yar’Adua and Buhari) could not function effectively in the presidency because of ill-health. In his eight years in office, Buhari was reported to have spent 250 days in hospital in the United Kingdom. Tinubu has started his own.
Is history about to repeat itself? Even though his handlers will not admit it, the president’s ill-health is impeding his effectiveness. Mark my words, if care is not taken, this President might be a “waka just pass”, that is, a president in name, but not in charge, in flesh but not in spirit. Other people make decisions for him. Such a leader does not know when to invoke the prestige of the office and when to hold it in reserve. The troubling impact that this has brought upon Nigeria and the sacred office of the presidency, will be his unedifying legacy. It’s a sad story that he should blame himself, and no one else.
At such a fractious moment that we are right now in Nigeria, where truth has become the first casualty, and critics branded as haters of the President and enemies of the country, the story of the President, reminds me of what Lyndon Johnson (36th U.S. President) said about the circumstances that brought him to office after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. “I took the oath”, Johnson said, “I became President. But for millions of Americans, I was illegitimate, a naked man with no presidential covering, a pretender to the throne, an illegal usurper. And then, there was Texas, my home, the home of both the murder and the murder of the murderer… The whole thing was almost unbearable”.
In Tinubu’s case, he brought the unbearable saga upon himself. How did we come to this sorry, shameful, and most embarrassing present? This saga predates the present disturbing moment. No excuse, no explanation will redeem this collateral damage that the President has caused the entire country and its citizens in economic and security challenges. His private visit to France at this time doesn’t help him. Truth be told, in hope, Tinubu has given Nigerians hopelessness. Pessimism has supplanted optimism. Democracy dies when we condone evil. By and large, even as some presidents’ health concerns have affected their ability to govern, some scholars have argued that it should remain a private matter.
I defer. American Presidential historian Rbert Dalleko told TIME Magazine in 2008 that many American Presidents have hidden their ailments from the public. However, he says that democracy will be better for it if a sitting president and others aspiring to the high office disclose their ailments before they enter the presidential race.
One is not saying that President Tinubu private visit to France is for medical reason(s), perhaps he is in Paris praying for the victory of the national football team, the Super Eagles in the ongoing Afcon tournament in Cote d’Ivoire. Whatever it’s, it will do Nigeria a lot of good if he comes clean with what exactly took him to Paris. Nigeria needs a healthy man in the saddle. It’s time to think hard about presidential health.
- Onwukwe is a commentator on public issues
