Abiola as Buhari’s role model?

It was a huge but pleasant surprise to hear President Buhari gosh over the late M.K.O. Abiola. He believes Abiola had the capacity to build bridges across our widening ethnic and religious chasms. It was not a revelation because some of us were privileged to know what the late politician stood for in his quest […]

It was a huge but pleasant surprise to hear President Buhari gosh over the late M.K.O. Abiola. He believes Abiola had the capacity to build bridges across our widening ethnic and religious chasms. It was not a revelation because some of us were privileged to know what the late politician stood for in his quest to wear the ultimate political crown but coming from the president, it says more than you thought about where we are and where we ought to be in this increasingly fractious mere geographical expression that refuses to grow into a united and progressive nation in which faiths and tribes would be part of our strengths, not our weaknesses and challenges.

Buhari told the late politician’s children and elders from his home state, Ogun, on a thank-you visit to him in Abuja, July 30: “If Abiola was allowed to rule, the religious and tribal issues now in Nigeria would not have been as strong, because he ran on a Muslim-Muslim ticket, chose his deputy from the Kanuri, a minority tribe and because of his personality he went across Nigeria and was accepted. He used his resources and energy to convince Nigerians that all he wanted was a solid Nigeria and nothing else.”

I pinched myself. It was the first time I would hear the president acknowledge the capacity of a fellow Nigerian politician to do better than line his pockets at the expense of the country and its people. It is more usual to hear Buhari denounce and dismiss everyone as corrupt and unpatriotic. I think we are beginning to see, in Buhari’s latter day thesis, how awfully tragic the annulment was, and is, for us. It did not allow the bridge builder to build bridges across tribes and religions. The consequence, flowing from this, is the current ethnic and religious violence and increasing intolerance across the land. And let us not pretend about this: they are drawing the country back to where it must make some serious sacrifices once more to ensure that the house built by Lord Lugard does not fall.

You may not agree with the president because it is essentially his own reading of what the history of the country would have been with an Abiola presidency. However, we can extract some important points from the president’s uncommon praises for Abiola that should not be lost on Buhari himself. One, it should be fair for us to see Abiola as Buhari’s political role model. He would have done what the president himself has not quite done: unite us, despite our differences in tribes and tongues and our mode of worship. Was it not possible for Buhari to do likewise and unite the tribes and the faiths to enable the country rise from the murk in which its feet seem firmly planted? I thought he sought the presidency four terms because, according to him, the country was “in a mess” and he believed he was the only Nigerian that had the capacity to get us out of it. Nigerians gave him the vote in 2015 and 2019 because they believed him. Yes, his anti-graft war is part of what he sees as the process of doing just that. Still, that war now pales in significance to the war the criminals are waging against the Nigerian state. Would Abiola have allowed the country to become so unsafe because he was minded to pursue former public officers with bulging pockets? I think he would have had a better sense of proportion in leading the country.

Two, Abiola blew the myth that part of our problem is our religious faiths. When he chose a Muslim-Muslim ticket, there was some noticeable trepidation in the land. But he proved that although religious differences existed in the country, as indeed, they must, they were not the problems of the millions of under-privileged Nigerians who think less about them and more about the capacity of the Nigerian state to expand their economic and social opportunities in a safe and peaceful country in which they could raise their children whose rights to the opportunities offered by the state are duly and fully protected by the state itself.

Let us remember too that in his first coming to the top political job as head of state in 1984, Buhari chose a Muslim-Muslim ticket. So, before Abiola recognised the merits of two people of the same faith ruling the country without let or hindrance, Buhari did. Yet, he chose Muslim-Christian ticket and his vice-president is from one of the three majority tribes – our oppressors, if you ask the minorities. Abiola’s enduring lesson must have been lost on him.

Three, democracy is a government of the people guided by the rule of law. Perhaps, Buhari could spare some thoughts on what Abiola would have done in respect of judgements of the courts in the land that go against the government. Would he have ignored them to demonstrate what a strong president he was or would he have respected those judgments to protect the integrity of the judiciary and the sanctity of the rule of law?

Four, if Abiola was Buhari’s political role model, he should be guided by one important question in all his actions and decisions, to wit, what would Abiola have done in taking decisions that affect the present and the future of the country? Answering that question honestly would make for a new image of the Buhari presidency and move it closer to what an Abiola presidency would have been.

Many people have criticised the president for his lopsided appointments. He has ignored everyone because he appears to listen only to the dictates of his own wisdom. Abiola prided himself on open-mindedness. It enhanced his capacity to build bridges. Abiola had open hands too. In contrast, Buhari has what the Igbo call Araldite hands. I see no reasons why Buhari too should not commit to building bridges to enhance a free and unimpeded flow of ethnic and religious traffic in thoughts, words and deeds. I believe that as a bridge builder, Abiola would not have been as parochial and provincial in his critical national appointments as Buhari has been because it is antithetical to building what Buhari calls “a solid Nigeria and nothing else.”

It is not much use for Buhari to keep lamenting the tragedy of Abiola’s failed presidential ambition. I think he is exploiting Abiola’s tragedy for political purposes. We all, including Buhari, were complicit in that tragedy. What Buhari should do is to bring a fresh breath of air into his administration by subscribing to Abiola’s political philosophy towards building “a solid Nigeria and nothing else.” If he does what Abiola would have done as president to unite the country by building bridges across faiths and tribes, he would have done more than anyone else to pay tributes to the late politician and make his spirit happy.