How Buhari’s Belgian trip preserved his dignity

We have mastered the art of ignoring useless rants, otherwise, armchair critics would have taken President Buhari to the oven for his last trip to Belgium. According to reporters, Buhari left town on the day governors of his party were in Abuja competing for the longest convoys and siren immunity. They had not reserved bookings […]

We have mastered the art of ignoring useless rants, otherwise, armchair critics would have taken President Buhari to the oven for his last trip to Belgium. According to reporters, Buhari left town on the day governors of his party were in Abuja competing for the longest convoys and siren immunity. They had not reserved bookings with Aso Rock protocol officers; they were hoping to barge in on the president and eat free lunch or dinner.

Even when the president has openly told the world that he was counting the days to 2023 when he returns to his cured cows, these people won’t let him be. They left their various states in the hope of soiling the president’s non-interference policy.

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Of course, as they say in Hausa, Shugaban kasa ya tsare su – he tactically ignored them and took to higher grounds –flying to Belgium to meet with his African Union counterparts – more his sons. The only governor he met was Kogi’s Yahaya Bello, who runs his state much like Buhari runs Nigeria – with classical nonchalance.

Our president never misses an opportunity to fly. Come to think of it, a gathering of ‘African leaders’ without Buhari would be like a birthday cake without the icing. Most of those calling themselves presidents today were either kids or in kindergarten in 1985 – the year Buhari dropped the unenviable title of Head of State and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. Only Cameroon’s Paul Biya still holds his title till today.

So, our president is a resourceful asset to both his African colleagues that venerate him and other global leaders most of whom were either zygote then or too young to predict their own destiny. With President Buhari in the room, Emmanuel Macron is likely to be less loquacious; Justin Trudeau is very likely to smile while Boris Johnson would stay away from the parties.

Unlike past panhandling junkets with no direct impact on Nigeria or Africa, the Belgian last trip yielded continental dividends, the kind that Belgium has never witnessed since the psychotic King Leopold chose the Congos as the testing ground for his bloody schizophrenia. The Belgians are yet to apologise for the slaughter of millions of Africans, the wanton pillage of resources and the enslavement of Africans they paraded across Europe in cages like apes. The Belgians broke a leg to host African leaders, majority of whom in 2022 were smartly dressed in the uniforms of their colonial masters.

If there is any other thing to learn from President Buhari, it is that he has freed his neck from noose known as ties. Forget those who say he does not want to look like a scarecrow; he markets Nigerian culture with his wardrobe in and out of the country. Someday soon, his younger comrades would get the drift.

This was the meeting at which global leaders (Africa not being part of the globe) showered their scientific generosity on hapless Africans. After creating vaccines for their own citizens and mopping up enough for generations that would not need them, these generous global leaders have been heckled by the WHO to approve six African nations for the transfer of vaccine technology to the continent. This comes after they dumped their expired vaccines on us having wrongly predicted that COVID-19 would wipe out a quarter of the African population. 

Disease-inoculated Africans survived the plague unfortunately with some of the dinosaur ruiners they wished were disposable. Nobody could have predicted something good coming out of Belgium, but hey in Belgium the graveyard of African humanity came an accord that seeks to transfer the mRNA technology across six nations – Nigeria, Egypt, Senegal, Tunisia, South Africa and Kenya.

This must be a momentous moment for Kizzy Corbett, an African-American immunologist, who was one of the brains behind Moderna’s mRNA vaccine. Finally, the invention she and others helped to develop is going home to help people of her descent. Properly harnessed, her brainchild could be an inspiration to Nigeria’s 12 million out-of-school children and the uncounted number of young girls denied the education that could make them inventors.

At long last, Buhari has brought home something tangible that is not a loan from his junkets. If well managed, this has potential to lead to greater scientific milestones for Nigeria and Africa. Somehow, colonial marauders forget that there are Lusophone speakers in Africa. They only pandered to speakers of French, Arabic and English leaving out the hapless Portuguese speakers.

In making the trip to Belgium, Buhari escaped the gathering political storm at home, especially the bad optics of fuel scarcity in an oil-producing nation. Ironically, Buhari is the substantive petroleum minister whose tenure is eternally marked by scarcity, unfulfilled promises to end it and now toxic fuel importation.

If Buhari were not president, people would have asked for his head on a platter. But Nigerians love their honest leader, the epitome of frugality. Even when he did not explain how this could happen under his watch, they understood from his body language how much he cares.

It is no coincidence that the toxic fuel came from Belgium. Apparently, a huis clos Buhari would have tongue-lashed the Belgians for attempting to kill his beloved citizens. Belgian newspapers won’t report that of course except they do so in Dutch, French or Flemish. This must have been a fire-spitting voyage for our petroleum minister and we should expect an apology from the Belgian ambassador if not its president published in Daily Trust.

That should sway those who exhumed headlines from newspapers of the era long gone by which they try to portray Buhari as a serial failure in the petroleum ministry. Because as we say in Nigeria – God pass them!

There is a more serious reason why the president’s Belgian trip was benign. Those indolent governors would have accused him of imposing officials on his party. Somehow, February 26 charade is not sacrosanct. This party could not hold a simple convention or did not want to hold one without the input of their national leader. It’s either love or weakness.

The president escaped being splashed with the storm in the party’s teacup in the South West. In his absence, Rauf Aregbesola, described by some as Bola Tinubu’s loyalist, accused his benefactor of playing God with the party’s chances in Osun, his home state.

Unauthorised biographers claim that Tinubu made Aregbesola opening up for him to become commissioner in Lagos, governor of Osun and now minister of jailbreaks and public holidays by which they meant the Ministry of the Interior. Aregbesola loves to rename things – he renamed Osun State as the State of Osun and has turned our prisons to correction centres albeit without commensurate changes.

Recently, he accused Tinubu of playing God and vowed to shame and curtail his influence in Osogbo except that on D-Day, he stayed away. His accusers say he chickened out. Whatever they say, discretion is the best part of valour. His absence prevented a 2022 version of Operation Weti e or Jalumi war as some opined. Thankfully, Buhari was not tainted with that brush of interference.

Seriously, this is one occasion one should have joined party faithful at NAIA presidential wing to welcome a returning president.