One country, many ‘presidents’?

Nigerians rumoured about it. Aisha Buhari echoed it. Muhammadu Buhari denied it. Nasir el-Rufai now alluded to it in his memo! And unfolding events appear to have strong evidence for it! What is it? That while President Muhammadu Buhari is Nigeria’s president de jure, there are some ‘presidents’ de facto! Some powers behind the throne. […]

Nigerians rumoured about it. Aisha Buhari echoed it. Muhammadu Buhari denied it. Nasir el-Rufai now alluded to it in his memo! And unfolding events appear to have strong evidence for it! What is it?

That while President Muhammadu Buhari is Nigeria’s president de jure, there are some ‘presidents’ de facto! Some powers behind the throne.

I am a hailer. I am not a wailer. I hate to find fault with my hero, PMB. But evidences mount on daily basis to support the thesis that the president is, at least, not having a firm grip on his government or, at most, not the one in charge of it altogether.

The report June last year by the on-line medium, Sahara Reporters, about EFFC’s investigation of Sahara Energy and its alleged connection to an influential Buhari cabinet member shed the first public light on polarization in the Buhari kitchen cabinet between two cabals: roughly, the Daura cabal and the Borno cabal!

It is neither unprecedented nor particularly perturbing to find a cabal in power corridors, what is deeply depressing is when you have two or more cabals engaging in cut-throat competition-not for making the leader deliver the goods of good governance but for pure personal, pecuniary benefits.

The back and forth drama surrounding the recent rejection of acting

EFCC’s chairman, Mr Ibrahim Magu, by the senate speaks volumes about the inter-cabal rivalry threatening to impede the progress of this government. It also raises some pertinent posers whose honest answers may not be palatable to some of us, the dyed in the wool Buhari hailers. For instance, I can rationalize the reasons why the senate as presently constituted wouldn’t confirm Mr Magu as substantive EFCC chair. I can even go a notch further to absolve the president of any blame whatsoever on this because we are not in a military rule where the wish of the head of state is the command of all governmental organs. But who can imagine or rationalize a head of an agency appointed by the president openly standing in the way of the confirmation of the president’s nominee?

And the president just grins and bears it all without a quibble or a query! Is the president helpless or powerless? What happens to the executive presidential powers to hire and fire? Something is definitely amiss with the Buhari administration, much as we hailers wouldn’t want to admit and accept!

Whoever read the allegations against Mr Ibrahim Magu (which the senate hinged his rejection upon) and contextualize them with realities of top notch public servants’ life in this country must be left with one inevitable conclusion: That Ibrahim Magu is simply the saint needed to chair the EFCC! President Buhari and his hordes of supporters fortunately appear to agree with this conclusion. Some of the President’s appointed cabinet members in one of the cabals unfortunately appear to disagree with this conclusion; and hence they forged an unholy alliance with the president’s open enemy: The senate as presently constituted. Aim of the alliance? To defeat the president in his effort to have a no-nonsense, uncompromising man confirmed as chair of our anti-corruption agency, the EFCC! No more, no less!

When I connect the dots of the rumor by Nigerians, the First lady’s outburst and el-Rufai’s bombshell, I am led to one inevitable conclusion: That a cabal might have grown so powerful as to have clandestinely usurped most (if not all) presidential powers! They could achieve that through powers both physical and meta-physical. Who can do something about this, please?! Let him/her do it and fast! Aisha Buhari has played her part. She now seems to have helplessly surrendered all to the Almighty God! Two kings never rule same subjects at the same time successfully. Let the cabals allow Nigeria be, please! And let no wailer thinks that they have won, in me, another convert to the Wailers Club. I still believe in Buhari!

Hamisu Hadejia, Lokoja, Kogi State.