Powerful people, tall tales

The philosophy of ‘Next Level,’ the presidential campaign slogan of President Muhammadu Buhari’s All Progressives Congress (APC) for the last election is becoming clearer: Deny and downplay.  Blame problems on the past, but not the Peoples Democratic Party. As for the gritty business of policy making and implementation, ‘Next Level’ believes there is plenty of […]

The philosophy of ‘Next Level,’ the presidential campaign slogan of President Muhammadu Buhari’s All Progressives Congress (APC) for the last election is becoming clearer: Deny and downplay.  Blame problems on the past, but not the Peoples Democratic Party.

As for the gritty business of policy making and implementation, ‘Next Level’ believes there is plenty of time!

Example I: Meeting with selected Nigerians in New York last Monday during his visit to the United States, and commenting on insecurity, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said that the problem of kidnapping in Nigeria was exaggerated.

“With respect to general kidnapping which we have seen in parts of the country, again, this is not entirely new,” the News Agency of Nigeria quoted him as saying. “In fact, some of the kidnapping stories you read or listen to are simply not true anywhere, some are fueled by politics,” adding that “some of the more dramatic stories that you hear are simply not true.”

As the headlines began to fly, his office then went into spin mode, including issuing a 45-second clip from his address, to explain that he did not say the problem was “exaggerated.”

But he did.  “I don’t think the problem is as massive as that,” he declared, (which is the same as saying it is exaggerated, the word which appeared in some headlines).

Notice that he described the problem as being “not entirely new.”  The Vice-President was correct on that point, but invention or inheritance is not the issue.

Example II:

As you probably know, a British parliamentary group is currently probing the allegations of religious bigotry against Buhari that have been made by the Northern Christian Elders Forum.

In connection with it last week, the Nigerian government, through Justice George Oguntade, the High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, issued some kind of response.

Among others, it denied any ethnic and religious coloration in Nigeria’s security challenges, and affirmed that the farmers/herders clashes predated the Buhari administration.

Not entirely new.

“The safety and security of all Nigerians, whatever their faith, is a fundamental priority of the Buhari Government, Mr. Oguntade asserted.  “The government knows that Nigeria can only achieve its potential if there is religious tolerance and cooperation.”

And oh, he explained, does the UK know that President Buhari’s deputy is a pastor, and that Buhari “has befriended Church leaders and church groups both within and outside Nigeria”?

Does the UK know that the president’s cabinet is balanced between Muslims and Christians, and he is a former Chancellor of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion)?  Or that the Vice President maintains regular contacts with Christian and Muslim leaders as part of efforts to build and sustain interfaith dialogue?

Of the clashes, in which thousands of citizens have died, the High Commissioner spoke of its “long history,” but declared the Buhari administration would ensure that “the competition over scarce land is resolved peacefully for the benefits of all parties.”

These two stories should make every Nigerian uncomfortable.  Towards resolving a problem, that problem must first be admitted or identified.  If you don’t admit you are sick, you do not seek treatment until it is too late even if you could afford it.

That also means that in politics you must be a strong student of history.  The problem with the ‘Next Level’ ruse is that it believes it can be cleverer with disguising its dearth of depth and capacity, if not incompetence or outright malevolence.

It is now one and a half years after  Osinbajo was appointed to head a federal government committee to address the “menace of farmers/herders” following the slaughtering of dozens of farmers in Benue State: a task that committee member and Kano State governor Abdullahi Ganduje said would be met with “commensurate commitment.”

But remember that President Buhari, when he finally met with some Benue elders in Abuja, appeared to blame the farmers, urging the leaders to “accommodate your countrymen” (the armed herders) and “restrain your people” (the farmers and communities being overrun).

That became increasingly complicated in the months that followed as the government went into a tailspin trying to explain the conflicts internationally.  At a meeting in London in April with Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Buhari declared that the herder-killers had been trained and armed by former Libya leader Muammar Gaddafi.  “When he was killed, the gunmen escaped with their arms. We encountered some of them fighting with Boko Haram.”

And then in September, he told the United Nations General Assembly, that the insurgencies in the Sahel and the Lake Chad Basin featured “runaway fighters from Iraq and Syria and arms from the disintegration of Libya.”

But just weeks after that, during a visit to London, Information Minister Lai Mohammed attributed the farmer-herder conflicts not to Gaddafi or Syria or any foreign arms, but “(largely) population explosion, climate change and criminality, as against the naysayers’ position that it is ethnic or religious.”

Notice how, in a matter of months, the identity of the herdsmen travelled all over the map?  If the government does not know what the problem is, or would not admit of its true character, how can it solve it?

Within Buhari’s four years, there have been attempts to deploy grazing reserves or grazing colonies in response, none of which obtained traction nationally or internationally partly because when you are unclear or insincere about a problem, your answer is warped.

The latest plan is to impose illegal settlements across Nigeria for the benefit of the herdsmen in what the Buhari administration calls ensuring that “the competition over scarce land is resolved peacefully for the benefits of all parties.”

Naturally, the states are objecting.  I would, too: whom are we accommodating: Libyans or Syrians?  If they are Nigerians-and particularly as they will be arriving armed to kill-let Buhari propose a bill to the National Assembly in accordance with the constitution.

Those same herders are not kidnappers, but along with armed robbers and official incompetence, they are a key feature in Nigeria’s insecurity problem.  At an event in Abuja last year, businessman Aliko Dangote stressed how this insecurity, particularly kidnapping, was scaring investors away from Nigeria.  “Most of the people that own large farms on the Kaduna-Abuja Road have abandoned their farms due to the menace of kidnapping,’’ he said.

But VP Osinbajo, while admitting “a rash of (kidnapping) incidents,” dismisses the problem as limited.  “I don’t think the problem is as massive as that,” he said.  “I think we can deal with the question of kidnapping quite easily.”

“Quite easily?”  And yet the place is so insecure that countries are issuing travel warnings and advisories against us?  And our citizens, refusing to listen to a government running low on credibility, are avoiding the same areas and others whenever they can.

Do some people “just tell some stories,” as the VP alleges?  Of course; that is only human.

But the greatest danger is always when particularly tall ones are being told by people in power.  But words, no matter how tall, are neither work, nor is hollowness substance.

What the Buhari government needs is that humility and courage only true statesmen can summon.

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