The travails of Caesar’s wife

President Buhari is an honest man, whose integrity has endeared him to a very large proportion of the Nigerian people. Equally he is feared and hated by many who were imprisoned in his term as a military leader, or felt themselves thwarted in their aim to accumulate as much wealth as possible at the expense […]

President Buhari is an honest man, whose integrity has endeared him to a very large proportion of the Nigerian people. Equally he is feared and hated by many who were imprisoned in his term as a military leader, or felt themselves thwarted in their aim to accumulate as much wealth as possible at the expense of the public purse. The majority who respect him have been patient due to his honesty.

They respect and are patient with him, because they do not expect him to buy new private jets, a house in Sunningdale, armoured Cadillacs, thousand dollars per metre laces, expensive hunting guns, super yachts, and bank accounts all over Europe, the Middle East, and in the tax havens of the Caribbean, Central America and the far East of Asia.

They voted for him, because for decades they suffered penury and destitution while their leaders experienced the good life of extravagance and waste. They supported him, hoping to see their lives go forward, to guarantee a future for their children, and secure their persons and properties from human predators. He became president because of the honesty of Attahiru Jega’s INEC.

In politics, however, honesty is not a sufficient condition for the fulfilment of the hopes and aspirations of the people. Politics, the power to allocate resources, require, in addition to integrity, intelligence, decisiveness, ruthlessness as well as compassion and sensitivity to conditions of the people. Integrity is an admirable quality but cannot put food on the table or a roof over one’s head.

While many who stole have been arrested, very few have been found guilty and sent to prison. People who suffered the injury of despoliation are now insulted by the spectacle of those accused of corruption flaunting ninety six lawyers before the courts, while enjoying the fruits of their theft in expensive houses in London, California and Dubai.

It is not logical to expect the Senate to confirm the President’s nominee as Chairman of the EFCC when its members would be among the first clients of the anti-corruption organisation. Defenders of the President may well argue that members of the judiciary are corrupt, as are the legislature, civil service, police, military and security forces.

Even worse, even if members of the judiciary were more chaste than Caesar’s wife, the system inherited from the British colonialists was evolved to protect the holders of property, no matter how acquired, not to dispossess them. Very expensive lawyers exist to ensure that the wealthy protect their riches, especially from those who were victims of theft.

The British Prime Minister who accused Nigeria of being the most corrupt country on earth, was well aware of the houses owned by corrupt Nigerians in Sunningdale, Knightsbridge, Princes Gate, St John’s Wood, Mayfair and Hampstead. As a wealthy man himself he knew where they shop in New Bond Street, Knightsbridge and Westfield. And he knows where they deposit money in suitcases.

Hypocrisy, lies and PR are essential components of the politics which paid experts advertise as ‘democracy’, ‘transparency’ and ‘Respect for the Rule of Law’. But while African countries have this ‘democracy’, they lack the human resources to ensure that the majority of their people enjoy a modicum of the essential conditions of existence – education, health, electricity and social welfare.

If President has not succeeded in translating his integrity into the political conditions for improving the welfare of his impoverished people, it is because he has not drawn on a wide enough circle of creative people to evolve and implement policy. The inability to bring the corrupt men and women to book is the result not just of structural impediments but of a lack of imagination and intelligence.

Like many very honest men the President finds it difficult to work with people he does not trust unconditionally. As a result he has always relied on a small circle of advisors he considers above reproach. But as von Clausewitz said of war, the ‘most egregious errors are those which arise from a spirit of benevolence.’ As an ex-General, the President surely knows the German’s reflection on war.

To run a complex country, reliance on a trusted coterie of advisors may be as harmful as some of his predecessors’ dependence on cabals of corrupt individuals. As a former military leader, he has his own experience to fall back on as a case study. He came in as a shining hero, determined to clean the political sewers of a desperately corrupted system. His war on corruption was celebrated.

But as an honest man and corruption crusader, how could he have been overthrown by one who, despite his pretensions, did not belong to the MENSA class of intelligence and whose ‘boys’ – those who arrested and humiliated the President – had the self-awareness of foetuses and the moral sense of fleas? He should reflect on why there was no popular uprising, as when Dimka killed Murtala.

The president needs to create political structures which reach out to the people in the farthest reaches of the social system of the country. Young women forced to sell their bodies to survive could survive and prosper as entrepreneurs providing needed services in the country. Young men who defraud people through 419 scams, could become masters of the internet in positive measures.

In the picture of general gloom in the country, some Nigerians have provided exemplary services to their fellow citizens. Aliko Dangote and Tony Elumelu, from different parts of the country, have succeeded masterfully in commerce and industry. The President could study how these men succeeded in a country supposedly as hostile to business as Nigeria.

They succeeded by having clear goals and creating the necessary systems to realize them. They relied on intelligence and imagination, and employed people based on their expertise and energy. They did not require unconditional trust but ability and created systems of control to make reliance on trust redundant. They employed people who transformed obstacles into opportunities.

If the President can emulate these men, he could rely on the love of citizens who respect him for providing them with the opportunity to obtain food, shelter, healthcare, transport, and stability, to provide an education for their children, and improved conditions for progress and development. Not too many politicians are given a second chance, and Buhari should grab this chance with both hands.