What Buhari must do to win 2015 election (III)

Had that incident been managed properly, it would have been a net plus for the General and not a minus. Instead, when the newspaper revealed the existence of the tape and mischievously leaked it to a few people, Buhari’s (and his team’s) credibility went south. When he and his people attempted to do damage control […]

Had that incident been managed properly, it would have been a net plus for the General and not a minus. Instead, when the newspaper revealed the existence of the tape and mischievously leaked it to a few people, Buhari’s (and his team’s) credibility went south. When he and his people attempted to do damage control and to re-explain the comment, they actually did more damage and solidified in many minds the notion that Buhari was indeed a Muslim chauvinist. Even when he went from one church to another to dispel the fast spreading perception, it did not work. Some people who initially doubted that Buhari had made the reported comment and thought the entire thing was a fabrication flipped on Buhari. Were they fair to the General? No. But that is politics. It’s not a game of civility, honor, and fairness. That’s why it calls for good communication, a capacity for self-critique, and good crisis management skills. Buhari and his people saw no need for these, believing, as many of them still do, that his name recognition and his populist policies as head of state would be enough to endear him to Nigerians.
A Knack for Self-Destruction
Buhari is often his own worst enemy. When he talks, he often sounds like a sectional leader cultivating a parochial constituency more than a statesman. He is always defending or wanting to be seen to be defending the North and Islam against perceived and imagined anti-Northern and anti-Islamic policies.
In the context of Nigeria’s dueling narratives of ethno-religious victimhood, this message is a winner in a section of the country. The General became a darling of the Northern political grassroots precisely because of this unabashed willingness to align with the prevailing social anxieties and aspirations of the Northern Muslim grassroots. In 2000, Buhari, unlike many of the North’s Muslim elites, boldly and proudly supported and identified with the implementation of criminal Sharia, earning himself the title of Jagoran Musulunci (champion/defender of Islam) among the masses. He was unequivocal about his support. That singular act turned him into an instant political hero to Northern Nigeria’s Muslim grassroots, from where agitation for Sharia as a divinely ordained solution to society’s polyvalent problems had emanated.
From then on he could do no wrong. He was invincible. As he parlayed this popularity into politics, however, Buhari committed a grave error. He continued to pander to the Northern grassroots by repeatedly talking about Sharia and defending it, forgetting that, rightly or wrongly, Christians and even some Muslims in both North and South, were suspicious of Sharia politics or “political Sharia,” given how divisive and volatile it can be in a multi-religious country like Nigeria, and given our previous experiences with the subject.
Buhari could have backed off the Sharia and religious rhetoric and retained his popularity with the Northern Muslim grassroots. Instead, he made the choice to continue to consolidate his base of support at the Northern grassroots by talking about things that they wanted to hear, things that establishment Northern politicians, for pragmatic political and selfish reasons, were not talking about. It worked wonderfully for the General, and solidified his messianic stature among the Northern Muslim masses, but it also alienated moderates, Christians, and Southerners and fed the perception that he was a religious fanatic who would implement an Islamic agenda — or at best an insensitive provincial politician.
He won the North but lost the South and the Middle Belt. He effectively became a sectional leader, and he has been trying ever since to escape that label, to no avail. I don’t see how he can escape this pigeonhole without a willingness to occasionally disappoint his Northern base because the very thing that makes him popular in the North is what makes him unpopular elsewhere.
This all brings me to my final point about Buhari’s penchant for soiling his own brand. Whether it is his quasi-military style of unnerving bluntness or he is merely pandering to his Northern Muslim base, he is fond of making shocking and controversial statements about national issues that help confirm prejudiced opinions of him as a parochial political leader. For instance, when he was interviewed on the Boko Haram insurgency a couple of years ago, he said the government was killing Northern youths, that the killing should stop, and that the government should implement for Boko Haram insurgents the kind of amnesty that was implemented in the Niger Delta. This was when the sect was killing civilians and abducting and raping women left and right. I couldn’t believe that he would say such a thing in a newspaper interview, especially given the widespread perceptions about him, but he did.
President Jonathan had a similar moment a few years ago when, after the October 1 2010 bombing carried out by Henry Okah and his MEND Niger Delta militants, the president came out and declared, even before investigations had commenced, that this was not the work of Niger Delta militants. Not only was he skewered for this reckless and unpresidential behavior; he was embarrassed further when it turned out that the attack had been the work of those he had sought to exonerate. Jonathan only managed to recover from that blunder because he was a rookie to whom Nigerians were willing to give the benefit of the doubt and, more crucially, because, unlike Buhari, he had no prior perception baggage as a sectional or sectarian champion.
(To be continued next week)

By Moses E. Ochonu

This is the third part of the article by Moses Ochonu, Associate Professor of History at Vanderbilt University, USA, on the enduring problems of General Muhammadu Buhari’s perennial candidacy for Nigeria’s presidency.

Had that incident been managed properly, it would have been a net plus for the General and not a minus. Instead, when the newspaper revealed the existence of the tape and mischievously leaked it to a few people, Buhari’s (and his team’s) credibility went south. When he and his people attempted to do damage control and to re-explain the comment, they actually did more damage and solidified in many minds the notion that Buhari was indeed a Muslim chauvinist. Even when he went from one church to another to dispel the fast spreading perception, it did not work. Some people who initially doubted that Buhari had made the reported comment and thought the entire thing was a fabrication flipped on Buhari. Were they fair to the General? No. But that is politics. It’s not a game of civility, honor, and fairness. That’s why it calls for good communication, a capacity for self-critique, and good crisis management skills. Buhari and his people saw no need for these, believing, as many of them still do, that his name recognition and his populist policies as head of state would be enough to endear him to Nigerians.
A Knack for Self-Destruction
Buhari is often his own worst enemy. When he talks, he often sounds like a sectional leader cultivating a parochial constituency more than a statesman. He is always defending or wanting to be seen to be defending the North and Islam against perceived and imagined anti-Northern and anti-Islamic policies.
In the context of Nigeria’s dueling narratives of ethno-religious victimhood, this message is a winner in a section of the country. The General became a darling of the Northern political grassroots precisely because of this unabashed willingness to align with the prevailing social anxieties and aspirations of the Northern Muslim grassroots. In 2000, Buhari, unlike many of the North’s Muslim elites, boldly and proudly supported and identified with the implementation of criminal Sharia, earning himself the title of Jagoran Musulunci (champion/defender of Islam) among the masses. He was unequivocal about his support. That singular act turned him into an instant political hero to Northern Nigeria’s Muslim grassroots, from where agitation for Sharia as a divinely ordained solution to society’s polyvalent problems had emanated.
From then on he could do no wrong. He was invincible. As he parlayed this popularity into politics, however, Buhari committed a grave error. He continued to pander to the Northern grassroots by repeatedly talking about Sharia and defending it, forgetting that, rightly or wrongly, Christians and even some Muslims in both North and South, were suspicious of Sharia politics or “political Sharia,” given how divisive and volatile it can be in a multi-religious country like Nigeria, and given our previous experiences with the subject.
Buhari could have backed off the Sharia and religious rhetoric and retained his popularity with the Northern Muslim grassroots. Instead, he made the choice to continue to consolidate his base of support at the Northern grassroots by talking about things that they wanted to hear, things that establishment Northern politicians, for pragmatic political and selfish reasons, were not talking about. It worked wonderfully for the General, and solidified his messianic stature among the Northern Muslim masses, but it also alienated moderates, Christians, and Southerners and fed the perception that he was a religious fanatic who would implement an Islamic agenda — or at best an insensitive provincial politician.
He won the North but lost the South and the Middle Belt. He effectively became a sectional leader, and he has been trying ever since to escape that label, to no avail. I don’t see how he can escape this pigeonhole without a willingness to occasionally disappoint his Northern base because the very thing that makes him popular in the North is what makes him unpopular elsewhere.
This all brings me to my final point about Buhari’s penchant for soiling his own brand. Whether it is his quasi-military style of unnerving bluntness or he is merely pandering to his Northern Muslim base, he is fond of making shocking and controversial statements about national issues that help confirm prejudiced opinions of him as a parochial political leader. For instance, when he was interviewed on the Boko Haram insurgency a couple of years ago, he said the government was killing Northern youths, that the killing should stop, and that the government should implement for Boko Haram insurgents the kind of amnesty that was implemented in the Niger Delta. This was when the sect was killing civilians and abducting and raping women left and right. I couldn’t believe that he would say such a thing in a newspaper interview, especially given the widespread perceptions about him, but he did.
President Jonathan had a similar moment a few years ago when, after the October 1 2010 bombing carried out by Henry Okah and his MEND Niger Delta militants, the president came out and declared, even before investigations had commenced, that this was not the work of Niger Delta militants. Not only was he skewered for this reckless and unpresidential behavior; he was embarrassed further when it turned out that the attack had been the work of those he had sought to exonerate. Jonathan only managed to recover from that blunder because he was a rookie to whom Nigerians were willing to give the benefit of the doubt and, more crucially, because, unlike Buhari, he had no prior perception baggage as a sectional or sectarian champion.
(To be continued next week)