What Buhari must do to win 2015 election (IV)

Buhari has made other public comments that may be construed as being soft on Boko Haram or as feeding some of the conspiracy theories about Boko Haram being an anti-North machination hatched by the Jonathan government. In critiquing Buhari on the same point, a friend of mine, a visible Hausa Muslim journalist, testified recently on […]

Buhari has made other public comments that may be construed as being soft on Boko Haram or as feeding some of the conspiracy theories about Boko Haram being an anti-North machination hatched by the Jonathan government. In critiquing Buhari on the same point, a friend of mine, a visible Hausa Muslim journalist, testified recently on my Facebook wall that he had actually heard Buhari say or imply in closed Northern circles that Boko Haram is a ploy by some people he would not name to destroy the North. Buhari has basically been echoing the same illiterate theories about Boko Haram being an anti-North and anti-Islam scheme, a sentiment with surprisingly widespread purchase among uninformed Northerners.
The General’s comments and speeches are enthusiastically received in the North, in his base, and add to his popularity there, but they spook people in other parts of the country, further confining him to the status of a sectional candidate.
I have noticed that in the last year or so, as 2015 beckons, Buhari, apparently heeding the advice of more savvy advisers, has toned down his rhetoric, has issued statements and comments on the terrorist attacks and on the counterinsurgency that are statesmanlike and thoughtful. He has also only spoken sparingly, and, after the Nyanya bombing, came out forcefully for the first time to unequivocally condemn the Boko Haram terrorists. Perhaps we’re witnessing the emergence of a new Buhari, Buhari 3.0, if you will, who is more refined, more circumspect, and more of a statesman than a Northern grassroots hero. Nonetheless, the enduring legacies of bad political choices that limited the appeal of a great brand needs be overcome as Buhari unveils his fourth campaign for the presidency.
It should be said that Buhari has also been a victim of Nigeria’s charged ethno-religious political public space, which became particularly fraught in 2011 with both sides making patently parochial appeals to religious and ethnic affiliation in that year’s general elections. That tactic delivered victory and inflicted defeat at great human and material costs, but it is unfortunately now being reconfigured as a key component of the Jonathan reelection playbook. Buhari’s misfortune has been to try to advance integrity and moral clarity in a political context in which identity permutations have supplanted those qualities as baselines of electoral mobilization.
Buhari has thus been a victim of the political circumstances that have emerged and ossified in the last decade. Even so, Buhari is not a passive victim, for he has in the last few years often insinuated himself needlessly and through his utterances and silences into this cauldron of religious and ethnic politics. His bluntness has not always served him well and has often provided ammo to his detractors, who are all too happy to give mischievous legs and wings to his pronouncements.
When he invoked the metaphor of blood soaked dogs and baboons (kare jini biri jini) to illustrate how his supporters would checkmate the rigging and intimidation project of the PDP, a gory metaphor that, to be sure, was a poor choice of expressive device in a charged political atmosphere like Nigeria’s, his detractors, lacking knowledge of the linguistic and metaphorical subtleties of the Hausa language and intent on mischief, ran with it to associate the General with violence. When the General urged his supporters to protect their votes, the PDP folks reinterpreted this democratic pronouncement about vigilance and civic responsibility as a code for violent electoral vigilantism.
Buhari’s political enemies are many and are relentless, but the General often makes their job easy for them. I read an essay on a listserv recently with the headline, Why are They Against Buhari? When the question is framed in this way, perhaps the answer should be that, 1) they — whoever they are — are not the only problem of Buhari, and 2) that Buhari, along with his team and hero-worshiping supporters, is perhaps the biggest problem of Buhari.
Some people have raised the specter of Buhari’s age being a liability. I disagree. Recent events have shown that incompetence, corruption, and governing acumen are distributed equally across the age spectrum. In fact the biggest offenders in our national parade of larcenous establishmentarians are mostly folks possessing youthful energies, not elderly types. Besides, you govern with brains not brawn. So, for me the age of Buhari is not his biggest challenge — if it is a challenge at all. Buhari’s biggest problem is how to reintroduce himself to Nigerians — all Nigerians — as a serious national candidate with a platform beyond his familiar, appreciated, but by itself, insufficient personal integrity.
The author can be reached at [email protected]