A MUST READ: That Buhari, Osinbajo’s pretence “If you have nothing to hide there is no reason not to be transparent “ – Mohamed Elbaradei

Yahoo in one of its news items on Nigeria recently described President Muhammadu Buhari as a missing President. I was about taking offence when I saw the story but decided to check Google and what I saw changed my initial feeling. According to Google, “a missing person is a person who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed as his fate are unknown.”
For an international news medium like Yahoo, a President of a country who left his home for weeks, and whose whereabouts cannot be located nor him seen by the news hounds can fall into the missing category. For us in Nigeria he may not be missing although we are totally in the dark as to his condition. Even when we heard his voice after 50 days it was only for Hausa speaking persons.
The current Minister of Information Lai Mohammed as spokesman of the opposition told us in 2010 that a President’s health condition should be made available regularly because he is a public property and his matter is no longer for the family alone. But that was then because even Mohammed as mouthpiece of the government now is clearly starved of what is going on.
Just imagine a corporate body whose Managing Director is away on prolonged sick leave and he hands over to his deputy who is a nominee of the second highest stakeholder as required by the rules of the company, but the personal staff of the sick CEO would not give him space to operate as a stand-in CEO. That is the picture of Nigeria State ever since February when President Buhari’s illness became evident.
If Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has been a Fulani man or a Muslim, this game would have ended long ago. President Buhari would probably have called him inside his office to say my dear partner, I had desired to serve this country at least for four years but since man proposes and God disposes, I cannot continue. My health cannot carry on with the rigours of the office. Please ensure that the good work we started especially in area of tackling corruption is not truncated. I am nominating Alhaji “A” to be your Vice and I trust he would be a utility hand in our dream programmes.
In other climes such could be possible but the only reason this cannot happen in this instance is because this is Nigeria where we have allowed ethnic and religious politics to becloud our vision especially as we do not go into office to serve but to protect interests. What more confirmation do we need to show that we are slaves to our tribes and religions in this country even though we keep masquerading as patriots and nationalists.
Analytical political minds monitoring governance in the country since President Buhari went for the second health mission to the United Kingdom would easily agree that the acting President has been struggling, using his enormous intellectual prowess to navigate a very turbulent terrain.
We are all witnessing how he tries always to impress the cabals by bringing the President’s name at every public forum even when not relevant. We all saw how even to sign budget a minister had to be written to allow him after weeks of dalliance. So also he cannot swear-in ministers already appointed and screened by the Senate.
All these are notwithstanding the fact that as acting President the constitution guarantees him all the powers of the President.
The ministers and other top functionaries of the government are glaringly confused and helpless. Those of them who desires to align with the acting President are afraid of the cabals who have literally appropriated the President’s health information holding it to themselves and releases what they want for the purpose they want it.
As all the gerrymandering are going on, the obvious victim remains the Nigeria State and its citizens. Lately there has been a transferred anger as those who are unsettled that Osinbajo could get power by providence now desires that everything could acerbate to avert his taking over. There is even coup rumour in the air.
As has always been the case, the Igbo, the obvious political guinea pig of the country have been given quit notice by the North because they know that the consequence could help them dabaru everything.
Astute minds are aware that the quit notice on Ndigbo is a side fight aimed at ensuring that Osinbajo’s dream does not materialise. Ndigbo are now hit by the crossfire.
All these are happening because we don’t learn from history. If God through the Constitution has given it to Osinbajo all the manipulations would only lead to further problems for the actors.
Not too long ago in this country, late President Umar Yar Adua was ill and some Katsina mafia hijacked the system and frustrated the then Vice President Goodluck Jonathan. Former Governor of Delta State James Ibori who was a member of the Yar’Adua mafia then ensured Jonathan was edged out even on Niger Delta matters. When Jonathan eventually got it through the doctrine of necessity made possible by a functional parliament, Ibori was restless and ran to United Arab Emirates from where he fell into the dragnet of the UK police that has been on his trail. The rest is now history suffice to say that while Jonathan held sway, Ibori sojourned in UK prison.
Less than a decade, a similar scenario is here and the actors are busy repeating the mistakes of the past.
It’s not that the framers of our constitution did not envisage this type of problems to provide for it, they did but because some very few individuals who are selfishly massaging and adoring their ethnic and religious interests have chosen to manipulate the system to the detriment of the rest of us.
The real worry at this time is not that some minute group of greedy persons are taking advantage of the President’s ill-health and are trying to wrestle the country to the ground, rather the concern is that we are all watching and bemoaning as the country rambles dangerously near a dyke.
The parliament that is constitutionally empowered to provide check on the executive is not currently well composed politically and lacks the wherewithal for the much-needed redemption from them. The civil society groups have been so hugely corrupted that they hardly can speak with one voice. The hitherto all powerful fourth estate of the realm, the press, visibly weighed down by the economic burden very apparent in the sector at the moment has been further disintegrated by the entrance of the deregulated new media. The other influential individuals whose voice are weighty in the nation’s polity have all gone dumb.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo who through letters and pre-arranged lectures have helped to bring down governments in the past is this time conspicuously missing in action.
Ditto General Abdulsalami Abubakar, the current apostle of peace in the land who literally midwifed the exit of Jonathan has suddenly seized to function even when the peace is more than ever threatened.
And as this conspiracy of silence continues, and the acting President remains clogged by the greedy few although he goes about pretending that all is well, the country groans in pains of hypocrisy and double standard of its leaders all behaving as if we are running aristocracy not democracy.
When will this rigmarole end is the question, is it when the system collapses irretrievably before we can act. Is it not possible and even honourable and dignifying for the President to resign on health grounds? Why should an adult wait to be told to leave a scotching sun. The near comatose state of affairs in the country today is not in anyway enhancing the reputation of this administration. Two years ago the pair were voted in to bring a desired change in the land but as its turning out now, their divergent political stand is now an obstacle.
In a game of hide and seek children cover their face thinking that no one is seeing them, that exactly is what manipulators of this Buhari/Osinbajo game are doing thinking that we are not seeing them. But even if we are not seeing, God the giver of life and power is watching as they play him. God help us.