Governmental events in Nigeria is swiftly drawing the country closer to unrestrained anarchy. In world’s political history, Nigeria has now
becomes the only country where an elected President ferociously assumed the position of the Vice President, Chief Prosecutor, Prison Director, Chief Judge, Petroleum Chief – then sits down on the constitution with unchallenged authority, undermining the powers of other segments of the government.
President Muhammadu Buhari’s current turbulent marriage with Nigeria is not new, and in fact represents a bizarre homecoming. As an army major general, Buhari dealt with Nigerians as a dictator from 1983 through 1985 in a nightmarish retributive rule, where he projected himself like a Roman god and ruled like the Taliban.
He relied heavily on decrees and special tribunals to regulate communal life and chastised a selection of law offenders with a killer- axe. Subjective orders and decrees were his only governance tools, and as of July 1984, Buhari had promulgated as much as twenty-two decrees, radiating widespread controversies and international condemnation. He subjugated the judiciary with special military tribunals, whereas the state security agency, the National Security Organization, was accorded greater powers. These were in the mid-80s.
Today, over two months in office, Buhari has not changed, and might have even gotten worse. He has assumed a dictatorship role, and deceitfully claimed to be too busy to name a working team. Yet, he had the time to make multiple trips to countries in Europe, America, and Africa, bringing back no development strategies but stacks of photo albums for image campaign.
Worse, this President while undermining the constitutional process, single handedly made key appointments, including a restructure of his nation’s intelligence and military system. He had ordered several arrests of presumably past political foes, and commandingly moved detained terror-suspects on trial around different prisons outside their judicial precincts. He has no clue about how to handle a democracy, but sits down in an undisclosed secluded government location and issued orders by the hours.
The worst damage of Buhari’s approach to issues of governance is a total disconnection with both his subordinates in the government, party colleagues, and the masses. Buhari has remained the only arm of the system, whereas his supporters chokingly struggle in the social media to defend a regime that jumpstarted into action without any platform. Consequently, the Sai-Buhari mantra has totally died in the public domain leaving only a few voices who stood back to save face.
Nigeria is not looking too good at the moment, and the truth is that the regime has been busy celebrating failures and lying to the masses about the disconnection of their Commander-in-Chief with both his subordinates and the masses: his sightlessness to issues of governance, including a total disrespect to the rule of law. The worst failure is a failure before a beginning and Buhari has demonstrated that ineptitude. As a remedy, the new leader may consider, as a beginning, reconciling issues with his first major obstacle – himself.
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