By Peter Adeshina
What do you have to do to be sacked by President Buhari? Mr. Donald John Trump, America’s ex-President, once famously bragged he could stand in the middle of 5th avenue and shoot a person without losing votes.
He was that confident of the irrational and mindless fidelity of his political base to him, such that any action, including murder — or at least a clear attempt to do so — would be immediately forgiven. In a sense, there is a feeling of the same lack of accountability in the relationship that exists between President Buhari and members of his cabinet.
Following weeks of almost daily gaffes and irresponsible actions by appointed cabinet ministers, and the complete absence of action on the part of President Buhari to, at the very least, put them in check and insist on deserved public apologies, I’ve had to think: what do you have to do to earn yourself a sack in this administration? Is the President that tolerant of basic incompetence and dangerous irresponsibility or he just doesn’t care?
Take for instance the inane, and wicked, comments of the Defence Minister, Mr. Bashir Magashi, last Wednesday. Responding to questions on the attack and abduction of citizens in Niger State by the criminals terrorizing the North, he insulted the victims of this murderous group in the state, and potentially those of other crimes in other parts of the country, by describing them as “cowards” who lack the courage to “stand up” and “defend themselves”.
Here is his comment in full, as reported by Reuters Wire Service Content: “I don’t know why people are running away from minor, minor, minor things like that. They should stand. Let these people know that even the villagers have the competence and capability to defend themselves.”
Anyone with a small understanding of the constitution and organised democracy knows that the protection of citizens is a fundamental responsibility of the government, and it is for the sole purpose of not having to display a foolish and suicidal courage when under attack from RPG-wielding criminals, that citizens surrendered the control of public resources — including the formation and funding of armed forces which Mr. Bashir Salihi Magashi was appointed to supervise as a Defence Minister — to the government.
The presence of heavily-armed murderous groups sashaying up and down the country, leaving destruction in their wake, speaks principally and primarily to the failure of the government to enforce its will and ensure its monopoly of violence, not the cowardly nature of innocent citizens.
The comments of Magashi were unbecoming of a cabinet Minister to put it mildly, and if President Buhari actually cared about public trust and the dignity of citizens he was elected to serve, Wednesday (Feb. 17) should have been the last day he held office as a Minister.
Yet the words passed without any apparent consequence. No apology issued or retraction. It was no different from when Information Minister Lai Mohammed — who was criticised as a failure by none other than the APC’s spokesperson — treated the entire country to the spectacle of using his Ministry’s digital asset to draw attention to his personal political disagreement with the Governor of his home state over the conduct of the APC membership registration exercise.
Or when the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Pantami, forced the nation out on crowded queues to obtain National Identification Numbers (NIN) in offices without sufficient facility. It didn’t matter to him that we were smack in the middle of a raging pandemic. Eventually, he realized his own folly and decided to relax his tight and unrealistic deadline, but not before exposing citizens to real danger.
Cabinet Ministers appointed to manage the troubling affairs of the country are acting like toddlers set loose on a playground without any adult supervision. And so we reluctantly serve as audience to chaos, absurd comments, petty fights and rivalry, and childish contentions, even as the nation burns. There is no adult in the room.
Jordan Peterson, a prominent Canadian clinician, once exhorted those with ambitions to change the world to first summon the strength to clean their rooms. President Buhari, the ‘strong man’ politician, was elected to tackle Nigeria’s compounding problems with the firm handling many felt was missing at the top. But he has turned out a feckless leader without the courage, and will, to put his own kitchen in order, let alone inspire the rest of the country.