Thirty years after Muhammadu Buhari was
overthrown in a coup, as a military Head of State, the slim, soft spoken
generalissimo is making a comeback. Buhari on May 29, 2015, once again
assumed the reins of power, albeit not through the barrel of a gun this
time, but as a duly elected civilian president of the Federal Republic
of Nigeria.
With this feat, Buhari in effect got the
rare second chance which many seek (but never get) to rewrite his own
story in the annals of Nigeria’s political narratives. And as Buhari
adjusts himself with his special date with history, before the
vanquished and the victors, especially those still revelling in the
throes of victory at the recent polls, swoop in like vultures on his
trail and tailcoat, and begin the process of sucking life out of his
administration with incessant demands for gratifications (for jobs well
done at the electioneering), there are certain salient points that we
need to make sure the soldier-turned-politician in whom we’ve all
entrusted our fate for the next four years is clear about.
Buhari needs to know that unlike his
first coming as a military Head of State, the battle field is different
now. In the quicksand of Nigeria’s politics, fatigues, jackboots, horse
whips and sundry paraphernalia of repressive military dictatorship will
not cut it. Unlike his first coming, now, Buhari has to operate under a
political dispensation that is totally different from the one he was
familiar with, and largely remembered for: A brutish, cold-hearted
military regime that stifled opposition with its draconian vice grip on
the jugular of the Nigerian populace.
In this new dispensation, it is important
for Buhari to know that government agents cannot whip, torture or maim
people into line (even when it is glaring for their own good). In the
democracy, under which, God willing, he would be steering the affairs of
Nigeria for the next four years, Buhari cannot expect the governed to
catch cold each time he sneezes. In this new dispensation, laws are not
made at will, or at the whim and caprice of the President. Decrees have
no place in this form of government. In its place, there’s something
called the rule of law which even the President must uphold. That means,
among other things, people cannot just be thrown in the gallows just
because they say or write things that government or its officials deemed
embarrassing.
Reports claiming Buhari has evolved
abound. His supporters say he knows full well what he’s getting himself
into, and he’s well and adequately prepared for the task. The President
himself has stated publicly, and rightly too, that his past actions as a
Head of State were informed by the very nature of government under
which he served.
Military governments, he reminded us,
generally rule by decrees and iron fists; echoing in essence, the
ancient Greek physician, Hippocrates, in Aphorisms: “For extreme
diseases, extreme methods of cure.” Put differently, desperate times
require desperate measures. No doubt, Nigeria was, and arguably still is
in desperate times.
