Chiagozie Nwonwu On Buhari: The fallen hero and his Islamist army

GENERAL BUHARI

A few weeks ago, while trying to sooth the anger of a colleague who took umbrage at the fact that I and another colleague playfully mocked his praise of a presently embattled governor of a seaside state, I declared that I used to be a Buhari groupie.

A friend, who also ascribes to the pen-to-paper—now finger-to-keyboard—profession, called me to inquire when I gave up on the man we both used to swear by. He was not shocked when I told him the man stopped inspiring me after rioters took to the streets to cool their anger at the fact that their votes was not enough to get him elected with a large douse of arson and bloodletting.

Though my friend insisted that Buhari is in no way responsible for the bloody events that followed the elections of 2011, and I agree, I insisted that the man should have done more to control rioters after it started—I have also said this in previous articles.

Buhari, as many politicians from these parts and elsewhere would, decided to do the Mugabe: Sit back to watch his supporters go on a rampage spree—perhaps with the hope that in the end he would get some political leverage from it. He never got one, the protests died, as did the initial calls for a government of national unity Zimbabwe style.

I insist that the period represented an opportunity for Buhari to shine as a national leader. Had he appealed for his supporters to go back home, to not paint the streets with blood, he would have had Nigerians eating out of his hands now, especially as Jonathan and his cabinet insist on doing things the usual way—a way that even before now failed to work, decade in decade out.

It is a sad story that a man of Buhari’s standing would be forever dogged by events that perhaps were not of his own making; but since he chose not to ride the wave on the side of the vast majority of Nigerians, the cross will forever be his to carry.

I had hoped time would heal all wounds and Nigerians who care about such things would forgive and even if not forget, learn to live with a flawed man, and perhaps give him the mandate he has sought for so long. But no, Buhari was not done, he continued with the blunders that make me wonder who his advisers are: flesh and blood beings or Djins divorced from the Nigerian regional and ethno-religious reality.

The first opportunity for maybe a redress came when the government of Goodluck Jonathan, in line with their style of throwing money at any problem bigger than brutal police tactics, offered to negotiate with the murderous Boko Haram terrorists. Recall that it was during late President Umaru Yar’adua’s presidency, in which Jonathan was Vice President, that this policy of “negotiating” with killers began.

So there was an offer for dialogue, from the government to Boko Haram; and Buhari was one of the elders selected to look at how water got into the proverbial coconut. Citing an attempt to tarnish his image, our good general turned down the nomination, which some government people called a national service. Personally, I saw reason with him, especially as PDP jobbers, forever scared of the man, could have turned it into an effective booby-trap.

Buhari had an understandable reason to steer clear of anything Boko Haram.

The group is widely believed to be an expression of northern political calculations in the guise of the now entrenched we-make-it-hot-for-them-so-that-they-will-fear-us-and-give-us-a-piece-of-the-pie style of Nigerian politics, a style that previously worked for the South West and later served the oil producing zone that now hold the treasury keys. As such, Buhari, looking for a national mandate, wanted to stay well away from Boko Haram.

If this argument holds, then why is Buhari attacking the government for attacking Boko Haram, a group that has declared its intention to destroy the Nigeria we know and create something that many of us would consider uncanny? Believe me when I say that I don’t know. I only know one fact, and that is that Buhari, the man who I thought embodied the sort of light we need to drive away the darkness that is bedevilling Nigerian politics, is not the man I thought I knew.

How a man that purports to be for the masses can stand to defend Boko Haram in the guise of defending the North beats me. Why say you want nothing to do with them one day and the next claim that the government, by fighting against these child killers and nation destroyers, is fighting against the North?