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President Muhammadu Buhari is always boxing himself into a corner or rather putting himself into ridicule. He has aides who could save him from the needless embarrassments, but he does not make use of them at critical moments.
His utterances have been his major problem. He toed that damning path again last Tuesday when he played host to a delegation of Buhari Support Organisation (BSO) at the Presidential Villa. BSO is a group that is campaigning for the President’s return to power in 2019.
Buhari was quoted as saying that he wondered why people in authority chose to send their children outside the country to acquire education while they fail to develop the country.
“I wonder what kind of Nigerians they want their children to come and work with. I think there is a lot of lack of imagination, because if you are fighting for the country then you shouldn’t be misappropriating or misapplying the funds the way people do,” he said.
This statement sounds hypocritical for a president whose children, according to credible report at Nigerians’ disposal, lists the schools attended by his children abroad.
It is also hypocritical from the point of view of how many times the President has visited London hospitals for treatment and the huge resources Nigeria has lost and continues to lose to those endless treatments and checkups.
While he seeks treatment abroad, many Nigerians are dying here for lack of good medical facilities. Even the medical centre inside the Villa that was supposed to service the President and other high-ranking people there was an issue sometime ago when the First Lady, Aisha, noted that the clinic was just like a white-washed sepulcher.
Buhari is not the right person to make the observation he made last Tuesday. It smack of insensitivity; hypocrisy and lack of understanding of his duty as president of Nigeria. It also shows his disconnect from the reality of ground and the perception of his government by the Nigerian masses.
In a report on December 29, 2016, Premium Times gave an account of President Buhari’s children and where they went to school.
1) Fatima: Born March 7, 1975. Education: Airforce Primary School, Victoria Island, Lagos; Government College, Kaduna; Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria; postgraduate degree, Business Academy, Stratford, United Kingdom.
2) Nana-Hadiza: Born June 23, 1981. Education: Essence International School; Cobham Hall, Kent, United Kingdom; University of Buckingham; Postgraduate, National Teachers Institute, Kaduna; Masters in International Affairs and Strategic Studies, Polytechnic Kaduna.
3) Safinatu: Born October 13, 1983. Education: Essence International School; Cobham Hall, Kent, United Kingdom; University of Plymouth, United Kingdom; presently at Arden University, United Kingdom
4) Halima: Born October 8, 1990. Education: International School, Kaduna; British School of Lome; Bellerby’s College, Brighton, United Kingdom; University of Leicester, United Kingdom, Nigeria Law School, Lagos.
5) Yusuf: Born April 23. Education: Kaduna International School; British School of Lome; Bellerby’s College, Brighton, United Kingdom; University of Surrey, United Kingdom.
6) Zahra: Born December 18, 1994. Education: Kaduna International School; British School of Lome; Bellerby’s College, Brighton, United Kingdom; University of Surrey, United Kingdom.
Holy anger
Never in the history of Catholic faith in Nigeria had the faithful displayed such a holy rage as they did last Sunday across the country. They marched through cities, towns and villages in the country over one issue- worsening insecurity and the seemingly lack of seriousness on the part of government in reining in marauders of death.
The Catholic faithful took advantage of the Biblical injunction that says “Be angry and sin not” to protest the unprovoked killing by Fulani herdsmen some weeks ago of two of their priests (Rev Fathers Felix Tyolaha and Joseph Gor) and 17 other parishioners who had gathered for a morning mass in their church in Benue State.
The peaceful protest was meant to get the Federal Government to arise from its slumber and stop the orgy of killings by the herdsmen.
The mass burial of last Tuesday was the second this year. The first was on January 11when 73 men, women and children were buried at a mass burial ceremony organised by the state government on after several attacks by cattle herders.
Despite the assurances by the government, it will serve the Benue people well if they do not swallow such assurances hook line and sinker, and as a result go to sleep with their two eyes closed. They must be vigilant; no one is sure if there will be no other mass burial, but God forbid!
A common foe
President Muhammadu Buhari has gradually become a common foe among Nigerians who believe that he has not acquitted himself well in the last three years in office. Individuals and groups that ordinarily could be said would never see things from the same perspective are now aligning forces and speaking in tandem that Buhari needs to be shown the way out of office in 2019 using the ballot box if Nigeria would make progress. Last week, we saw such an alignment when a former president, Olusegun Obasanjo paid a visit to Rueben Fasoranti, Afenifere leader, to solicit the pan-Yoruba Cultural group’s support to stop the second term ambition of Buhari.
Before now Obasanjo and Afenifere leaders were not the best of friends. All through the eight year-period of Obasanjo in the Aso Rock, Afenifere leaders did not see him as one to be trusted. There was no rapport whatever.
Obasanjo, during the Tuesday meeting recalled how he was severally rejected by the late Abraham Adesanya, who was the then leader of the Afenifere.
“I remember visiting Pa Abraham Adesanya thrice in Lagos before the election and I was asked to join Afenifere and Alliance for Democracy (AD), then, but I told them that AD was a cul-de-sac. Pa Abraham told me if I joined them, things will change but I refused to join them. I went back the second time but they refused to work for my emergence.
“I went there again the third time, but Afenifere maintained their stand, they refused to vote for me, but I secured my votes outside Yorubaland, though they supported me in 2003 for my re-election,” Obasanjo told the Afenifere leader.
Today, it appears that there is unity of purpose. Only time will tell if the alliance will bear fruit.
Zebulon Agomuo
