Welcome Back Home, PMB
President Muhammadu Buhari has returned to Nigeria after spending more than one hundred days in the United Kingdom on a follow-up medical vacation. His plane landed at the presidential wing of Abuja’s Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport at 4:35pm yesterday, and he was received by a bevy of top government officials led by Prof Yemi Osinbajo, who has been Acting President during Buhari’s absence from the country. We join all Nigerians who have been fervently praying for his safe return in extending a hearty welcome back home to the president.
In truth, most Nigerians have displayed the utmost patience and understanding during the president’s absence, the second one this year because he was also away from the country for 49 days from January to March on medical grounds. During his absence, political parties largely refrained from politicising the issue of his illhealth. Both Christian and Muslim clerics also offered constant prayers for his full recovery, as did many state governments that organised prayer sessions in their domains. The mainstream news media and to a large extent the social media as well, also showed much sympathy and understanding for the situation and did not allow it to create undue tension in the country.
Some Nigerians did lose patience however. A group led by the musician Charles Oputa alias Charley Boy launched a movement called #ourmumudondo and began to demand that President Buhari must either return to the country or resign from office. Though the group staged a peaceful procession to the National Assembly about two weeks ago, the police forcefully broke up its attempted sit-in protest at Unity Fountain the following day. An even nastier episode took place on Wednesday last week when Charley Boy tried to stage a protest inside Abuja’s Wuse Market but was attacked and chased away, allegedly by pro-Buhari traders. We attribute that ugly episode to lack of patience on both sides. In future all Nigerians must learn to show more healthy respect for persons who hold different opinions. We also urge protesters in future to be more discerning in their methods and inform the police in advance of any protests, in order to avoid the ugly situation that nearly resulted at the Wuse market.
During Buhari’s absence, Acting President Yemi Osinbajo steered the ship of state with admirable steadiness, courage and caution. Most Nigerians praise him for the dynamism with which he moved around the country, juggling many issues at the same time. Osinbajo had to contend with the tension generated by the heightened agitation of ‘Biafran’ separatists, which in turn elicited the so-called notice for Igbos to quit the North by October 1. In recent days Osinbajo has also launched a campaign against hate speech, which he has equated to terrorism. Still, many observers could not but notice that the Acting President was only administering the country but he largely refrained from any major policy or personnel changes. To that extent Buhari’s absence was felt in the country, more so when there are so many pressing issues waiting to be tackled with firm presidential authority.
The presidency has already announced that Buhari will address the nation tomorrow, Monday, in a televised broadcast. We do not know what he will say but he is most certain to thank Nigerians for their patience and prayers. The president might also use the opportunity to change the official information strategy regarding his ill-health. The secrecy that has attended to it and the initial bungling when spokesmen said the president was hale and hearty while he himself later said he had been very sick, should be ended. Openness in itself cannot aggravate anyone’s ill-health, nor is it a condition for full recovery. It is also not a national security secret because the president is being treated by foreign doctors so most certainly, those countries’ intelligence agencies are in the know about the nature of the illness. President Buhari is expected to resume his presidential duties once he transmits a letter to the leadership of the National Assembly announcing his return to the country. When he does so, we urge our countrymen and women to continue to exercise patience because he cannot be expected to resume his duties with the same energy that he had before his recent bout of ill-health. A man who has been attended to by doctors for most of this year will need more time to recuperate and regain his full strength. Yet, there are many problems of a political, economic and other nature that are bedevilling the country and it is true that they cannot wait indefinitely without causing irreparable harm to the nation.
It is for this reason that we urge President Buhari to adopt a system that will ensure the continuation of dynamic and energetic governance of the country during the period it takes him to fully regain his health. The model that we recommend is the President Nelson Mandela/ Vice President Thabo Mbeki model that obtained in South Africa from 1994 to 1999. Mandela, who was in his 70s and had suffered not from ill-health but from 27 years’ incarceration, ceded most day to day government duties to Thabo Mbeki while he lent his great moral and political authority to hold the country together. Luckily Prof Yemi Osinbajo has earned the respect of most Nigerians, which makes the Mandela-Mbeki model a good one for us to try here until such a time that President Buhari regains his full health.
Once more we welcome President Muhammadu Buhari back to the country. We wish him full and speedy recovery from his ailments and we expect that the remaining two years of his first term in office will ensure greater successes for the country in the anticorruption fight, ending the Boko Haram insurgency, returning IDPs to their homes, restoring economic growth after the recession and ensuring peace and harmony in the country.