President Buhari’s moving parts

It is fair to assume that Buhari’s aides had not lobbied to schedule a meeting between him and US President Trump during the on-going United Nations General Assembly. In all likelihood, the thought of another meeting after the last one would not even have been entertained by President Buhari’s people. The reported quip by Trump that described Buhari as lifeless may or may not have been made, but it resonated here in Nigeria, and it was not denied or tweeted away by Trump. If the two leaders do run into each other on the corridors of the UN, His Insulting Rambunctiousness, President Donald J Trump, may hug our Frail and Pristine President Buhari, slap him on the back and ask if the Tucanos have obliterated Boko Haram yet, and if the fight against corruption has been won. Without waiting for response, he may rush off to meetings with Putin, Theresa May and Korea’s Kim.

The more visible of Buhari’s moving parts may spin that encounter into a full blown meeting to obliterate the bitter taste of that lifeless comment. This will be his media team those two or three professionals who trudge behind the President picking up stale damage and painting them up as products of disciplined statesmanship. The truth is that Buhari is not lifeless. His placid mien covers up a personal trait of prolonged indecision and prevarication, but he has many active and moving parts that do a lot of work and damage for him.

The Poster Boy of Irritations against President Buhari, Senate President Bukola Saraki turned the knife recently when he said world leaders cannot wait to take leave of the presence of Buhari when they visit because he has nothing of substance to say to them. That comment, made in a setting where the President wants to look his best, that is, the international community, must have hurt a lot to elicit a response from Buhari’s side, lampooning Saraki in traditional and new language. That reaction was a big mistake. It served Saraki’s apparent strategy of standing toe-totoe with Buhari, and being the only aspirant whose campaign specifically seeks attention by directly attempting to demystify Buhari.

There are other moving parts of the President that operate at different levels of synergy with the boss and each other. Actually many of these parts have developed much autonomy from the president owing to a combination of a style that leaves everyone to chart their own courses, and a process that tolerates strong initiatives in the absence of any from the boss. Close to home, an important moving part is the President’s wife. This apparently strong-willed lady who shouldered much of the President’s tortuous journey to the presidency pulls quite a punch. She had thrown it against the President through the aides she sees running him and ruining his mandate. She appears to have realigned her position with her husband’s re-election ambition, but that may mean demanding, and getting a lot of room in the campaigns.

Close to home as well, is the Vice President, that enigmatic good cop who stomachs a lot and comes to life effectively when the boss is on his frequent medical tourism. Perhaps it is his academic training, or the discipline often associated with good clergy, but how he shows the value of good leadership in flashes and then melts into seeming inconsequence is potentially a fruitful object of study in future. Then you have the ‘cabal’, that dishonourable name for a small circle of unelected people that had managed presidents by deciding everything they think or do. Every Nigerian leader has had these circles of varying powers and influence, the most widely-known being Abacha’s, Yar’Adua’s and Buhari’s. Abacha’s chased away and locked up the opposition. Yar’Adua’s kept the nation from a sick President and his administration. Buhari’s circle took the driving seat from day one, running the President, the administration, the economy and everything else that matters. This is the most powerful moving part of a president who leaves much to his moving parts. It moves him and all other moving parts.

Another moving part notorious for incoherence and disharmony is the security, law and order sector. Next to the success for pushing the Boko Haram insurgency into minor enclaves, this sector is most widely acknowledged for shooting at itself with destructive effectiveness. Its spectacular assaults against each other’s camps received much help from a President who will not call an end to a low intensity civil war. Magu’s confirmation as EFCC Chairman was an early casualty and warning. Many counter attacks took other casualties from NIA, DSS, Police. The camps have been fairly balanced fortresses, often cancelling each other out in major security policy matters, leaving, in effect, things substantially as messy as they have been. The removal of Daura, the most powerful factional commander and one with the largest bit of the President’s ear has created some turbulence. It will take a while to establish who, and which faction now has the upper hand.

Which brings us to another moving part of the President: his ministers. If we need to be exact, these will be three or four in a full Council, the rest living a life of relative oblivion and inactivity in an administration not known for breaking new grounds all over the country. Of these, the Minister of Justice will occupy the pride of place as the architect of the administration’s policies towards the administration of justice, the judiciary, law and order matters, interarm relations, security and just about any other matter considered by the tiny circle around the President as important to him. You will find the ponderous fingers of the Minister in famous sagas around Maina, Babachir Lawal, Adeosun, Dasuki, El-Zakzaky, Kanu, Saraki, famous and infamous corruption cases, who gets to court and gets a judicial sabbatical. In fairness, there could be a good case to be made that Ministry of Justice had legitimate interest in most of these matters. The devil is in the grey areas, those that make you ask how it serves the interests of an administration that is loud on integrity to push the position that Adeosun jumped and was not pushed, and why it is waiting for Minister Shittu to jump.

There are a few more moving parts of President Buhari such as Tinubu and APC Governors who may have the final say in terms of President Buhari’s chances of a second term. The way things look, these parts will knock each other out and about or collaborate as their interests dictate, all the way to the elections.

Jamila Abubakar wrote piece from Abuja

There are other moving parts of the President that operate at different levels of synergy with the boss and each other. Actually many of these parts have developed much autonomy from the president owing to a combination of a style that leaves everyone to chart their own courses, and a process that tolerates strong initiatives in the absence of any from the boss. Close to home, an important moving part is the President’s wife

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