I have
been reading about the supposed disagreement between President Muhammadu Buhari
and Bola Tinubu, including the proxy wars that seem to have been started on
several fronts as part of this fight between the two. It’s beginning to get
annoying now because large sections of those in charge of our country seem to
have forgotten what leadership is about.
Here’s
the thing: Forget whatever your opinion is of President Buhari, the APC
presented him and he did what was asked of him, which was to win them the
presidency against all odds. We can accuse him of not preparing to govern
properly as we continue to run the rule over his government’s policies to
support our view. True, the buck stops at his desk, but does that mean his
party and their leaders have no responsibility?
The first
thing everyone in the APC ought to have taken to heart is the fact that this is
and has to be a collective leadership. They all govern with the president and
fall and rise together. There can never be the excuse that the president is
being ‘tribalistic’ in his appointments or that he is not carrying other
leaders along barely a year after taking over. I mean, why this whole public
display of disagreement with the president? Are the leaders of the APC so petty
that they cannot find a way of resolving their internal differences within the
party away from the press? Why is every Salako, Chike, Abdullahi and Osaze in
the APC running to the press to show support for this or that leader within the
same party? Why are some people now shouting wolf about some ethnic hegemony
and calling on all of us to support Tinubu to stop the Armageddon they see
coming? Why is everyone talking about divisions already at a time the nation
needs a united front in its leadership to see us through these hard times?
Okay, I’m
not discussing here the merit or otherwise of any accusation against Buhari or
Tinubu neither should this be considered a support of one side against the
other. I’m concerned here about Nigeria and the fact that the APC is today
running the nation as service to the Nigerian people. President Buhari is the
elected leader and true, we cannot expect him to get things right all the time.
But leaders of the APC would not be helping by openly showing disagreement with
him and raising factions within the party opposed to him, not on ideological or
policy levels, but simply for the sake of grabbing power or serving the selfish
interests of personalities. Already, we see them fighting over 2019 when the
first term isn’t halfway yet.
I think
Tinubu, being the lightning rod of most of these controversies, has to play the
role of a statesman. He needs to call his troops to order and let them
understand what is at stake. Whatever the situation, he cannot afford to
publicly disagree with the president or raise surrogates who go out there to
indicate there is a disagreement between them. He has to understand that he was
the biggest surrogate of the president before and during the election and his
party’s biggest guarantor amongst voters, even though he wasn’t on the ballot.
Nigeria is suffering economically, politically and socially. If he has any
ideas for the president, he knows he has access to him. He should boldly go to
him and have a frank talk about things. He must call off his hounds because
destroying the APC just because he cannot get his way or because of some
assumption that some ethnic hegemonists are taking the party away from its
supposed progressive and centrist roots will not give him any credibility with
Nigerians. True leadership means he douses this fire now; true leadership means
he should be rallying his people to help his party and the president and his
government to find solutions to the problems facing the nation now.
Of
course, I get the point that it might be a case of the president or the
leadership of the APC not listening to Tinubu anymore, but there is nothing in
public space to indicate that this is the case apart from tittle-tattles we get
in the press. I mean, what we have in public space are all these stories of
disagreements over his attempt to garner more influence than he already has
with a lot of party men and women accusing him of selfishness and control
freakery. Nigerians need to see him talking policies with members of his party
and its leadership in government with the aim of finding governance solutions
to our problems as a nation. Anything short of that will confirm the claims of
those who accuse him of trying to be a spoiler only because he’s not having his
way. Nigeria is bigger than anybody. Tinubu must do more than anybody now to
hold his party together and help deliver on the electoral promises they made to
Nigerians. Time is running out. President Muhammadu Buhari needs all the help
he can get from his own people.
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