By Douglas Anele

FILE PHOTO: The streets of Kanio ahead of Buhari’s declaration as winner of 2015 presidential election.

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A female columnist so besotted by Gen. Buhari’s victory declared: “To me, Buhari, like Obama told us that although dreamers might not be part of the establishment, perhaps because of the nature of our aspirations, the magnitude of our uncompromising belief in fairness and equity, because we shared this idea that cronyism cannot develop a country, that if one has the courage of one’s convictions and is talented to boot, one should be allowed, no matter one’s skin colour, age or ethnicity to share one’s light with the world.”

That is not all, because we are in the season of delusional negative triumphalism consequent upon President Jonathan’s defeat. Femi Adesina, a very pleasant human being and acute interpreter of national issues, allowed his hyperbolic admiration of Gen. Buhari to lead him astray concerning the political fortune of Ndigbo in the new order that would begin unfolding about forty days from now. In his essay, “Lessons from Buhari’s Victory,” he argued that the Southeast committed political suicide by supporting Jonathan overwhelmingly and, therefore, had lost out in the new political dispensation.

A sober reflection on the overenthusiastic reception of Gen. Buhari by segments of the population especially in Northern Nigeria reveals a very disturbing fact – the dangerous tendency of human beings to delude themselves especially during periods of anomie and existential crisis with the expectation of a messiah.

The uncritical dependence on a saviour who purportedly has extraordinary powers to eliminate social evils and lead the society to El Dorado is a perennial psychological weakness of humankind that opens the door to hero worship, authoritarianism and, very significantly, the emergence of religion. Invariably, it is based on self-abnegation and on flawed and romanticised perception of the idolised individual, such that his or her virtues are absolutised whilst the weaknesses are ignored, trivialised, or sublimated.

Gen. Buhari, like every human being, is a blend of both positive and negative personality traits. As a result, the immaculate portraiture of the retired general painted by Buharimaniacs such as Prof. Tam David-West and others is fictitious. The former military head of state is not a stranger to our people. Nigerians who are forty years and above now can still remember how he and his deputy, late Brigadier Tunde Idiagbon, ruled the country with iron fists from December 31, 1984 to August 26, 1985.

Again, Gen. Buhari was chairman of the Petroleum (Special) Trust Fund set up by the military regime of Gen. Sani Abacha. Since he joined politics and began contesting for the presidency in 2003, he occasionally contributes to public discussion during seminars, workshops and interviews with the media.

Largely, Gen. Buhari appears to be an honest, disciplined and principled person with single-minded determination to achieve important goals he sets for himself. But because no human being can manifest any trait to the highest degree conceivable, these admirable qualities in Buhari are alloyed. Let me just take one example, his anti-corruption reputation. Despite disavowals by staunch supporters, there are pertinent questions Gen. Buhari still needs to answer concerning both the N2.8 billion scandal in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) when he was federal commissioner for petroleum resources and the fate of the Irikefe report on the matter.

Again, if Gen. Buhari hated corruption as much as his admirers vociferate, why did he fail to speak out against it during Gen. Abacha’s regime? It would have been consistent with his anti-corruption reputation if Gen. Buhari had resigned his appointment in PTF as a protest against massive looting of the treasury at the time – or was he completely ignorant of what was happening then? Buhari not only remained silent until Gen. Abacha died but continued in his post as if corruption was no longer a serious misconduct that warrants resignation by a famous anti-corruption crusader like himself.

Meanwhile, Gen. Buhari’s willingness to pay N27.5 million demanded by APC for the presidential nomination forms and his claim of obtaining a bank loan for it raises issues of propriety and integrity. Why would a former military head of state reputed for his visceral dislike of financial rascality and who correctly rejected the over bloated benefits attached to his status accept to pay without protest over N27 million just to obtain the nomination forms of his party?

Should Gen. Buhari be totally exonerated from the N25.6 billion mismanaged when he was in charge of the PTF? The president-elect condemns nepotism and cronyism; still, according to media reports, he appointed his son-in-law as consultant to the organisation. Tunde Bakare, who was Buhari’s running mate in the 2011 presidential elections, believes in “contact without contamination” as justification for the awkward situation in which Gen. Buhari had to work closely with, and depend on, some of the most rapacious politicians in Nigerian history to boost his electability.

But realistically, given the morally anaemic character of our politics, can anybody rule out “contact with contamination” a priori? Would Buhari not compromise somewhat to placate the cabals that worked for his victory who otherwise might try to block any measure that jeopardises their interests? As I argued sometime ago, Buharimaniacs who continuously orchestrate Gen. Buhari’s anti-corruption reputation should reflect on Nuhu Ribadu’s warning that when you fight corruption, it will fight you back.

Now, consider Dr. Ifewodo’s celebratory approval of Buhari’s attempted kidnap of Umaru Dikko from London to face corruption charges at home. Because corruption has become the defining characteristic of Nigeria’s ruling elite, Nigerians would eagerly support any leader genuinely willing to fight the ogre, the level of support being proportional to the kind of jackboot approach used in doing so, especially when exhibited publicly as was the case during Buhari’s regime.

That is why Ifewodo and others who idolise Buhari on this issue are blind to the dangers of confronting corruption with military mentality. Whatever might be Dikko’s level of involvement in corruption then, which Gen. Buhari and his cohorts conveniently used as excuse to overthrow the government of Alhaji Shehu Shagari, his attempted kidnap is wrong. It is a paradigm example of delusional negative triumphalism that Ifewodo, a lawyer cum pro-democracy activist, would applaud such a dehumanising and illegal method of fighting corruption.

At first sight, the principle that an accused is deemed innocent until proved guilty seems like an unnecessary idealistic obstacle in the pursuit of justice to those who presume that any government official accused of corruption is guilty and must be brought to justice through any means whatsoever. However, if the Machiavellian principle implicit in that belief is accepted, there would be no limit to the measures government would take in fighting corruption, including the discredited tactics used by the Gestapo in the heydays of Nazi Germany.

To be continued