By Rotimi Fasan

AT this point, the eleventh hour almost literally of his presidency, perhaps the best thing to say is that President Muhammadu Buhari lacks the emotional intelligence or those finer qualities like empathy and generosity of spirit, that define a true leader. He may have been very adept at wielding the stick, he hardly ever wields the carrot.

During the flashpoint times of insecurity such as when cattle herders and farmers clashed, the Boko Haram insurgency, banditry and the series of economic crises and inflationary trends that were characterised by high cost of goods and services, including high energy cost and, in fact, outright scarcity or unavailability of fuel, etc., President Buhari often displayed such worrisome level of disconnect or nonchalance that bordered on the inhuman. 

The only charitable thing to say about that kind of behaviour is that he was shielded from the truth of the reality most Nigerians lived in and so couldn’t understand their pain in those moments that demanded his urgent and steadfast attention. And he more or less lent credence to this line of thought by his sometimes-offhanded remark that he was not aware of whatever Nigerians might be getting exercised by. All of which earned him the “Mr. I’m not aware” appellation among sections of the Nigerian public. At another level, President Buhari’s apparent lack of concern about the dire situation both his policies and tepid leadership style  tend to plunge Nigerians into may be due to his belief that he has often given Nigerians his best which, going  by Nigerians’ reactions, has not been good enough. Having gone on like this for eight years, detached and unperturbed by the everyday worries of the people, should it be surprising that Buhari is now eager to leave for his homestead in Daura where he hopes to spend his retirement in bucolic splendour, tending his cattle and perhaps spending grandfatherly moments with his grandchildren.

The charade of a relationship between the Buhari government, if not Buhari as an individual, and Nigerians has become such a huge burden to bear that each side can’t wait to see the other leave- Buhari for Daura and Nigerians with their lives. Yet one cannot deny that even leaders, presidents, governors and whatnot, must have their moments of introspection when they would ask themselves if they had done well by the people over whose life they have had charge. In Buhari’s case, he sought mandate to lead the Nigerian people on three separate occasions and failed. He wouldn’t make it until his fourth attempt. 

For a man who earnestly offered himself for service four separate times, even cried because of his previous losses as Bola Tinubu observed in his Abeokuta outburst in the lead-up to the presidential primaries of the All Progressives Congress, APC, could Nigerians be blamed to have obliged him or imagined he must have so much under his babariga to give and for which they would have regretted had he gone home untried? But Nigerians heeded his call and gave Buhari a rare chance to lead them again after three decades and that was when the bubble burst and the myth exploded. 

Buhari was given the opportunity and he has, to put it very charitably, disappointed most Nigerians. It’s not as if it’s a hundred per cent failure. No government, hopefully, can be that egregious. But Buhari has done far less than could have been expected of a man whose first coming as a Nigerian leader, a military dictator, recorded such failures that a second chance as an elected leader could have corrected. But his first coming seems far more purpose-driven than the second in which he appears to have sought office only to assuage the sense of loss that his unexpected ouster from power in 1985 must have occasioned. 

All that Buhari has done in his eight years as a two-term president could have been conveniently compressed into the 20 months he served as a Head of State between December 31, 1983 and August 27, 1985. He didn’t need more than that it’s obvious, now he is leaving office in about three weeks. Had he not had his wish to again lead Nigeria fulfilled, the myth would have persisted that Nigerians lost their best opportunity to be led by a man of uncommon abilities. And a very honest one, Mai Gaskiya, to booth. Perhaps, someone would also have described him as Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu (in an obvious echo of a writer/journalist, I have since learned) did Chief Obafemi Awolowo, calling him the best president Nigeria never had. What Buhari has, however, proven is that to nurse an ambition to lead is not the same thing as to be the leader of a people, especially a much-abused people in need of good leadership as Nigerians.  

Buhari came into office on May 29, 2015 virtually unprepared. He took all of six months almost to start filling cabinet positions and left many offices unfilled in the ministries, departments and agencies years into his presidency. Some of his appointees were in fact deceased well before they were appointed. And rather than lead from the front, he left Nigerians to unelected handlers in “the presidency”, sat back to watch things from the sidelines. Words became prized objects as the new president became uncommunicative and Nigerians became cabalists and were reduced to reading his lips and making sense of his body language. Buhari became the avid onlooker at his own performance.  

To compound matters, he was hardly settled into his Aso Rock Villa residence than he took ill and, thereafter, began the medical tourism that has so far become a major part of his time in office. Less than three weeks to the end of his presidency, he is still travelling, the last as I write being to the coronation of King Charles III of England. His trips have in these last days and weeks taken the shape of farewell tours, veritable swansongs, to places he would no longer have the opportunity to visit at the expense of tax payers.  

Having had the opportunity of such pleasure-filled presidency with virtually no contrary word from a legislature that all but proclaimed itself a rubber stamp conclave of bench warmers, the president must be coming to the realisation that he has taken Nigerians for a cheap ride. If not for anything else, that’s enough reason to be introspective and probably remorseful. It is, perhaps, the reason President Muhammadu Buhari is asking for the forgiveness of Nigerians. This is hardly the sentiment to be expected of a leader that is leaving office spent. His presidency has been a brief candle, a blink of the eyelid in terms of the goals set and achieved. It may very well not have been.