Dictators and Presidents
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Nigeria is a beautiful country populated by a wonderful people. Through oil, it has been directly and detrimentally connected to the US for decades. I did two elections in Nigeria, the first in 2015 and the second in 2019. In both elections, the opposition candidate was Muhammadu Buhari. In the first he was the challenger, in the second, the incumbent. Buhari died on Sunday in London. This Day has a fair, accurate, and well worth reading account of the former dictator turned president’ life.
Buhari’s life was representative of Nigerian politics since independence. He was from the bottom of the Muslim north and rose to the top through the army. The first republic of Nigeria lasted only a few years. An army coup, with Buhari as a young officer, instituted a series of military dictatorships running the place for the next three and half decades. He was an officer in the Biafra War in the late 60s. In the mid-70s, he was put in charge of the oil industry. In 1983, Buhari himself overthrew the newly reinstalled and duly elected civilian government, declaring himself “Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.”
This Day writes of his efforts,
"Under the infamous Decree Number Two of 1984 which gave security operatives the powers to detain, without charges for up to three months individuals they perceived to be security risks."
"Many Nigerians, including journalists, were detained while there was also a ban on public demonstrations. The height of the administration’s high-handedness was the handing down of ridiculous jail terms for former politicians who held elected positions between 1979 and 1983.
"There was also the Decree Number Four of 1984, the Protection against False Accusations Decree. This decree stated that ‘any person who publishes in any form, whether written or otherwise, any message, rumour, report or statement which is false in any material particular or which brings or is calculated to bring the Federal Military Government…to ridicule or disrepute shall be guilty of an offence under this Decree.’”
(A longer historical context piece is provided by Chiamaka Echebiri, The Making of Muhammadu Buhari As A Bad Boy, Courtesy of The West: His Puppeteers.)
As despot, the Commander in Chief was great with pronouncements and decrees, but his administration proved so inept he was couped by his own army in less than a year. After 2000, with civilian rule reinstalled, Buhari began his electoral career. Ditching his military uniform for traditional attire, he built his base in the Muslim north, including endorsing Sharia law. In 2015, after three previous failed runs, he defeated the sitting president Goodluck Jonathan, running a campaign against the rampant corruption and dysfunction of the system.
Reports on Buhari’s life all focus on this rather unique achievement of defeating the incumbent Jonathan, and, yes he did. However, the real force in that election was Goodluck, who was bound and determined, against the advise of many in his party, of running “a free and fair election,” even if it meant his defeat, and it did. The greatest election tactic Buhari took was to ally with former Lagos governor and now current president, Bula Tinibu. Certainly, it was amusing to watch corruption crusader Baba Buhari ally with Tinibu. The joke swirling in Nigeria as the election approached was if Buhari won, the first person jailed in his fight against corruption would be Tinibu. Needless to say, once in office, Buhari’s ranting against corruption and dysfunction proved completely meaningless. "He was a spectacular failure in this regard,” writes This Day.
What I learned in Nigeria was a lot about the American system. After a number of months, I use to hold my hands a couple feet apart and then bring them together saying, “Here’s Nigeria and here’s the US, we are coming together politically.” The Nigerians, who appreciated my sense of humor, would all laugh. I’d reply, “No, no, I’m deadly serious.”
What came to me pretty quickly in Nigeria was two things; first, elections make little difference if people are simply elected into a completely dysfunctional government system, never mind how corrupt the process getting them in is. Nigeria’s government system had been constituted without any concern for the particulars of the Nigerian experience. State and most especially local government had no independent authority. They were completely dependent on the central government. After two-hundred and fifty years, the American republic has degenerated to a similar, though not quite yet as extreme position.
Secondly, the political process itself was entirely dysfunctional. Elections mean little if there is no underlying political infrastructure where before campaigns begin robust education, communication, and discussion between the voters has not occurred. The Nigerian republic never had any such politics. In America, such infrastructure was long ago crushed by electronic media, starting with radio, then most devastatingly by television, and now buried by the internet.
In this regards, the NYT’s has an amusing recent piece on the Democratic party's now decades long discussion on revival, which is regularly suspended as soon they gain the presidency and access to the loot. One of the rich people running things gives his ridiculous insight, “’We do think the brand is toxic and lacks a clear set of values and policy products and communication and distribution capabilities,’ Mr. Pritzker said.” Lord, lord, lord, if you have the stomach, that is funny – marketing and advertising ain't politics.
Baba’s body returned to Nigeria today. He remains a hero to many of the country’s most dispossessed, though his life-tenure in Nigerian politics did them and all of Nigeria little good. He still offers plenty of important lessons for Nigeria and more than a few for America in 2025.
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