The inauguration speech of a new President is unique in a number of ways and for a number of reasons. It is the first after a campaign and thus provides the newly-elected President an opportunity to articulate, in a bipartisan (non- partisan) manner, his vision of development for the nation. It is one speech regarded as being from the heart of the man-of-the-moment, knowing that the speech-maker is no longer under the debilitating pressure represented by political hustings. It is untainted by the legendary penchant of bureaucrats everywhere to compel obedience of incoming political operatives to what the former consider the practical realities of governance, defining the transition from Candidate to President, as the case may be.
In President Muhammadu Buhari’s case, it is a speech that came after four attempts, spanning all of 12 years, at becoming President. It, therefore, cannot be waived off as just another speech. No, it is not. Rather, it allows us the citizens access into the inner recesses of the mind of the speaker and serve as a necessary compass for gauging the direction of his government. It is this importance that an Inauguration Speech holds that compelled this intervention of ours.
One was privileged to have read a few commentaries on the speech. The United States Secretary of State, John Kerry’s and the one by the Governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose, were patently diplomatic and political respectively.
Ebun Adegoruwa and Kayode Ajulo, in separate pieces, both noted that the Buhari’s speech sounded more like a campaign treatise rather than a statement of intent from a newly inaugurated President. I cannot agree with them more, but there are also some quite profound features of the speech which they did not see or failed to mention. I wish to call attention to these in the context in which they represent, for me, ominous signs from the throne of power.
Mr. President set the tone for his speech by suggesting that his would be the first ever democratically-elected government in Nigeria, or perhaps since 1999. According to him, “We have today a truly democratically-elected government in place.” The sense in this is that not since 1999 had we had a “truly democratically-elected government in place”. I doubt if even the most critical observers of our electoral process these past years, bumpy as it is, would agree with this narration. The culture of our politician not to accept defeat and put down any election in which they are not favoured as rigged is definitely what is abroad here. Above all, there is what sounds like a tinge of megalomaniac therein, which if it is correct, is quite ominous.
One would have expected Mr. President to accept the facts of history even where such do not seem to favour him, in this instance that he actually lost those earlier elections he was referring to.
Perhaps more importantly, many would argue that the results of the 2015 elections were not uncontentious because the elections were free and fair. Rather, the elections were not contentious because critical players chose to accept the results. To then give the impression that the 2015 presidential election was not just a free and fair one, but the very first in the history of democratic engagement in the country is again, quite ominous.
This is where the decision of former President Goodluck Jonathan to concede defeat is critical. Indeed, one of the two great things about the Buhari speech are its very brief nature, and the great tribute it paid to the former President who in spite of the evident limitations of the election was quick to concede defeat. Those who sought to belittle what the man did by insinuating that he .had no choice anyway, or that he was threatened to do so, I am sure would have got better educated by Buhari’s own analysis of the issue, I think a day before he was sworn in. It was to the effect that Jonathan had a choice as he could have made the entire transition process quite messy. At worst, he could have chosen to be the fall-guy, in the event that he failed to retain the prized stool for himself. He could have played Samson in the Bible who decided to bring down an entire edifice with himself. That Jonathan chose not to do this in spite of obvious temptations is worthy of celebration.
He has led Nigeria on its first critical step to what Larry Diamond called “the two turn-over rule” by which democratic consolidation is measured. In celebrating Jonathan on this score, I think, more than anything else, Buhari elevated himself.
Now, whether the “act of graciously accepting defeat by (an) outgoing President” would “become the standard political conduct in the country” as hoped for by Buhari in his speech, it must be said, is totally in the hands of the President to determine being the next in line that has an election to face.
It is intriguing why Buhari chose to make a distinction between those who voted for him and those who did not. It was uncalled for. It was distractive and greatly detracted from the profundity of the speech. The truth is that his victory notwithstanding, President Buhari is in to preside over a deeply divided nation. Yes, the President won resoundingly in the North, especially in the North-West zone with those heavy figures. He managed to scrape a victory in the South-West, but lost comprehensively in the entire East (South-East and South-South). In the circumstances, Mr. President has a duty, and he must discharge this as quickly as possible, to bring the nation together. And so, these are not times to begin to make a distinction between those who voted for him and those who did not.
That is as unnecessary as it is divisive. It is perhaps the only context in which his “I belong to everybody …” line would have been apt, not in the sense in which he used it here as we shall indicate presently.
In the ever-present desire to draw blood, many Nigerians and of course their news media celebrated with much glee the assertion by the President that, “I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody”. That would seem to have resonated well with a large number of people, making it perhaps the most quoted aspect of the speech. Yet, looked at more critically, this assertion, I make bold to aver, does no service to the cause of democracy in our land. Now, I guess most people who felt good about that aspect of the speech imputed it to mean a reference to the godfather(s) in the APC. While this intervention does not in any way constitute an endorsement of “godfatherism” in politics, or better still the “godfathers” in reference, it calls attention to the fact, as adumbrated by Phillipe Schumpeter that every democracy is “pacted”. It is every time and everywhere a pact between several tendencies and constituencies. This is particularly applicable to the elite in politics, some of whom may have the structures, funds and the grit but not the candidate for an election and vice versa.
The truth, therefore, is that Buhari’s adumbration, populist as it may seem, gives an idea of a man who found some group’s structures useful in attaining power only for him to want to quickly disown same. Recall that in spite of the much- trumpeted cult following the President as candidate was supposed to have in the North, he ran for this office and lost on three consecutive occasions. And then, he found comfort in the political machinery of some other tendencies that made him win at his fourth attempt. He, therefore, in good conscience, cannot now plead for and seek to occupy the moral high-ground and play an orphan. For, the truth is, he, like most political office holders in all climes and in all ages, is owned. What he should seek to do is not to disown the platform that made him President, and so early at that, but to find a way to carefully navigate such that where the particularistic interests of that political machine is at variance with the nation’s, he casts his lot with the latter.
Anything short of that would be opportunistic. It would not augur well for stability and growth of democratic institutions in the country. To be concluded on Tuesday Mimiko is a Professor of Political Science at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. www.punchng.com/opinion/of-inauguration-speech-and-ominous-signs-1/ |