Since this administration began more than a year ago,
there has been only one presidential media chat by
President Muhammadu Buhari. Given his rather tepid
performance on that occasion, one can understand
why his handlers would not be too eager to bring him
out to the public square again. One thing they must
know is that he cannot shut himself within Aso Rock
forever, speaking only to foreign journalists and
communicating to Nigerians, his immediate
constituency, through unenthusiastic press releases.
As a matter of fact, a president owes the nation
regular communication and not the scant occasions
they invite a few pre-selected journalists for a
“chat.”


As an aside, I think the present format of the media
chat – a carryover from the Olusegun Obasanjo’s
“Babatocracy” day – is outdated and should be
scrapped. First, a president does not need a whole
village of pressmen to sit and interview him; one
person who knows his or her onions is enough. If he
wants to meet a company of journalists, then, let him
address an open press conference where any of the
Aso Rock press correspondents can ask him questions.
No matter the reason behind the impersonal manner
he has responded to certain issues, he and his aides
should know that silence and its variants sometimes
speak louder than words.


I think one of the key diminishing factors of Buhari’s
government is the lack of effective communication
strategy between the Presidency and the people. His
aides have failed to evolve communication methods
that are consonant with the Buhari personality they
tried to project. For a while after the election,
Buhari ran on the fuel of reputation but his failure to
sustain that massive goodwill was because they (and
one can say the same of his predecessor) took the
post-election euphoria for granted, thinking it would
not need nurture to blossom. They forgot that there
are multiple stages in the life of an administration
and there would be many unpopular moments. At such
times, constantly connecting to the people who gave
you the mandate is highly crucial otherwise you
advertise either your imperviousness to their
concerns or your incompetence for the job they gave
you.

We live in the times where we see other leaders
shedding the mystique of power and are relating with
their citizens at an affable level. Buhari does none of
that for he is an old dog whose natural stiffness and
antiquarian approach to power has not been beaten
into new tricks. If he cares about improving his
relationship with people, he should overhaul his
present team and hire professionals who can put up a
better structure through which the Presidency
reaches people regularly, coherently and
professionally. These are tough times; people are at
the edge and we need to know where we are being led.


The issues that leave one confused about the
direction Nigeria is taking are piling up. There is the
lingering question of “restructuring” and “true
federalism”, terms that are gradually becoming some
kind of nostrum hawked by virtually everyone with
access to media space. At least, we all think Nigeria is
structurally faulty, and that we cannot continue to
run the present unwieldy system without confronting
that reality. That promise was the opening line in the
Buhari/APC manifesto and it is therefore surprising
that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo would refute it. Is
that the new official position of their Presidency (and
of course, the party) or is it an underworked and
overpaid aide that crafted that idea? Why do they
assume that these twin propositions are antipodal?
Did they consider that the recurring problem of the
Niger Delta is partly owed to the problematic
structure of the federation and that is part of the
problem “restructuring” is meant to address? Or, was
Osinbajo so desperate to undercut former VP,
Abubakar Atiku, who made a loud call for
“restructuring” that he had to shoot himself in the
leg?

On security, we should like to know what
government’s agenda on violence caused by herdsmen,
militants, and other murderous groups. Now and then,
the APC members are questioned about security and
their response is usually that they have “degraded”
Boko Haram. They go on rambling excuses about other
cases of violence taking place in Nigeria, a mode of
denial that suggests that they are no longer tickled
by news of the deaths and there is no urgency to their
approach. Then, they reach for their pet dog:
corruption; how their government is fighting it and
how it is fighting back. By this time, you want to
sidestep them, go directly to the President and ask
him what practical use the rule of law has if it cannot
guarantee people’s lives? Or, at best, redress their
death? Why have they been expending so much
resources on entrenching the rule of law if people can
get butchered and their killers stroll past the rule of
law itself? Why is the zeal that drives the anti-
corruption efforts not equal to the one directed
towards fighting those who kill and destroy? It is a
question I would love Buhari to look Nigerians in the
face and answer. Not to pan his face across a stream
of journalists in the room –which is another
deficiency in the media chat structure because it
allows presidents to be much insincere; by answering
everyone, they answer no one – but to look Nigerians
directly through the camera and tell us why his
priorities are so arranged.


President Buhari should face us and tell us why he and
those around him are evading the question of the
Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai. Where
was the same APC that cried that a former Minister of
Aviation, Ms. Stella Oduah, must be removed based on
accusation of corruption? How come they have not
brought the same spirit of integrity to question
themselves over Buratai? Why is it that the same
people that cried over the immigration recruitment
scam that resulted in tragedy in 2014 are suddenly
blind to the employment scams in the Central Bank of
Nigeria and Federal Inland Revenue Service?


There are media reports of people exchanging their
children for food. The last time I heard of people
exchanging their children for a bag of rice was in
Papua New Guinea. To think it could happen in Nigeria
is extremely baffling. Some reports reveal that
poorer Nigerians, gripped by hunger pangs, shed
decency and steal food right on the cooking stove.
Those are worrisome occurrences that should not be
merely minimised by paid squealers who mindlessly
mouth tawdry logic. In the life of an administration,
certain incidents occur that signal extreme
dysfunctionality in the polity. Those incidents, for
sensitive leaders, are epiphanies that call out the
many mundane ones. Those striking incidents tell a
leader whose ears are functioning, whose head is not
dipped in his own orifice and his mind cross-ventilated
with his own faecal matter, that something is wrong
with the society’s mechanism. A responsive leader will
break out of his bubble of denial and attend to the
undercurrent that resulted in that iconic instance.


In the Bible, that moment came for King Ben-hadad
when two of his citizens revealed that they had
resorted to boiling their own children to eat due to
the famine in the land. That was the king’s moment of
clarity and insight as to the severity of the crisis.
Nigeria is going through many similar moments right
now and there is hunger in the land. This is the time
for Buhari to rise and give account of his stewardship
so far. Let us hear him, in his own voice, answer the
question on everyone’s lips: What is the meaning of
this suffering Nigerians are subjected to? What good
is it supposed to do? When and how does it end?



source:
http://punchng.com/next-presidential-media-chat/