Buhari: My People Are Useless, My People Are Senseless, My People Are Indiscipline
By Obi Nwakanma
A wise man once told me: “Nigerians are mules, everyone who can,
kicks at them.” The thing is, the more things change, the more they feel
the same. In 1984, Major-General Muhamadu Buhari as military tyrant
diagnosed “indiscipline” as Nigeria’s national malaise.
The sexy power word in those days was “summarily.” Buhari promised
that the military government of which he was head would “summarily” deal
with any Nigerian who was found wanting in “discipline.” He quickly
launched a “War Against Indiscipline.” It caught on fire.
Nigerians were pressed to “behave.” They began to queue for buses and
other services in places like Lagos, notorious for jumping queues. That
was the greatest achievement of WAI: Nigerians learnt to queue.
Military governors sometimes arrived the gates of government
secretariats very early, and waited for government workers who arrived
late.
Late-coming civil servants were humiliated, made to kneel down
irrespective of their office or positions, or age, and frog-jumped as
punishment for coming late to work. In some cases, they were “summarily
dismissed.” Buhari’s government authorized armed soldiers to raid
warehouses, and seize the goods of traders accused of “hoarding
essential commodities.” That was in a period, of course, when
“ESSENCO”was very scarce. Buhari’s War Against Indiscipline, stemmed
from his genuine convictions that Nigerians were an undisciplined lot,
and had to be forced to obey the simple laws of the land, and of
courtesy.
Recent evidence suggests that Buhari continues to believe this as a
fundamental problem with the Nigerian character. Last week, our friends,
Dr. Barry and Claire Mauer had us all over for a party for Claire’s
birthday at their College Park, Orlando, home. We were all going at it,
with a little wine and sherry, and that good stuff, when Shanti, another
friend of ours said, “I hear your president say all you Nigerians are
unruly, and you need to stop being unruly!” I too had heard that the
previous day on the BBC.
It was big news for the BBC that president Buhari’s Independence Day
message to Nigerians was that Nigerians were “unruly.” It triggered
their fancy so much that they made such an event of it. They brought a
Nigerian, whose name I do not now recall, and Ghana’s Elizabeth Ohene,
to talk about the “unruliness” of Nigerians as claimed by a president
who increasingly seems really disconnected from the Nigerian reality. In
the symbolic moment of Nigeria’s 55th anniversary as an Independent
nation, more sober considerations should have been made regarding the
trajectory of Nigeria’s journey, the transitions that have been made,
and the true reasons for the failures of Nigeria.
We should rather celebrate the hardiness and resilience of Nigerians
in the face of a terribly confused administration as Buhari’s is turning
out to be.Ordinary Nigerians must not be made to carry the can for
failed political leadership this past fifty-five years, of which Buhari
has been a distinct part. The President had not much to say to Nigerians
except that Nigerians are unruly and discourteous, and must change, in
order to achieve development. Actually, this is the worst Independence
Day speech I have heard of any Nigerian president. It had no concrete
facts. It simply was high on the weed of self-indulgence. On such a
symbolic day, President Buhari should have celebrated Nigeria, and
offered it hope.
There are ordinary Nigerians laboring heroically to turn the
disadvantages of being Nigerian into something hopeful, and meaningful.
Nigerians are not unruly. The Nigerian child I know is taught, right
from the home, to be courteous, and respectful of people, especially,
older people. Nigerians know to “throway salute” when they meet you.
They say, “Afternoon, sir!” “Enlee ma!” “I boola chi e!” and so on.
Nigerians are not, by their very nature, or even by acculturation,
unruly or discourteous.
Our political leaders have been unruly and discourteous. Those are
the real culprits and makers of our national malaise. They have very
little regard or respect for the civil and economic rights of Nigerians.
Anyone who suddenly arrives at political office, begins immediately to
see the rest Nigerians as adversaries and enemies; people who must be
contained and repressed, and garrisoned.
Nigerians are constantly infantilized in the minds of the men and
women who arrive at power. That is the true meaning of unruliness: to
ride rough-shod on your county men because you have the privilege of the
protections of public office.
It is unruly of public office holders to capture the road on a hot,
uncomfortable, tropical day, with sirens and a long convoy, and
horse-whip people to the sideways, and travel freely while the rest must
deal with congested traffic. It is unruly to shield political power
holders behind the barricade of high walls inside government buildings,
while the rest of Nigerians are left to the vagaries of crime. I think
President Buhari must first, look inward.
As president, propriety demands that he be accompanied by no more
than his police orderly in public, while the secret service organize his
security with unseen and invisible agents, who mingle with the crowd,
without harassing Nigerians with an overwhelming image of armed power.
It is the image of overwhelming force, especially modeled by the
military that has created the psychological crisis that has reduced
Nigerians to its current social miasma. Nigerians, subjected to force
rather than governance, since 1966, are suffering from the trauma of
social violence, and are reproducing that violence. They know nothing
else but the unruliness modeled by the makers of the public system: the
government, and political leadership. It will not do merely to preach
order, curtsey in society, when the conditions in which Nigerians live
make it possible.
If there was a well-organized public transport system, Nigerians
would have no need to “rush.” But in a city like Lagos, with a
population over fifteen million, to have only one means of moving that
population is madness in itself. It is nightmarish, and the social
pressure of moving about in Lagos which ought to, like cities even half
its size, have an underground system, a surface metro system, a water
transport system, as well as well-kept roads that do not clog up
movement, makes courtesy difficult, and unruliness only a means of
survival.
A man who has no access to clean public toilets, must defecate, and
if he cannot find any will be forced to the indignity of relieving
himself in public. To prevent that, it is incumbent on governments to
provide clean public toilets in strategic places, to prevent such
unruliness. The government itself must model the meaning of courtesy, by
treating the public with the highest respect in public.
A government officer, like a policeman or soldier or tax collector,
who harasses any member of the public is modeling unruliness; a
government who keeps armed soldiers and police on the highways and
streets where they harass Nigerians, is an unruly administration, and
will reproduce an unruly nation.
A government that offers, not work, but whips to Nigerians, will
create the kind of social pressure that will make civilized conduct
impossible. So, President Buhari should for a moment, get off the back
of Nigerians. Nigerians did not elect him merely to preach, they elected
him to act. So, to make Nigerians more courteous, the government should
begin a work program, strengthen internal regulations and enforcement
codes in the public service, provide public infrastructure, enough to
make an aggressive search for it redundant. That will reduce the kind of
social pressures that make Nigerians unruly.
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