Buhari’s appointments: A matter of prerogative? -By Fola Ojo

Fola Ojo

I have an immense admiration for cowboys. They are easy going, tenacious, rough and tough, and trustworthy. They breathe and live honour and loyalty, and are not afraid to step on toes especially if it is for the public good. Cowboys have impeccable work ethics; and they are ready to die working. They are not usually big, boisterous talkers; but don’t mistake cowboys’ taciturnity for lack of what to say. They have plenty thoughts kept to their chests; they only wait until the fullness of time to speak. President Muhammadu Buhari is a cowboy; I have not been jolted by his recent cowboy style.

After the presidential election, I was forewarned in Houston about what is now unfurling. One of the President’s men who have been around him from since his days as military Head of State told me pointblank that jaws would drop when appointments into government positions were made. He was right. Jaws are now dropping, and emotions are boiling too. In one fell swoop, men from the North now seem to be filling up the honey jar while the rest of the nation feel that both milk and honey are covertly being drain-piped too far away from them. The portrayal of this President as an unrepentant ethnic jingoist is again retrieved from the archives of profiling and stereotyping. The lyrical rendition that filled the air during the campaign is once again rehashed and making its way back to the podium of public hubbub and brouhaha.

Like a desperately thirsty deer squatting by the brooks to quaff down soothing water, the President’s adherents had expected certain positions to go in certain directions as they await job offers. One by one like flies off a heated barbecue grill, the Ogbonnaya Onus, the Chibuike Amaechis, and the Babatunde Fasholas of this world are dropped from the list and from the President’s lips. Appointments are now made in piecemeal and gradation; tub-thumpers are surprised, and both political foes and some friends are fuming in anger. The appointments so far arrived with bangs and bombshells and like bolt out of the blue.

But in an honest analysis of the political scenery, it is important to note that Buhari’s legions of accusers and traducers aren’t all mad men from the moon. If almost 85 per cent of the first set of appointees is from one part of the family, there will be suspicions. If only one part of the family is deemed more honest, Nigerians will ask questions. But not all questioning voices are rebellious and anti-Buhari; not all dissenting voices think the President is subtly driving a northern agenda. When national issues are hazy and fuzzy, it is sapient to ask questions. I was initially angered too until it all settled in that this is Buhari’s Presidency.

As far as this writer is concerned, the man has not shown himself to be a bigot; this President has no heart for ethnic hate. I still stand by this gospel until I am proved wrong. It is however true that Mr. President’s start-off appointments have been skewed too far and too deep into the heart of the North. The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, John Oyegun, however disagrees: “It is too early and superficial to say the appointments were lopsided. We are just a little over two months into the government. The appointments made so far are personal staff members of the President. And it is his prerogative to make those appointments.”

The personality of a leader influences the kind of people he chooses to work with. A thieving personality leader surrounds himself with thieves. So do drunkards and philanderers. This President is an introvert who has operated socially within a certain circle of people all of his life; and many of them are from the North. He is an anchorite not an open-field convivialist; his gregariousness is in the closet kept away from the prying eyes of the public. He only danced once in the public for just two seconds in Ibadan; but this man is not dancing around the expected pedigrees of who he wants to work with. With a man whose god is not his belly, and love of money not his interceding priest, he will be wary of gold-digging wolves as lieutenants driving his vision. And there are very many men hunting money in Nigerian politics.

Former President Goodluck Jonathan has been accused of many things; but I never heard him branded an ethnic jingoist. However, a perusal of the list of those who worked with him in various capacities; and an unrushed peep into the roster of men and women who held juicy offices and caviar positions under him paint an interesting picture. Deliberately or by happenstance, a large percentage of the appointees Jonathan felt comfortable with were from the South-South and South-East. It was his prerogative. When America’s Barack Obama became President in 2008, a big draw of his inner-circle men and women who did not have to go through the partisan headache of a Senate confirmation process were drawn from his Chicago home town. After the election of 1960, President John Kennedy appointed his brother Robert as US Attorney General. It doesn’t mean that these men despised others; they just trusted more those they knew the longest.

Nigeria’s case study, however, is incomparably more complex than stories in less intricate societies. In Nigeria, everybody is suspicious of everybody. The appointment of a person from one ethnic block is ignorantly misconstrued as a representation of the interest of that particular ethnic group. If it were, the South-South and South-East should have become as Las Vegas today with all its roads asphalted in gold because of Goodluck Jonathan’s six-year Presidency. If it were, the entire South-West should today be a global glamour and glitter because of Olusegun Obasanjo’s command-and-control from Aso Rock for eight years and more as a military Head of State. If it were, Northern Nigeria wall-to-wall should have become as Mecca and Medina as a result of northerners’ hold on leadership for almost forty years. But what did Nigerians get in return?

Stupendously rich men were fabricated and bred over time; but poverty, squalor, and diseases continue to ravage the rest of us. When the Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo political appointees grab power and influence, they represent not the interest of ordinary people but themselves. Only the machines of manipulation of few powerful men who want to get more powerful are continually oiled by proceeds from Nigeria’s oil. Ethnic representation through appointment has only offered a psychological and phantom relief. Nigerians need to grow past all the ethnic malarkey and tribal blah-blah; the vice has never served the generality well.

This President has vowed to follow letters of the law regarding appointments; but expect more out-of-the-box appointment announcements from him here on. As we wait for what September brings, we expect the President to take risks with men who took risks on him during the campaign. Even from among those who did not vote for him he should consider selections. After all, we are all Nigerians only because of Nigeria. All regions are endowed with men and women of substance who have a lot to offer in expertise and knowledge.

If Mr. President’s problem continues in finding candidates who have not soiled their fingers with the pudding of thievery and not bowed to the god of corruption, this writer is only one e mail push and phone call away. There is a daily Air France flight from Chicago en route Paris to Abuja. By day and by night, I am available to help him.