Nobody Is Learning From The Mistake Of Buhari  By Abraham Ogbodo 

 

By Abraham Ogbodo

 

It is like no lesson was learnt. I had expected that after the demise of former President Muhammadu Buhari and the reviews that followed, chronicling the hollowness of a life without impact, and how his departure would not leave behind sweet memories, subsisting political actors would be wise. This is not the case.

 

In Psychology, there is something called Constitutional Theory of Personality, or simply, Constitutional Psychology. It seeks to project the personality from the physique. It says, in characterisation and social ranking, there is a correlation between what is seen and what is hidden. Almost like getting to the unknown from the known. It encapsulates that moment when silence or better still, inaction, is golden and could be loaded with assumptions about one’s potentials.

 

Imagine for once if Buhari had died without being President of Nigeria for the second time between 2015 and 2023. He would have died silent and largely unexplored. Nothing would have happened to explode the myth of a high performer that was built around him by a cult followership. He would have died enjoying all the beautiful assumptions about his personality. All the pre-2015 big stories about his integrity, discipline, patriotism, vision and passion would have been sustained from cradle to grave. He would have departed with so much glory and perhaps recorded to join the late sage, Pa Obafemi Awolowo, as the best President that Nigeria never had.

 

Fortunately and unfortunately, Nigeria had Buhari as President. He unravelled in eight long years to mismatch his constitutional rating. William Sheldon, the exponent of Constitutional Psychology, had invented a language register to go with his theory. He names the human physique which forms the basis of all his projections the somatotype . This is a broad categorisation that has three sub divisions called endomorph , mesomorph and ectomorph .

 

I have no intention to drag you through some esoteric psycho-analysis here. We shall keep it simple by bringing Buhari into the exact compartment that he belongs in the taxonomy.
William Sheldon calls the Buhari type, ectomorph. The term describes a thin and straight physique. You can add a lean and hungry look if you like. It best captures the Buhari persona.

 

Buhari had a lean and austere looks. His build was slim and linear. None of these features betrayed a tendency towards copious consumption and ostentation. He was highly recommended by these bohemian credentials. He was the one Nigerians were waiting for to curb the profligacy in high places and redirect for good, the micro and macroeconomic pathways of the country.

 

For today’s purpose, the constitutional theory of personality will be stretched beyond the physique. The moral estimation around Buhari was also good. The man had looked impeccable and agreeable; both in and out, until he was tested in actual operations. He had collapsed like a pack of cards in action. It means the projection from outward to inward failed. Buhari’s presumed potentials vanished in motion, and expectant Nigerians were served a dish of disappointment.

 

Today, many other actors on the political landscape are not doing any better than Buhari. Or showing any inclination that they have learnt from the mistake of Buhari. Their manifestations in operations are a negation of their rating, using the constitutional theory of personality.

 

For instance, it would have been a lot more honourable if Adams Oshiomhole had remained just a Comrade. His transition to governor, party chairman, and now senator has not translated to value addition. If anything, his high personality as President of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) has been degraded by his forays in partisan politics.

 

Maybe I should add this to put Oshiomhole in perspective. In the years of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in Aso Rock, there was another president called Comrade Adams Oshiomhole. Against Obasanjo, Oshiomole was a better president. Nigerians listened more to him in matters of the people’s welfare. If there was a presidential statement, people waited to know which of the Presidents, between Obasanjo and Oshiomhole, had spoken and to what effect. While Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole was the Peoples of Nigeria. There was a division of labour. While President Obasanjo controlled Nigeria, President Comrade Oshiomhole controlled Nigerians.

 

I do not wish to get too explicit and limit the imagination. It is on that note that I will leave the verdict in your hands. I am asking, who, between Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and Governor/Party Chairman/Senator Adams Oshiomhole, is a better Nigerian? If Oshiomhole had failed in the Edo State governorship quest and frozen as past president of the NLC, the yearning, perhaps, would still be on today for him to break free from retirement and step unto the political turf to chart the direction for purposeful leadership in Nigeria. All the revelations about him would have been hidden and he would stand tall forever as a man of the people.

 

This is not to say that the Comrade has not brought anything new to the table of political leadership. He mixes activism with governance and decorum. Talking or acting like a labour leader to hurt others has become his unique selling point. He shoots recklessly for effects. First, he talks to underscore his oratorical prowess and then to tell his listener that he fears nothing and nobody. Anything that gives him an advantage is fair. If standing against the removal of fuel subsidy made him a better president than President Obasanjo in the years past, it was the most noble achievement on earth. Years later, if floating the naira and a complete deregulation of the downstream petroleum sector to further burden hapless Nigerians, guaranteed a better political alignment and survival, it is all well and good. The rules are only good to the extent that they could be bent to serve his purpose.

 

The election that returned Monday Okpebholo as Governor of Edo State might have been rated by Oshiomhole as the best ever conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The subsequent judicial review that affirmed the election at the Supreme Court might have come in his estimation as the best enrichment of Nigeria’s electoral jurisprudence. His truth is a moving target. Only his interest is constant.

 

Okpebholo himself was the best candidate the APC could forward for the governorship election in Edo State. As it is already panning out, Okpebholo would have been more dignified with just remaining a distinguished senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Nothing more would have been known about him if he had remained a passive member of the Red Chamber. But here he is today, worrying not just about doing the right things but even more worried about the right things to say and when to say them. He is verbally and quantitatively challenged. His syntax and semantics do not align. His quantitative reasoning is worse. Nothing is adding up for him except his mistakes.

 

It is only in Nigeria that applicants ask for jobs that are higher than their competences. This is more so in politics where negativity is normative. Politicians do not apply to work. They invest heavily to work and convert employment to investment that attracts profit instead of wages. I am not quite at home with developments in Anambra State. But some people are saying that Prof. Chukwuma Soludo would have been more solid if he had remained former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria without asking for the Anambra version.

 

Soludo is a respected professor of economics. Now, after about four years of manifestation as Governor of Anambra State, people are talking to him anyhow, as if he doesn’t understand a jack about development even as a professor of economics. They are giving more points to the trader called Peter Obi, who governed the state about 15 years ago.

 

As you can see, it is not for nothing that the arresting police officer usually advises the crime suspect to stay quiet or else whatever he or she says will be used against him or her in the court of law. When you remain still, you retain all your potentials including the potentials that do not exist in you. You keep assessors guessing as to what resides in you.
Even fools enjoy the benefit of doubt when they maintain silence. Speech and action are expository and take away the cover from an impostor. This rests on a scientific foundation too. At rest, the potential energy is not easily captured. It is more easily measured in kinetics or dynamics. That is, jumping up and down, like Buhari did, instead of staying calm to keep valid the perception of strength.

 

Annoyingly, the Buhari mistake is becoming a standard practice in political leadership in Nigeria. Yesteryears impostors as human and civil rights activists have all unraveled as pretenders in politics. The list is long. It comprises students as well as ASUU activists. They spoke in the past as if a better today depended on their political ascendance. They have since ascended. The current President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio is one. So also is the Senate Majority Leader, Michael Opeyemi Bamidele. There is also Prof. Julius Ihonvbere in the House of Representatives. They are scattered everywhere in the executive and in the judiciary. They are in the 36 states and the 174 council areas, too.

 

The unraveling in all ramifications is very good for the country. It is like the breeze that blows to expose the anus of the fowl. Tomorrow will surely come. When it comes, none of these pretenders will be listed as the best leader that Nigeria never had. Nigeria has had them all and they have been dealing instead of leading.

 

Let the Buhari mistake continue. It is a good elixir. Constitutional Psychology is a false prophet. What lies beyond the physique, the façade, and the somatotype is far more important. The Buhari mistake has been able to expose that.