How Not to Defend Buhari

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

 

HOW NOT TO DEFEND BUHARI

 

By Moses E. Ochonu

 

 

 

 

There is a roving, seemingly ubiquitous army of Nigerians who have appointed themselves defenders of President Buhari. Unfortunately, by employing offensive and ineffective logics and tactics, these fanatical supporters of the president are doing more reputational harm than good to their hero, and turning away compatriots who would otherwise be willing to give the president a fair hearing on the mounting disappointments with his administration.

 

Yesterday, I saw an update on my Facebook timeline with the following words: "if Jonathan had won, the dollar would be exchanging for N1000." This was apparently advanced to counter the criticism of the Naira's current free fall under the confused monetary policy of this administration.

 

Where does one begin on this fanatically blind, impulsive defense of Buhari? First of all, that statement begins from a premise of absence, which is a no-no in logic. Jonathan did not win, so we do not and cannot know what would have happened to the Naira had he won. That belongs in the realm of known unknowns, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld.

 

Historians call this counterfactual logic or argument. And, by the way, since when did Jonathan become the baseline of comparison for the author(s) of this Facebook update?

 

Second, it is a defense that slyly attempts to divert our attention away from the current Forex reality, which is that under Buhari the Naira has lost about 40 percent of its value against the dollar in the parallel market. We can debate the extent to which this is the fault of the fiscal and monetary policies of the president, but that is a separate conversation.

 

Third, the defense is premised on a negative — that is, the fact that the dollar does NOT (yet) exchange for N1000, instead of on the fact that it DOES exchange for N360, which is about N150 more than it exchanged under Jonathan. In this warped reasoning, we should only start complaining about Buhari's monetary policies when the dollar begins to exchange for more than N1000!

 

Finally, when people resort to what could have been had Jonathan won and start making illogical exculpatory arguments based on speculative counterfactuals and a denial of the present state of things, then you know that they are only interested in one thing: protecting Buhari against criticism.

 

They are not interested in the important matter of whether things are getting better or worse in the country, whether inflation is rising or falling. More critically, it tells you their location in the spectrum of the Buhari-APC universe. They are clearly located in the fanatical, irrational wing of the Buhari supporters camp.

 

This kind of "defense" only confirms and validates criticisms of the government's primitive, unrealistic, and unsustainable monetary policies because it inadvertently accepts that things are really bad, only suggesting that things could have been worse had Jonathan won. It's not a good defense.

 

The bag of rationales and excuses that Buharists have been dipping into is emptying rapidly. Alibis that appeared reasonable several months ago now sound silly, contrived, and bogus. Blaming and scapegoating, which seemed plausible and convincing earlier, now look hollow. Citizens who were once receptive to arguments about the many obstacles in Buhari’s way have now been rendered skeptical by the escapist and denialist attitude of some of Buhari’s supporters. These overzealous supporters are now the reason why many are reluctant to extent the benefit of the doubt earlier given to the president.

 

In the interest of productive public debate and robust engagement with the president and his agenda, here is a list of how not to defend Buhari because they have clearly become counterproductive and do the president more harm than good.

 

1.     Do not instinctively deny the president’s mistakes. He is human, fallible, and thus capable or errors like all of us.

 

2.     Do not assume that good intentions always produce good outcomes. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Intentions are only meaningful for citizens when they are translated into policies and actions that benefit the majority of citizens.

 

3.     Do not defend the president by arguing a negative — that is, that that without Buhari’s ascendancy to the presidency, things would be a lot worse. We don’t know this for sure. Besides, it is a terrible thing that the only positive thing you have to say about your political hero is that he is merely a preserver of the status quo, someone who is merely preventing the country from regressing. He came to power fancifully on the promise of changing the country, not on that of simply keeping things from getting worse. It is an impossible task to argue a negative. Ask Obama, who will never get credit for saving the US economy from total collapse because we don’t know for sure what would have happened had McCain won and we don’t know for sure that the US economy, bad as it was, was heading for total collapse. There is no way to say definitely what would have happened had Obama not won, so he continues to struggle to get the credit for engineering a remarkable recovery.

 

4.     Do not defend the president by repeatedly invoking Jonathan’s record. It is getting tiresome. Besides, it contradicts the foundation of Buhari’s political persona — that he is the ultimate anti-Jonathan. If we take him at his word, it would be insulting to compare him at every turn to Jonathan, and to celebrate him merely because “Jonathan did or would do worse.”

 

5.     Do not question the patriotism of those who criticize Buhari. You are not more patriotic than them. Supporting Buhari is not the same as supporting Nigeria, and vice versa.

 

6.     As a Buhari supporter, do not begin every attempt to complain about Buhari’s administration or to criticize his action or inaction by prefacing such a critique with hackneyed and increasingly boring attacks on Jonathanians or those who voted for Jonathan. That they voted for Jonathan does not take away their stakes in the nation, nor does it abrogate their right to hold the president of their country accountable. It is their duty to criticize their president, whether they are doing so sincerely or mischievously. Even if they opposed Buhari’s candidacy, they may have transitioned to responsible, critical citizens under his presidency. He is after all their president too.

 

7.     Do not defend the president by blaming civil servants or political appointees for missteps by the government. The buck stops at the president’s desk. If a document goes out in the name of his administration or is presented to the national assembly by him, it is his document. He owns it. He should have read it or caused a thorough reading to be done by his aides. If the said document proves to be a harvest of scandalous provisions and allocations, his ineptitude and naivety in that particular circumstance are indefensible and cannot be fobbed off to aides or civil servants.

 

8.     Do not defend the president by always assuming that people are out to get him. It is a paranoid mindset that will produce irrational, unconvincing, and in some cases deceptive defenses of the president’s actions.

 

9.     Do not dismiss the groaning of those who complain that Buhari’s change has not reached them or is too slow to manifest. It is their suffering that is talking, and it is callous and mean-spirited to dismiss their anguish in order to protect Buhari.

 

10.  Do not attribute the president’s failures to a systemic rot. This is a cop out. This is his second stint as the leader of the country. He knew what he was getting into and was intimately familiar with the system he was campaigning to superintend. It is not for you to cover him with the blanket of sympathy when he willfully and loudly proclaimed himself capable of wading through the systemic rot to implement a change agenda.

 

 

In conclusion, the best way to defend the president is to begin from a premise that the failures and disappointments for which he is being blamed and criticized are real. The next step is to help the president make amends and correct his course. Being too defensive will only increase the pressure on the president.

 

 

 

[Obadiah Mailafia]

Dear Moses,

This is brilliant! I hope it has been circulated as much as possible. Nigerians of all partisan shades need to read it. Very sensible and logical. We need to move the public discourse to a higher than what the Buharists and Jonathanians have been up to these days. Anya cho!

OM

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[Jibrin Ibrahim]

Very good advice Moses, I completely agree with you.

Jibo

Jibrin Ibrahim PhD

Senior Fellow

Centre for Democracy and Development
16 A7 Street,
CITEC Mbora Estate,
Jabi/Airport Road By-pass,
P.O.Box14345, Wuse
Abuja, Nigeria
Tel - +234 8053913837
Twitter- @jibrinibrahim17
Facebook- jibrin.ibrahim

On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 4:25 AM, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com> wrote:

--

[Ayo Obe]

It is indeed good advice, but the problem is that once you follow it, you may end up not defending Buhari.  At least, in the eyes of some.

What would or might have happened under Jonathan may be a useful comfort blanket for some.  Again, the immediate cause of a particular misstep may indeed be the actions of ministers, civil servants, or saboteurs but we didn't accept that excuse from Jonathan because he ought to have gone on to deal with them rather than suggest that we would just have to learn to live with them.  So the issue is not - don't defend Buhari by blaming ministers, civil servants etc. - but: since Buhari put or left in place Minister/Civil Servant X who messed up/sabotaged what is he actually doing about it?

There are Buharists and there are Jonathonians.  And then there are the rest of us.  While, in the immediate aftermath of the election, it was natural to dismiss the army of "wailers" who instantly sprang up complaining about lack of change or sneering "So this is the 'change' you voted for!", most Nigerians have moved on from there.  The problem of wailers is that having started off by shouting, they can only continue shouting, and if the national ear has already learned to tune them out, shouting louder may not affect that.  In such cases it is, unfortunately, the singer, not the song.

If one really is a Buharist, Moses' advice will be difficult to follow.  But for most of us, a vote for Buhari is not a blood oath.  So nobody needs to feel, or be treated as though having made an electoral choice, their right to comment or criticise has been surrendered.  To criticise Buhari is neither treachery nor buyer's remorse.  It's merely holding government accountable.

Ayo

I invite you to follow me on Twitter @naijama

[Mobolaji Aluko]

Ayo;

Let us face it:  pre- and post-election, there are three groups of people about PMB (or any candidate for that matter):

1.  those who were OPPOSED to him, some bitterly like Moses Ochonu, Joe Attueyi and a few others.  It would be hypocritical to have voted for him, if they voted at all.

2.  those who were IN SUPPORT of him AVIDLY.  It would have been hypocritical not to have voted for him if they voted at all.

3.  those who were NEUTRAL.  I can imagine that if they voted at all, some of these individuals voted for him, some did not.

The only persons who really can have buyers remorse after a time or events certain are those who voted for PMB.  Those who voted (or would have voted)  AGAINST him are always LOOKING for EVERY sign - and ANY sign - to quench the bitter taste of the defeat of their favored candidate, and to shame those who voted for the winner into buyers remorsefulness.  

Right from the Inauguration day to this day, it is captiousness after captiousness, often hidden under objectivity.  Any mistake is amplified by them, every achievement minimized - and impatience is their major characteristic.

So while every criticism should be taken in, the priors and antecedence - and the shrillness with which the criticism is done - cannot be completely discounted.  It is the shrillness and a "sky-is-falling" attitude that makes people "wailing wailers", not the criticisms themselves.

The PMB administration will and has made its own mistakes, but criticism should not be at this time to pull it down - wait till one year into 2019.   Right now, it is to make criticisms WITHOUT shrillness.

Yes, criticisms without shrillness.

Bolaji Aluko

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

You got it very wrong Bolaji. I stated my SOFT support for Buhari in the election on this forum and others, including on my Facebook page. It is on record. I initially was in the neutral camp, but when pressed by people to hypothetically pick a candidate, hypothetically, since as a diasporan I don't have a vote, I declared openly that if I had to vote that I would hold my nose, suspend my concerns, and vote Buhari, the lesser of two evils as I saw both candidates, as there was just no circumstance under which I would vote for Jonathan's continuation in office. I was never a fawning Buhari supporter and continued, even after declaring reluctantly for him, to be objective in my analysis of the election and the two candidates. Nine months into Buhari's administration, I am neutral again. So, to use the cliche you popularized, there you have it!

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Re- “…that under Buhari the Naira has lost about 40 percent of its value against the dollar in the parallel market.”

Of course this is not all the president’s doing. Doesn’t  the dramatic fall in the price of oil have anything to do with this?

Since the Naira is under pressure to devalue ( a usual IMF prerequisite for the accompanying structural adjustment packet)  what is needed is not some more amateur  criticism or partisanship in or outside of this forum ; the  Nigerian government  and it’s ministry of finance and economic affairs would welcome some sound suggestions as to how best  to proceed. The rich and poor are in the same one basket, the Federal Republic of Nigeria which rises or sinks with the naira.

 Cornelius

 We Sweden.

[Ayo Obe]

Lol, not being in the hypothetical situation, but right here in Nigeria and in a position to do so, I held my nose and voted for Buhari.  I'm not sure it would be correct to say that I fell into the 'neutral' camp because while the biggest draws were the chance of voting Jonathan out and removing an incumbent federal government through the ballot, I had decided to vote APC, but I don't feel the least bit constrained in commenting on or criticising those for whom I voted.  I don't want them to suffer the fate of Jonathan, few or none of whose friends or supporters seemed willing to tell him the truth.

Ayo

I invite you to follow me on Twitter @naijama

[Mobolaji Aluko]

Ayo, Moses:

All you guys moving from Gear 3 to Gear 1 to Neutral - just make sure that you don't move into Reverse while looking forward o - Na crash be that!

More seriously, if DEMOCRACY is essentially about getting the greatest good for the greatest number of citizens based on the choice of the best (whether real or imaginary) leaders following the citizens' informed consent (real or imagined) in periodic elections, then the role of the patriotic citizen is to de-personalize criticism of the leadership, and focus on giving the best advice possible with the least amount of shrillness, while noting that governance is not mathematics but an admixture of politics, policy, economics, sociology and psychology.

That is a long sentence, but my best considered definition of Democracy at the moment.

Best wishes all.

Bolaji Aluko

[Salimonu Kadiri]

Dear Moses,
 
If the political and economic history of our country, at least from 1999 to 2015, is properly x-rayed the title of your article ought to have been, How Not to Criticize Buhari. The horse on which Buhari intended to ride to run his regime of change has gotten one of its legs amputated by economic saboteurs and there is no magic wand by which he can conjure forth a new horse immediately. It must take time. Buhari's critiques are like bulls, they see only red in him and instinctively want to gore him. Mostly worrisome is the attitude of the intellectuals who are supposed to be well informed but leave leprosy to chase ringworms. Nigeria's foreign exchange earnings, over 90% depends, on crude oil exports. In less than a year the world market price of crude oil per barrel has fallen from above $140 to about $30. Anyone wishing to know the cause of why naira has fallen by 40% to dollar under Buhari must inevitably reflect on the fallen price of the main source of Nigeria's foreign exchange, crude oil, which is not of Buhari's making. While new sources of foreign earnings have to be developed, Nigerians should speak with one voice to demand accountability for how the nation's economy had been run from May 29, 1999 to May 29, 2015. But instead of supporting Buhari to demand accountability from his predecessors in office most Nigerian intellectuals are accusing him of dictatorship, tyranny, and disregard for the rules of law. When the two terms tenure of the civilian regime ended in May 2007, the Chairman of EFCC then, Nuhu Ribadu filed cases of treasury looting against 32 state Governors. Monies that were meant to build schools for Nigerian children, to build hospitals and to buy drugs, to build houses, procure potable water, generate and distribute electricity, refine oil for internal consumption and many others were stolen by the elites at the federal, states and local government levels. Till date, nearly all the cases filed in 2007 against national rogues are still pending in courts and conscienceless intellectuals without sense of awe or outrage talk of witch-hunt whenever Buhari demands refunds of stolen funds from the national looters. All Nigerians should be saying, it is not allowed to be a witch and if you don't want to be hunted don't be a witch.

 

While addressing a Nigerian audience in Ethiopia a while ago, President Buhari stated that the judiciary in Nigeria constitutes a big headache for him in his fight against corruption in Nigeria. Buhari is correct and I will illustrate this with an example out of the many cases of corruption filed by Nuhu Ribadu's EFCC in 2007. Joshua Chibi Dariye, was Governor of Plateau State from May 29, 1999 to May 29, 2007. On the 2nd of September 2004, the Metropolitan Police arrested Dariye in his Marriot Hotel room in London. Various amount of money in different currencies totalling well over £2,961,560 were recovered from him. He was granted bail with instruction not to leave London but Dariye jumped bail and escaped to Nigeria. That Dariye was arrested in September 2004 was as a result of a police investigation concerning one Mr. Christopher Mekwunye in January 2004. The Metropolitan police had uncovered £11,560 in a locked briefcase while conducting a search at 127 Chiltern House, Portland St. London SE 17, in connection with a suspected case of Computer theft via internet purchase. Mr. Mekwunye told the London Police that Dariye gave him the money to deposit into his account with Barclays Bank London. Further research by the Police revealed documents including a Barclays Bank Statement (account No. 701970410) in the name of Joshua Chibi Dariye with an address at flat 28, Regents Plaza Apartments, 8 Greville Road, London NW6. The statement showed credit of £918,029 transferred on 27 August 2002. Subsequent search of Dariye's address yielded financial documents that he also banked with National Westminster Bank Plc. and held a Barclays' card. He had another two Barclays Bank account with balances of £826,493. 50p, and £46, 057. 15p respectively. Similarly, Dariye operated two accounts with National Westminster Plc with balances of £175,000 and $80,000. According to London Metropolitan Police, Mr. Peter Clarke, Dariye had 13 accounts in the Barclays Bank of England and one in the National Westminster. His first current account no. 90587478 was opened in 1995 with no money coming in until 1999 when he became governor of Plateau state.

 

As stated earlier, Dariye jumped bail in 2005 and returned to Nigeria to rule as governor of Plateau State. Obasanjo tried to muscle him out of office through impeachment which the courts declared null and void. Thus, Dariye finished his second term as governor of Plateau state on May 29, 2007 and his immunity against prosecution expired. On 13 July 2007, Nuhu Ribadu's led EFCC arraigned the former Governor of Plateau State, Joshua Chibi Dariye, before an Abuja Federal High Court for diverting N1.2bn from Plateau State's Ecological Fund to his private companies and individuals. He pleaded not guilty and the court set aside November 13, 2007 for the prosecution to open its case. That day, Dariye's lawyer filed a motion before the court to quash the 23-count charge against Dariye on the ground that the EFCC lacked locus standing to prosecute him since Plateau government did not complain of any diverted N1.2billion and that Abuja court lacked jurisdiction to hear and determine the case of a crime committed in Jos, the capital of Plateau State. Dariye's application was dismissed by the court on December 10, 2007 but he appealed to the Appeal Court where it was dismissed on 17 June 2010 and on 13 July 2010 Dariye appealed to the Supreme Court which finally dismissed his appeal on 27 February 2015!!! Thus, through legal acrobatics over jurisdiction of who and where a thief of N1.2 billion should be tried took eight years. Dariye's case is just a tip of the ice berg and instead of Nigerian intellectuals to mobilize Nigerians against treasury looters and their backbones in the judiciary, they invent all kinds of negative vocabularies to cast aspersion on the eight months old government of Buhari. At a time when crude oil income is dwindling, the greatest priority in Nigeria should be how to recover our stolen monies from the treasury looters without legal zig-zag and delays.

S. Kadiri   
 

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Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2016 07:23:14 +0100
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - How Not to Defend Buhari
From: obmai...@gmail.com
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

[Joe. Keshi]

Dear Salimonu Kadiri

I did enjoy reading your contribution on the increasing criticism of the Buhari Administration. You are right to suggest that we should all unite to demand accountability of what happened to the Nation's resources since 1999. I am not sure most people would disagree with you, except that we need to recognize that elections are about the future not so much about the past. The major challenge we face is the economy especially how to quickly find a sustainable replacement for oil. This should be the main focus of the administration while the issue of accountability  can also be left to the appropriate agencies to vigorously pursue in a fair and transparent manner. If we decide to spend all our energy on only one issue, we will be in worse trouble than we are in now.

Sent from my iPad