I am willing to bet that not many Nigerians know that President Muhammadu Buhari has been in office for only two full months by the end of July. They think he has been in office for much, much longer. These must be the longest two months in the history of power shift anywhere in the world. And because these impatient Nigerians do not seem to see what they expect to see or hear what they expect to hear, they have nicknamed the president Baba Go-slow, the same unmerited title they first bestowed on the late President Umaru Yar’Adua.
I am sure the president is too serious-minded to give a damn. Nevertheless, it helps to remind him that slow is a much–hated word in our country. Kia-kia, it is. Governance is not about speed. We do not care. It is about efficient human and resource management. Kia-Kia is anathema to prudent human and resource management. We don’t give a damn.
But if we know what is good for us, a thorough Baba Go-slow is more likely to get it right than the president who runs an Olympic race. Speed kills and should not be the hallmark of anybody’s administration. I have not cross-checked this with presidents, past and present, but I bet none of them ever contemplated doing in one day what would naturally and normally take six months to one year.
So, why is the president Baba Go-slow? For one, Nigerians have not heard from the president the magic phrase that moves mountains or empties the lagoon: with immediate effect. After all, even as a converted democrat, he is still a soldier, abi?
My bet is that those who call him Baba Go-slow expect to see the General Buhari of 1984. They expect him to lock up all those who served President Jonathan in various capacities – ministers, special advisers, heads of government companies and parastatals, oil subsidy scammers, etc. and take them before special tribunals to prove their innocence in the looting spree that characterised that administration for five years and reached its zenith in 2014/2015.
They expect him to trample on human rights and traumatise fellow citizens to show that he has truly taken on the monster called corruption. Remember this: Nigerians delight in sadism. They like to see their fellow citizens fall from grace to grass. Few things delight them more than to see a man perched at the top of the totem pole of public office tumble into the sewer below and emerge as an ex.
From what I can see from my low perch here, the president is bound to become even slower because a) he inherited huge problems in all areas in which we have been anxious to make genuine progress and catch up with the rest of the world. Only an impetuous man would rush into these problems because he wants to dance mini-owambe to public applause. Well, the bad news for those who want the president to crack heads is that he is not an impetuous man. He is a meticulous man; meticulousness is no respecter of speed for the sake of speed.
b). democracy is perhaps the slowest form of government because it depends on a slew of institutions, not on individuals;
c) the president, unlike 1984-85, cannot make and enforce laws any more. This is pretty elementary. We have been at it for sixteen years for crying aloud. Any Nigerians, who do not know in 2015 that the job of making laws now belongs to the national assembly, deserves commiseration, not condemnation. In the hallowed chambers of the national assembly, no man is foolish enough to want to hurry the sunrise. Bills that go through the prescribed process of becoming laws crawl through the said chambers for months, not days while the president waits and bites his fingers.
In his seminal work, Profiles in Courage, the late President J.F. Kennedy, talked about the pressures that weight on presidents and congressmen from their constituencies, “the interest groups, the organised letter writers, the economic blocs and even the average voter.” They bear these pressures and still manage to smile. Reminds you of Fela’s record, Suffering and Smiling.
And he told the story of congressman, John Steven McGorarty of California, who told off a constituent who pestered his life. In his letter to the said constituent, the congressman wrote:
“One of the countless drawbacks of being in congress is that I am compelled to receive impertinent letters from a jackass like you in which you say I promised to have the Sierra Madre mountains reforested and I have been in Congress two months and haven’t done it. Will you please take two running jumps and go to hell.”
Big men also snap. Quite frankly, each time I hear someone call Buhari Baba Go-slow, I am tempted to recommend the congressman’s response to his constituent to the president. How about the president occasionally giving that piece of advice to Olisa Metuh, national publicity of PDP?
It seems to me that that party, unsure of what constructive role it should play as an informal opposition, has simply latched on to the two-letter word, No, as its stock response to whatever the president says or does. My advice is that if they talk less and listen more, perhaps they could a) appreciate what the president is grappling with and b) be better informed and thus offer informed criticism of the president.
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