By Ibrahim Dasuki Nakande
“Those who said the President did not disclose his ailment are only being clever by half as the President had addressed the issue when he returned from a similar trip in March when he disclosed that he had never been that sick and that he will be going back to the UK which he did.”
Whichever way one might look at it, President Muhammadu Buhari’s Monday morning broadcast to the nation after his return from medical vacation cannot be reduced to a ‘disappointment’ on the account that it failed to address certain issues.
A lot has happened since the President was away and there have been high expectations given the belief that he has the capacity to do more than has been recorded by his Administration so far.
But it would be unfair to expect that all the issues and expectations would be addressed in one broadcast even if the person has a track record of confronting the nation’s problems frontally as Nigeria’s president.
If one is to look at it another way, then it could be said that no speech can meet every expectation as no speech writer has the capacity to gauge the mood of every individual, groups, sectors and communities and address such in one fell swoop.
If however, the correct reading of the current disappointment expressed is that it should have captured the major expectations from the citizenry, then one cannot hesitate to say that nothing could have been more apt than what the President offered.
Before delving into the nitty-gritty of the speech, it is worth mentioning here, that the content of the speech is only less than 50 percent of what Nigerians were looking out for from the person of the President.
Nigerians wanted to see their President talking to them directly without interruption by middle men and the distraction of his aides.
They longed to see him live so that they could make their assessment of his mien themselves.
During the period of his absence, lots of things were thrown at Nigerians by the naysayers who claimed that the President was on life support, while others said he suffers from serious memory loss while others still insists he has speech impairment.
Even the visuals from the many visits by stakeholders to the Abuja House in London did not serve to assuage such negativism but had fuelled agitations for more interrogations to wit that the President was being teleguided and that he could not continue to stand and talk at stretch in a manner that will convince that he is hale and hearty.
I find it most appropriate that a notice was served that the President would make a national broadcast when it was announced that he was returning to the country.
This assured majority of Nigerians that they would get firsthand the answer to all the questions being asked about the President and his health.
The time came on Monday morning and the moment President Buhari uttered his first word to signify the commencement of the broadcast, there was a general sigh of relief, and hope was restored, doubts gave way to belief and faith in Nigeria was revived because as it turned out, the No 1. Citizen was not only hale and hearty but was also cheerful, witty and fully in control of himself and mental faculty.
By the time he concluded the speech, it was obvious that President Buhari, the tough talking, corruption intolerant and patriotic champion of one Nigeria was back in flesh and blood.
Getting to the substance of the speech, it could be said that the president addressed three main issues, the unity of the country, insecurity and need for lasting peace in the country.
To those who have been following events in the country, these three issues sum up the drag in the polity for the period the President had been away.
The terrorists terrorizing the Northeastern part of the country have resumed their campaigns first of all with suicide attacks on soft targets and later attempts to reenact their old methods of attacks towns and communities.
Though the attempts have largely been unsuccessful, more citizens have raised concerns on why the terrorists who were said to have been degraded could re-launch their assault within such a short period of time.
It was therefore apt for the President to have included the issue in his first broadcast to the nation because the nation cannot afford a situation where the gains made in the last two years would be allowed to fritter away
The insurgents have to know that the commander-in-chief is back and that his illness has not changed him and that if anything, he cannot stand their ungodly and totally reprehensible campaigns.
For those living in the North east who have suffered from the activities of the insurgents, this is the first thing they wanted to hear and to them, the President has not disappointed them on that.
Secondly is the twin problem of crime and insecurity. In the last few months, the whole nation was aghast at the brazen attacks on citizens who were being taken away daily in the name of kidnapping in almost all parts of the country but especially in the South-south and South-eastern parts of the country as well as on the Abuja-Kaduna expressway.
Families have lost their entire savings in the bid to rescue loved ones who have been abducted while some have even lost their loved ones in the hands of the criminals.
Many avoided travelling on and to such places for fear of being abducted and in the process, the economy of the country has suffered heavy loss of investments while the psyche of the average Nigerians has been affected. This is not to talk of the trauma for most citizens.
Again to those who have been affected (and they are many) by this crime, want to hear what the government will do about it, they want to know if the President has been adequately briefed about their plight and they wanted to know his level of concern.
So when the President mentioned kidnapping in his speech and sounded a note of warning to those involved, it came as a soothing experience to those who have been exposed to the effect of such crimes first hand.
For long, many people have been saying the President avoids talking about farmers’-herders ‘clash and have accused him of taking sides.
This time, the President disappointed them by mentioning the issue as one those to be tackled. Again those whose lives have been affected one way or the other by the tit-for-tat violence accompanying farmers-herders clash would see it as an indication that something tangible is about to be done to the plague that had led to the killing of many, sacking of entire villages and communities as well as devastation of farmlands leading to joblessness, hunger and strife would not regard its mention as disappointing.
No doubt the unity of the country has also been threatened in the absence of Mr. President because it was within that period that the agitation for secession became so brazen that a paramilitary outfit was launched by IPOB while some in the North issued a quit notice to Igbo living in Northern Nigeria.
There is the need to re-drive that sense of togetherness into the hearts of Nigerians and make them see themselves as compatriots tied by a common destiny rather an ensemble of different species of persons trying to undermine one another.
The reference to the meet with Ojukwu was also appropriate as the late former Biafra leader is still respected as the true leader of the Igbo and many Igbo needed to know or be reminded what his last thoughts on the Nigerian question were.
Indeed many Nigerian leaders across geopolitical divides have emphasized the fact that the unity of the country is a settled issue and that all hands must be on deck to make it work. It is totally in place to issue that reminder to a distraught citizenry at this time.
Those who said they wanted to hear about cabinet reshuffle in the President ’s broadcast may not be out rightly considered as mischievous if there is the need to pep up the space but if one may ask, what percentage of the populace would have been assuaged by the removal of few ministers and what percentage would have been made happy by new appointments? Probably only a few.
Those who said the President did not disclose his ailment are only being clever by half as the President had addressed the issue when he returned from a similar trip in March when he disclosed that he had never been that sick and that he will be going back to the UK which he did.
On the economy, we all know that the right atmosphere must be created for the economy to thrive so the President used the logic of the logs falling on top on one another to address the issue. This implies that the necessary atmosphere that would foster a healthy economic climate must be treated before getting to economic brass tacks.
I hope we are ALL not disappointed.
*Nakande is a former Minister of State for Information and Communication.
