ON the eve of the 33rd anniversary of the military coup that
removed him from office as military head of state, Nigeria’s transformed
leader, President Muhammadu Buhari, was yesterday locked in a meeting with
officials of the country’s major opposition party, the Peoples Democratic
Party, PDP...
The meeting with the leadership of the PDP and the ruling All
Progressives Congress, APC was significant. It was a major step for a man who
as military head of state, and as a civilian president, had been accused of
inflexibility in his policies and persuasions. Indeed, yesterday was the first
meeting between Buhari and the PDP, a party which had “demonized” him since
2002 when he initiated his political adventures. He is perhaps today, the only
president since the advent of the Fourth Republic not to have a special adviser
in Inter Party Affairs. But what has changed in the personae of the Nigerian
leader? It was 33 years ago today that three middle level army officers, Majors
Abdulmumini Aminu, Lawan Gwadabe and Joshua Madaki strolled into Dodan
Barracks, Lagos and effortlessly arrested Major General Muhammadu Buhari during
the Sallah Holidays. The decision of the military high command to effect the
change in leadership had been blamed on intransigence. Ex President, Ibrahim
Babangida (IBB) and President Muhammadu Buhari As Brigadier Joshua Dongoyaro
told the nation the following morning, August 27, 1985, in a nationwide
broadcast, the Buhari led military government had been seized by a cabal that
refused to give heed to counsel and refused to be contrite in its failures.
Dongoyaro had said: “we could not stay passive and watch a small group of
individuals misuse power to the detriment of our national aspirations and
interest. No nation can ever achieve meaningful strides in its development
where there is an absence of cohesion in the hierarchy of government; where it
has become clear that positive action by the policy makers is hindered because
as a body it lacks a unity of purpose. “The Nigerian public has been made to
believe that the slow pace of action of the Federal Government headed by
Major-General Muhamadu Buhari was due to the enormity of the problems left by
the last civilian administration. Although it is true that a lot of problems
were left behind by the last civilian government, the real reason, however, for
the very slow pace of action is due to lack of unanimity of purpose among the
ruling body; subsequently, the business of governance, has gradually been
subjected to ill-motivated power play considerations.” Ahead of the 2015
presidential election, the PDP made it a campaign issue that Buhari has not
changed. However, the foibles of the Goodluck Jonathan administration and the makeover
attempts of the APC machine caused Nigerians to look the other way. It is
noteworthy that the challenges that have recently gripped the nation; to wit,
insinuations of marginalization of some sections of the country, allegations of
nepotism and dithering procrastination by the government have caused a
resurrection of those issues that the coup plotters claimed compelled them to
strike exactly 33 years ago today. It is thus remarkable that on the eve of
that anniversary that President Buhari was reaching out for the first time to
his traducers in the PDP. However, his assertion yesterday at the meeting with
the PDP leaders that opposition does not mean hostility, enmity or antagonism
could send wrong signals of a man still stuck in his old ways. However, it was
reassuring that in the same breath the president asserted the relevance of
opposition in projecting a vibrant democracy. That assurance and his readiness
to open his ears to counsel is the prescription that will sustain his legacy
and the country’s democracy. Yesterday’s meeting came in the wake of the
nationwide euphoria of the president’s recovery from ill-health. For a man who
in his own words had never been this sick and had passed through the valley of
the shadow of death, only an enchanting legacy of statesmanship and excellence
in statecraft can be his goal now.
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