May 29: Who Takes The Baton From Buhari?

“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.

If the presidency were a relay race, the question of who takes the baton from President Buhari would have been anybody’s guess, emi lokan or not. That is assuming there is a duly elected president-elect in waiting for inauguration on May 29. But the declared electoral victory sharply falls short of the minimum standards expected in a democratic setting. Now, it’s mired in controversy, then litigations, especially as the situation transfers the eventual choice of who becomes the real President-elect from the people who cast their votes on February 25 to a petition panel of justices at the Supreme Court of Nigeria.

That germane question would have been unnecessary if the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, had been independent enough to deliver on its promise and expectations based on the February 25 ballot across the federation. Having failed woefully in that essential duty, a room has been created for all kinds of speculations to thrive to find an answer to the above question. The tragedy of INEC’s failure is in the fact that the electoral choice of several million, voting, is down to a few justices to determine. Even though such arbitration is constitutional and within the realm of the rule of law and the democratic process, the corruption in our system that does not exonerate the judiciary rightly shakes the confidence of voters.

The only certainty now in our political journey is that President Muhammedu Buhari shall be vacating office by Monday, May 29, 2023, but who he hands over power to is not yet inevitable. If the courts cast their votes and after counting agrees with Prof Mahmoud Yakubu and his team at INEC, then the ruling party’s candidate, Bola Tinubu, will succeed Buhari. If they concur with the arguments being raised by the two other leading candidates Peter Obi of the Labour Party and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, there will be a tango.

What it may boil down to is that any of the three, Tinubu, Atiku, and Obi remain potential successors or a fourth person if the interim government kite they are flying materializes or becomes fact even though not supported by the nation’s extant laws.

The controversial emergence of Tinubu as the 2003 president-elect has left room for doubts about his eventual takeover. Not even among his camp is there absolute confidence that he will be sworn in on May 29. His speculated ill health isn’t helping matters. His so-called spokesmen [better known as attack dogs], apprehensive about the developments, are gnashing their teeth in frustration with the issues cropping in the aftermath of filing petitions challenging his dubious win.

Perhaps, it was also this unsure situation that informed recent rumours, though debunked, that President Buhari is not imagining himself handing over power to Tinubu. Although the President may not have said this explicitly, the president’s men, reading his body language and possibly picking some drop words in the Aso Rock power corridor may be making some deductions.

No doubt, the biggest low (if the February 25 charade, God forbid, stands) of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration will be that after eight years, it will be handing over to a Yekini Amoda Ogunlere, a.k.a. Bobo Chicago or Bola Ahmed Tinubu, thereby upturning everything he ever stood for in political leadership in terms of corruption and morality. Buhari’s anti-corruption heirloom would have been eroded by his returning the country to a corruptly bankrupt state.

With an aspiring president who is repeatedly linked to drug running and a fellow presidential candidate challenging qualification to run in the first place, moral baggage is hanging on the neck of Mr “Clean” President and the judiciary. As a result, Buhari is being asked how convenient it would be to his conscience to hand over Nigeria to a convicted drug baron. When he was Nigeria’s military leader in the 1980s, three youths, against all pleas for clemency, were convicted and executed for drug-related offenses. They were Bernard Ogedengbe, 29, Bartholomew Owoh, 26, and Lawal Ojulope, 29.

Since the emergence of Bola Tinubu as the flag bearer of the ruling party, some kind of conscience load appears to have been situated on the neck of the President because of the baggage around Tinubu’s candidacy which people, detractors and admirers alike, expect him to deal with. Close associates of the President believe he is groaning at the political development wherein he may find himself after eight years in the saddle passing over the country to a character like “Bobo Chicago.”

However, many do not sympathize with the President because whatever is happening is a consequence of his inability to provide leadership when it was badly needed. What is coming out, loud and clear, is what to expect from an indifferent President in a matter he should show more than passing interest. If you refuse, for whatever reason, to stand up when you should in a matter, the fallout from your neglect may keep you standing even when it’s not needed.

Providing leadership entails that you seize an opportune moment to take action that will lead to a better society. If you fail to do something, you are liable for what society becomes thereafter. It doesn’t matter what circumstance or variables may cause your actions and or inaction. This is the awkward situation President Buhari is holed in at the moment, leading to all kinds of speculations about where the country is headed.

Characteristically, having been privileged to preside over a country as President for eight years, what becomes of you when you leave office, how are you fairing with the power domiciled in your hand, and how have your actions and or inactions benefited mankind in your service to others, all these will stare you in the face. This is the truth as President Buhari winds down his tenure. If Buhari hands over this country to Tinubu will he be able to tell his conscience that he has bequeathed us the best among the lot or would he be proffering excuses of having tried his best but got defeated in the process by politicking as a bigger variable? After his not-too-rosy tenure, President Buhari has no reason whatsoever to further compound our woes by handing over the country to someone who will not be providing the country with any hope for the future, whether by his antecedents or physical well-being. 

Peter Obi’s politics has a strong lesson for leaders who look for excuses for failing. If you are not offered a seat at the table, bring a folding chair. Twice the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, refused to offer Obi a seat at the table and twice they paid dearly for it because rather than lament in frustration, he moved on to seek the best. Doing so underscores the point made by an American activist, Jasilyn Charger: “It doesn’t take an extraordinary person to do extraordinary things. It takes one person to have the courage to stand up and to say no.” 

That courage that Buhari may be unable to muster denies him the credit for what our democracy becomes if the judiciary lives up to the voters’ expectations and delivers poetic justice. Not to do that is to set this country on the path of destruction and put Buhari on the wrong side of history. But does he care? God forbid that he doesn’t.