Buhari and the burden of leadership

Sir: As a young army officer, President Muhammadu Buhari must have been influenced by the socialist thoughts of the late Bala Usman (the father of Ms. Hadiza of Nigerian Port Authority and the person who also influenced the present Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi).

On paper, socialist-communist thoughts seem ideal and romantic with all those that care for the proletariat and the promise to uplift everyone from the deepest morasses and so on. But reality check is a different ball game, not with the proletariat and masses uncontrollably procreating like rats and shunning manual work and all.

Buhari’s first coming (1983-1985) was devoted to destroying the perceived bourgeois class of the day and he did not do any meaningful governance to the benefit of the people he professed to care for but he just pursued folks of means and slammed them all in gaol.

By the time of Buhari’s second coming (2015-present), he had caught a religious bug in addition to the earlier socialist-communist bug; but a religious bug and a socialist-communist bug do not co-habit according to Karl Marx. With a religious bias to wit, it means that in addition to the bourgeois scapegoats, Buhari would target another segment of the population for wanton persecution; that segment of the population happens to be the Christians who have been labeled “corrupt” and who have had to endure EFCC raids, DSS “sting operations,” a resurgent Boko Haram, vilification in the press, exclusion from prominent appointments, sneer, backbiting and so on.

Like the first time around, Muhammadu Buhari is not doing any meaningful governance to the benefit of the people he professes to care for but he is just pursuing folks of means and Christians and slamming them all in gaol. No leader does great with a bile-full of vendetta spewing uncontrollably out of his policy chamber.

Sunday Adole Jonah, Department of Physics, Federal University of Technology, Minna.