The debate over Professor Wole Soyinka’s recent endorsement of retired Major General Muhammadu Buhari as the viable alternative to President Goodluck Jonathan for the 2015 presidential poll promises to run for some time, even beyond the election itself. Soyinka’s is a weighty voice that cannot be ignored; the comment on the merits of Buhari’s candidature came after a long spell of silence and dithering unusual of Soyinka in demanding national circumstances. The assessment on Buhari seemed strenuous, lacking the flow and punch of the Nobel laureate’s customary interventions. Was Soyinks’s verdict on the APC presidential candidate the product of his reasoned convictions? Was his position influenced by the self – righteous undertone of the APC’s strident propaganda? Or did the great writer succumb to the political pressures of factional Yoruba elite?
The trouble with Nigeria is in part consequences of the military’s intrusion into governance. Today we live with the nightmare of an imbalanced federation arising from regionally skewed state and local government creation foisted on the country by the military. Past and present democratic journeys have been impeded with feudal oriented constitutions that demanded the resolution of the Israeli – Palestinian conflict as conditions for their replacement with genuine people’s constitutions. The seed of impunity in Nigeria was watered by military rule when soldiers placed themselves above the laws and simple regulations such as payment of toll fees on highways. We have thus been coping with the aftermath of twenty seven years of arbitrary rule.
Shortly after the 1991 Gulf War, the position of Secretary – general of the United Nations became vacant. Following speculations of retired general Olusegun Obasanjo’s interest in the office, Wole Soyinka made this comment about Obasanjo’s possible candidacy. ‘If he wins I’ll congratulate him and commiserate with the UN.’ The general’s perceived unsuitability for the job could not have been reached without consideration of his military background and regime’s human rights record. In 1992 as the Social Democratic Party and the National Republican Convention were about holding their presidential primaries, Soyinka made a patriotic intervention. At the time the late general Shehu Musa Yardua was presumed to be the front runner for the SDP ticket. In a widely circulated statement, Soyinka stressed the point that either of the two government – founded parties careless enough to choose an ex – dictator as its candidate, should consider the presidential election lost.
In the prelude to the 2007 general elections, the same Wole Soyinka raised the alarm on the democratic implications of Buhari’s presidential aspiration. In a statement titled ‘The Nigerian Nation Against Buhari’, the Nobel laureate stated unequivocally: ‘Public offence, crimes against a polity, must be answered in the public space, not in caucuses of bargaining. In Buhari, we have been offered no evidence of the sheerest prospect of change. On the contrary, all evidence suggests that this is one individual who remains convinced that this is one ex – ruler that the nation cannot call to order.’
And the question naturally arises. What has changed since 2007 to warrant Soyinka’s somersault from a problematic Buhari candidature to one of plausible transformation in 2015? In response, Soyinka abandons both his own standards and universal yardsticks of social contract. The writer does not tell us that, yes, the crimes alleged against the then Buhari junta have now been answered in the public domain, however unsatisfactorily. No, we are not offered any specific evidence of change either from an authoritarian mindset or that level of provincialism that fails to reckon with the diversity and plurality of our polity.
Soyinka merely tells us that it is ‘purblind to insist that he [Buhari] has not demonstrably striven to become what he most glaringly was not, to insist that he has not been chastened by intervening experience and – most critically – by a vastly transformed environment – both the localized and the global. Still waxing on a general context, the emeritus professor concludes on the note of Buhari’s ‘plausible transformation’ – monitored from a distance.
Many are surprised if not baffled by the extent of liberties Soyinka has taken in this discourse especially against the background of Buhari’s political choices and Soyinka’s previous declarations. Environment does not have the elastic power Soyinka attributes to it on behavioural attitudes. We do know that in spite of America’s nourishment on values of liberal democracy and modern civilization, some citizens of the US have been enlisting into cadres of throat slitting terrorist organizations. The human will have the innate capacity to defy ideology and environment. Personality constitution offers a more reliable tool for interpreting response to social stimuli. And to use Soyinka’s apt expression, where beyond the ‘caucuses of [APC formation] bargaining’, have we seen efforts at pacification of our bruised memory and signs of a federalist outlook?
If Buhari was still struggling with his vision by 2000 when he shunned the Oputa Panel, has he now at his trumpeted hour of transformation apologized for the disregard with which he treated a national quest for healing and reconciliation? In his February 10, 2015 interview on CNN, there was no indication of regret for the assault on our fundamental rights only rationalization on the exigency of military rule.
Buhari’s response to enquiries about his academic qualifications on one hand and his refusal to participate in debate for presidential candidates on the other hand, are not in consonance with the thesis of democratic – environment influence. On both issues the APC and its presidential candidate was condescending to the Nigerian electorate. Democracy is not about the convenience of the ruling class. Those who will not subject themselves to regular interrogations of the people seek to hinder rather than aid the course of participatory democracy.
At this critical point in our quest for true federalism and a balanced federation, where does Buhari stand on the issue of restructuring? Does Buhari support the proposal for state police? Does he subscribe to the global practice of resource ownership by those from whose environment it is generated? What is Buhari’s position on rotating the Presidency among the six geo – political zones?
To date, Buhari has not retracted his oft – quoted support for implementation of full Sharia in a multi religious Nigeria. We cannot ignore the possibility that the introduction of Sharia during the Olusegun Obasanjo presidency provided inspiration for the ascendancy of Boko Haram. The projection of Sharia as extra religious legal code in competition with our common law system is a matter of grave concern. Buhari, to the best knowledge of this writer, only condemned Boko Haram at the advanced stage of the sect’s rampage when its targets were no longer restricted to Christian places of worship.
Soyinka and the intellectual leaning bloc of the APC cannot be in doubt that on the above trajectory, they are not on the same page with a conservative Buhari. Why then do they promote his candidacy? For the south – west half of the APC, it is simply a push for power. Clinching the vice presidency will forestall the repeat of the Aminu Tambuwal circumstance that saw the south – west schemed out of the principal elective offices at the centre in the past four years. For Wole Soyinka the sage, age may have started taking its toll. The other probability would be that he finally buckled under pressure of the APC’s tentacles.
Afuba, a member of APGA, wrote from Nimo, Anambra State.
