One of my all-time favourite TV shows is House MD which ran from 2004-2012 and centred the highly unorthodox character, Gregory House.
House was who one would call the cynic’s cynic. He was not only an exceptionally brilliant diagnostician but also a towering misanthrope.
One of his famous lines was that people don’t change. He’d say it with such élan, it could almost pass for gospel.
On October 1, the president delivered to the nation what would be his penultimate Independence Day speech. When I was done reading the transcript I came off unsurprised, just as I assumed our fictional Dr. House would be.
Buhari, despite the mantra under which his party once ran under, cannot change. He has neither the care nor the capacity for that.
The tepid independence speech was delivered in his typical perfunctory manner, embedded with varied measures of mendacity, vagueness and ineptitude. It was largely an exercise in praise-singing and victim-blaming—traits we’ve come to expect from a government that has clearly given up.
For the benefit of those who understandably didn’t read what was an uninspiring speech, I took some time to peruse it and will give a review. The speech itself is 101 paragraphs long, so I decided to touch on what I felt were germane while leaving out the rhetoric.
Without much ado, here we go.
Paragraph four:
Fellow Nigerians, the past eighteen months have been some of the most difficult periods in the history of Nigeria. Since the civil war, I doubt whether we have seen a period of more heightened challenges than what we have witnessed in this period.
Well, well, well. You don’t say Bubu!
Paragraph seven, on the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic:
The doomsday scenario predicted for our country never came. Even as the Delta variant continues to spread, we have built the capacity we need to respond now and into the future.
The first part is true. Indeed I’ve said before that we need not go into a frenzy over the virus. The lockdown mode which the country went into earlier was a panic-driven decision based on models copied from advanced nations. As to the second part, it’s not quite accurate.
By capacity, what does the president mean? That we now have more health centres and ventilators ready to handle any upsurge in infection rates? More doctors and health workers? Or that we now have a sizable population vaccinated? The stats say otherwise. Less than one per cent of Nigerians are fully vaccinated.
Paragraph 16 reeks of confusion:
Similarly, on our approach to food security, I am proud to announce Nigeria has commenced its journey to pharmaceutical independence.
Errm…excuse me sir. What does food security have to do with pharmaceutical independence?
Paragraph 19, on tackling insecurity:
In the last four months, the gallant men and women of the Military and Security Agencies have made tremendous progress in addressing these new security challenges. We are taking the fight to our enemies from all angles and we are winning.
“Tremendous progress”, “we are winning”. Nothing to see here except one prefers to soak in outright lies. Journeying across federal roads should promptly lay bare the uncomfortable truth. There is no need dwelling on this.
Paragraph 28:
The seeds of violence are planted in people’s heads through words. Reckless utterances of a few have led to losses of many innocent lives and destruction of properties.
I cackled when I read the above. Here’s Buhari in 2012:
“God willing, by 2015, something will happen. They either conduct a free and fair election or they go a very disgraceful way. If what happened in 2011 (alleged rigging) should again happen in 2015, by the grace of God, the dog and the baboon would all be soaked in blood.’’
Or shall we reference his 2021 tweet that got deleted by Twitter?
“Many of those misbehaving today are too young to be aware of the destruction and loss of lives that occurred during the Nigerian civil war. Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war will treat them in the language they understand.”
No further words needed.
Paragraph 31:
Nigeria is for all of us. Its unity is not negotiable. And its ultimate success can only be achieved if we all come together with a common goal of having peace and prosperity for our nation.
Personally, I prefer Nigeria united. However, the idea that our unity is not negotiable needs to perish.
Around the world people have asked and are asking questions about their unions as seen by various referenda and secessionist movements. The fall of the Soviet Union and Brexit are two famous examples which happened without the need for war.
The irony is made apparent when you consider that in 2016, Buhari himself threw his weight behind Western Sahara’s right to secession from Morocco. The cognitive dissonance is galling.
Paragraphs 51-52:
Unfortunately, as our food production capacity has increased, food prices have been going up due to artificial shortages created by middlemen who have been buying and hoarding these essential commodities for profiteering.
To address this, I am hereby directing the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to rehabilitate the National Food Reserve Agency and also work with security agencies, the Nigerian Commodity Exchange, and the National Assembly to find a lasting solution to these disruptive and unpatriotic hoarding activities.
I may have to do a separate post addressing the issues in Nigerian agriculture subsequently. Nonetheless, the sentiments expressed by the president here are risible and show a lack of grasp of the problems plaguing the sector.
It appears he draws comfort from running with wearied tropes about middlemen and hoarding. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The following is from a PwC report from last year on the state of Nigeria’s agriculture:
With a population of roughly 200 million people, Nigeria’s agricultural productivity is insufficient to meet the food demanded of its growing population thus increasing the demand and supply gap in Nigeria.
Absence of value addition and supply-chain linkages Nigeria focuses mostly on food production, thus neglecting the processing and manufacturing segment of the value chain. The chain reaction that arises from shortages of resources, lack of financing for small-scale farmers and inefficient transport systems, exacerbates the development of food production along the value and supply chain.
In any case, the people at the Foundation of Investigative Journalism have fact-checked the president's claim on middlemen and hoarding creating food inflation. No marks for guessing their verdict.
The president also spoke on the Twitter ban which of course addressed everything but the underlying reason behind the ban which is simply a bruised ego.
The conditional lifting of the ban is, as some have noted, a face-saving move. Those that can have bypassed it anyway using VPNs. It’s just a shame the amount of revenue lost and the opportunities missed by the ban which as each passing day reveals, was a bemusing lack of foresight.
Here is the president's adviser on CNN trying in vain to defend the proscription. A rambling mess.
Paragraph 98:
I fully understand the anxiety of many Nigerians on the inability of this country to go beyond a never-ending potential for becoming a great nation to an actually great one.
When I read the above, I realised that Buhari’s speechwriters had done him a great disservice. At first glance, it appears like a regular closer, but take your time to look deeper.
That line is an admission of incapability from the president and also a reality jolt to us that Nigeria, according to the president, is NOT a great nation; merely one with pretensions to greatness.
Look how far we’ve fallen. Only in 2009 under former president Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, Nigeria rebranded itself with the slogan: ‘Nigeria: Good People, Great Nation.’ Buhari has come to promptly set us straight.
With his admission, the effete king has finally come to terms with his legacy of failure.
Summarily, the speech was rich in untruths and mute on the increasing brain drain, the continued strike by doctors, the failing educational and manufacturing sectors, the alarmingly depreciating naira among others.
Where it tried to proffer solutions, it only succeeded in being nebulous as to a way forward.
As Dr. House and ultimately Buhari show us, people do not change. The last six years have been a stark reminder of this painful aphorism. Many campaign and Independence Day speeches after, we’re back to square one.
Credit must thus go to Buhari who has maintained his unerring consistency and a steadfast commitment to remaining an anachronism from the military era to this present day.
Nigeria is laid bare before the world just as its emperor is on the verge of delivering his swan song with no clothes on. Perhaps the one consolation Nigerians can have is this: he’s got only one independence speech left to give.
Well said, obviously according to him, the fulani herdsmen destroying farm lands and harassing farmers has nothing to do with the food insecurities experienced in the country!!! Hoarding by middle men is the problem 😒
I don't think anyone is a fan of BuBu. He graciously celebrates mediocrity at any chance he gets (grunts).
Naija- All man for himself
Nice write up still!!