Nigerians Are Right To Be Suspicious Of Buhari By Farooq Kperogi

I finally got a chance to read the text of the interview in which World Bank president Jim Yong Kim reported President Buhari as having told him to “shift our focus to the northern regions of Nigeria.” Rather strangely, both the president’s critics and his defenders are right. Here is what I mean.

The question that elicited Kim’s response was, “what is the World Bank doing to support those ravaged in the northeastern part of Nigeria by the Boko Haram terrorists?” In other words, the questioner specifically wanted to know what the World Bank was doing about northeastern Nigeria in light of the devastation that has been wrought upon the region by years of Boko Haram insurgency. It’s therefore not unreasonable to assume that the World Bank chief meant that the president told him to focus attention on the northeast. Most non-Nigerians have no awareness of, or interest in, our arbitrary cartographic nomenclatures such as “northeast,” “northcentral,” “northwest,” etc., although the World Bank’ chief’s reference to “the northern regions [note the plural] of Nigeria” at best complicates and at worst invalidates my observation.

But since we didn’t hear these words directly from Buhari’s mouth, it’s sensible to believe his spokesperson who said the president meant the northeast, which every Nigerian agrees is in desperate need of a massive infrastructural renewal. However, it would be escapist, even dishonest, to ignore the fact that Buhari’s personal politics and symbolic gestures both before he became president and now that he is president conduce to the notion that he is an unapologetic provincial chauvinist. Before he was elected president, he made no pretence to being anything other than a “northern” defender, which has no precedent for a former or incumbent Nigerian president or head of state, at least in public utterances, with the exception of Goodluck Jonathan who once publicly defended MEND’s self-professed terrorism. For instance, in June 2013, Buhari told Liberty Radio in Kaduna that the military assault on Boko Haram insurgents while Niger Delta militants were mollycoddled by the government was unfair to the “north.” And, although, he recanted and later redeemed himself after his infamous “97%” versus “5%” gaffe in the early days of his presidency, it’s nonetheless legitimate to contend that it was a Freudian slip that betrayed his genuine thoughts, especially in light of the pattern of his appointments, which I once characterized as undisguisedly Arewacentric.

There are other symbolic miscues that feed the notion of Buhari’s provincial particularism. For instance, when he cancelled his planned visits to the Niger Delta and Lagos, he didn’t send a personal apology to the people. But when he cancelled his visit to Bauchi, he recorded a video apology in Hausa to the people of Bauchi State. Again, during his sick leave in London, he recorded a personal audio Sallah message only for Hausa-speaking Muslims. Yoruba, Auchi, non-Hausa-speaking northern Muslims, etc. were excluded. He picked and chose even among Muslims. So while Buhari most probably told the World Bank to focus on the northeast, which is defensible, his history of ethno-regional chauvinism provides basis for people to be suspicious of him.