Can the president be always right? By Taiwo Adisa

Something baffles about the mode of responses that comes out of the Nigerian presidency in recent years. Most of the times, you smell the aura of infallibility and the critic-is-always-wrong perception.  When you juxtapose that with the reality of life; only God is infallible, you cannot but wonder, where the Villa originates such feelings.

You can read so many meanings to this perception of the never-say-wrong; perception that the critic is always wrong; arrogance of power, know-all syndrome, master-servant view of power. On one hand, it could be that the Kabiyesi syndrome is playing out. The traditional rulers in the Yoruba kingdoms were never wrong. Or better said, a living Kabiyesi is never wrong. The day he is seen to be wrong, he opens the calabash, the metaphor for committing suicide.
But the contemporary democratic leader is far from Kabiyesi. He shares his power with the legislature and the judiciary. In a way the legislators pretend to be the masters as they hold on to the power of the purse. The judiciary can nullify any action of the president, no matter how he holds dear.

More likely, it is the arrogance of power that plays out once a government emerges. Check at the State Government Houses. The cleaner is nearly more powerful than the chief executives because he can see the ‘king.’ That we are in power feel gets not a few carried away that they forget power, as it is severally held is transient.
No one single regime since the start of this Fourth Republic has demonstrated the infallible posture than officials of President Muhammadu Buhari. Perhaps the president feels so or they make him look like someone who feels like one; a demi god, who can do no wrong. And the examples are just too many on the scene. When Buhari visited Germany and right in the presence of the Woman Chancellor of thatgreat country declared that women are meant for the kitchen and the “other room,” not a few were taken aback. Even his host cringed as she heard the Nigerian leader utter the distasteful words.

Nigerians expect the president and the Presidency to admit a slip and either keep quiet or explain the slip away in a friendly manner. But Buhari’s handlers only chose to turn the table against the people as they claimed that Nigerians were harsh criticising the president. Mallam Garba Shehu was vehement with the claim that the president was cracking a joke. But he was proved wrong afterwards, as the president again repeated those same words.
In the early days of his Presidency, Buhari was quoted as telling a Nigerian audience in the United States of America that he could not be seen treating Nigerians who gave his government 97 per cent of the votes the same way he would treat those who gave him five per cent support at the polls. It was a huge gaffe that can only be corrected through recompense. As the critics held on to that and kept watch of Buhari’s appointments, which tended to justify the 97/5 per cent declaration, many cried out, citing Federal Character Principle and all that. The Presidency was, however, to take on the critics as showing hatred towards their leader.

Only recently, American Billionaire and founder of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates was in Nigeria where he spoke truth to power. He told the Nigerian leaders right inside the Presidential Villa that the Economic Recovery plan, ERGP was not well-tailored towards the need of the people. He asked the leaders to devote more efforts towards human capital development and health issues.

Rather than take a good look at the ERGP and touching it where necessary, sympathisers and agents of the administration aimed shots at the Microsoft giant, who incidentally commits a chunk of his personal wealth tackling health challenges in Nigeria.
When the usually taciturn General TY Danjuma was practically pushed to an outburst over the widespread killings in Taraba and other areas, agents of the government did not immediately weigh his words. Immediately, we started seeing recollections of what Danjuma did and did not do in the past. Many of the biographies which mentioned roles of Danjuma in the coups of the past were flying around. It took the Army some close watch to discover there might be some sense in interrogating the elder statesmen’s submissions.

On this current London trip, Buhari has made two blunders. First, he blamed the killings in the country on remnants of the gunmen trained by the late Libyan leader Maumman Gadhafi. Again, he told a business forum of Commonwealth leaders that youths in his country only wanted a part of the oil money. He said that the youths don’t go to school. And this is a country where the Joint admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) had to return some N7 billion to government coffers as profit after organising entrance examinations into tertiary institutions. Agents of the administration have descended on Nigerians for criticising the president’s submissions on the two occasions. Some of the statements were laced with huge doses of insults on their compatriots.

It is possible their attacks on the critics make Buhari happy. Even at that, it cannot be the norm in human society. No one man can know it all. And your critics cannot be your enemy. They are people who want you to do more. Like the proverb goes, it is he who the father loves that he criticises. Rather than launch out with the smoking gun at every instance of criticism, the President’s handlers just need to know, Mr. President cannot be right always.