“Who did this to us?” — By Asikason Jonathan

When a nation is trapped in the labyrinth of confusion in which in the words of Kofi Awoonor “Returning is not possible / And going forward is a great difficulty,” what comes to mind are the questions posed by Bernard Lewis when he examined the victim mentality in his seminal study of the fall of the Muslim civilization titled “What went wrong.”

The first question, the reputed Harvard historian wrote, is to ask “who did this to us?” while the second question is “what did we do wrong?” 

That the aforementioned questions are pertinent in our today’s Nigeria where the two-year administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has left many shouting: “Change the change” leaves no room for argument.

Nigerians at the homestretch of Goodluck Jonathan’s administration were tired of the cliché “business as usual” which has for long influenced the system of governance in the country. They wanted a new direction. 

Prying on these cravings for better tomorrow, the Yoruba and the Hausa-Fulani elite fashioned out of their newly formed political alliance (APC) a highfalutin but chiefly quixotic change mantra.

So the 2015 presidential election was, in the manner of speaking, elite‘s conspiracy. The demos were conned into believing that the change they are looking for was in the candidature of Rtd. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari —the leopard that changed its spots.  

The election came and passed with APC making a mincemeat of the ruling PDP. And for the first time in the history of Nigeria, albeit with the exception of 1960 parliamentary election, the bench was not given the opportunity to determine the country’s head of government. 

But did that freedom from legal carousel help? Did the government hit the ground running? 

This is two years into President Buhari’s four-year constitutional tenancy of Aso Rock and for all intents and purposes, Nigeria is wallowing in the maze of confusion. 

Economic wise, nothing is happening; foreign policy wise, nothing is happening, security wise —stories of abduction of more girls and women in the North East were reported against the backdrop of the government’s declaration that  Boko Haram has been “technically defeated” and the recent negotiation that saw to the release of eight-two more Chibok girls. 

Should one belabor the point that herdsmen are still on rampage? 

The power sector has so much deteriorated that Nigerians now refer to it as the ministry of darkness. This is generalizable to other sectors. Virtually nothing is happening in this country except the entertaining comic relief that accompanied the so-called anti-graft crusade.

Even with  the latter-day whistle-blower’s policy that played the role of deus ex machina in the confused and selective process, the anti-graft crusade could best be describe in words of Shakespearean Macbeth as “a tale told by an idiot , full of sound and fury signifying nothing.”  

Two years and counting, Buhari’s second coming as the country’s chief executive could be categorized into three major epochs: 

1) The epoch of Body Language : this  according to the dyed in the wool buharimaniacs started even before the inauguration. During this ephemeral period, there were improvements in the provisions of social services, news of looters returning their loots secretly were circulating, the fight against Boko Haram stepped up a notch –all these happened without any policy pronouncement from the newly inaugurated President Buhari. On the flipside, Jonathanians argued that those good news were the hangovers of the Jonathan’s government but they were dubbed “Wailing wailers.” 

 2) The Blame Game epoch: this was when the proof of pudding was in eating. The blames for the skyrocketed disparity between dollar and naira, the recession, the confusion in the government and the falling fuel price were placed on the head of Jonathan’s government. Lai(r) Mohammed was the master here. 

  3) The epoch of Resting Presidency or “Cabalcracy”: this is the era which we are in today. The cabals—which Aisha Buhari complained — that have been influential in the appointments of public officials and initiations of public policies were since the return of President Buhari from the first London hospital trip hijacked the whole presidency. 

The volte-face in the executive fiat that said that “Prof. Osinbajo will continue while I rest” brought home the powers that the tightly-knit coterie of executive power brokers now wields. Didn’t you hear about “the conducting vice president”?

 The above picture of the trajectories that this administration has gone and how it is going today couldn’t but have made Prof. Lewis’s second research question more appalling—“What did we do wrong?” 

When it comes to democracy and leadership crisis, an old saw by the 18th century French philosopher Joseph de Maistre is often made reference to:  “Every country has the government it deserves.”  And Nigeria is not an exception. We had our chance and made our choice.

Though the de facto limitation of the candidates of the 2015 election to the then incumbent President Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari was a sort of Hobson choice for Nigerians but jumping from the frying pan into the fire is more a  dangerous choice.