2023 Presidency And The Air of Deception

I have disappointed myself severally trying to find the true meaning of integrity and by extension a man of integrity. I conclude that I’m the one that is wrong not the person I held in high esteem who later failed me.

Psalm 62 vs 9 says “Men of low degree are vanity, men of high degree are lie, both of them to be laid in the balance are lighter than vanity.”

What I saw in President Muhammadu Buhari that made me to love and choose him in 2015 are still there but I’m seeing new things in him now that is making me to agree with God that man at his purest state is still a man.

Yes, our president has kept his integrity for almost eight years now but his politics is filled with too much air of deception and speculations. The country is currently under what I will call political siege. We will need a lot of prayers and Buhari himself to lead us to a glorious dawn.

Buhari is too quiet on everything, including insecurity. I wish he would leave with us a better politics after 2023 so that we could compare his own way to that of OBJ who imposed a successor without blinking.

What is happening now is a fresh kind of politicking that is very different from what we saw under President Olusegun Obasanjo in which he imposed on us Umoru Yar’Adua without any pretence or consultation. You may say that Obasanjo’s ways were undemocratic but then it did not keep us in suspense like the present season film.

Obasanjo was direct in his decision at the death of Yar’Adua that Goodluck Jonathan should take over power. We may hate him, Obasanjo’s politics is predictable despite his many flaws. He will deny his former vice Atiku Abubakar privately and publicly.

Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was also direct in Lagos. He chose his successor and waited for the consequences. His decision never kept us in suspense, even though his politics angered many of his supporters. Let Buhari endorse his candidate so that the cloud can disappear.

I want to believe that what killed Chief MKO Abiola and made it impossible for him to become Nigeria’s president was his lack of diplomacy. He said what he would do, which were not palatable to some power brokers. He would have made a good president to the country.

The late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo despite his brilliance could easily be read like a book. He did not pretend to prefer Chief Alayande to Chief Bola Ige for the the Oyo State Governor, yet he allowed primaries to take place, in which Ige eventually emerged in 1979. Perhaps Buhari will save us by clearing the air in time.

Among Awo, MKO and OBJ, only Obasanjo did not wholeheartedly sought power, he was installed by cabals where the other two failed to realise their dreams. The cabals did not pretend to prefer Obasanjo to Chief Olu Falae. They brought OBJ out of prison and dressed him in presidential clothing. No pretence.

Like Awo and MKO, there is a Tinubu now who is seeking to become the next Nigerian president but with clouds of uncertainty as it happened to his forebearers. The present cloud can clear if the president will be bold enough to endorse his own candidate since it has become a norm that APC is synonymous with Buhari for now.

It is not a crime to endorse but will be too bad to impose. It becomes imposition when the endorsement does not come at a time other aspirants can re-strategise.

Obviously, it is a big decision but then it will be used to measure the president’s integrity, the ultimate factor, that brought him to office.

There is something purer than integrity and this is “Saint”, I don’t think it will be fair to castigate President Buhari over the choice of his prospective successor but imposing him will be a bad precedence.

This will settle the air of deception in the political atmosphere in which Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and Tinubu are being embraced by both their allies and foes.

Kunle Awosiyan is a journalist, writes from Lagos