That unhealthy political loyalty is what saved Buratai and Danbazzau, and it is why Abba Kyari still has a job as arguably the most powerful person in this administration after Buhari. This undemanding loyalty is the reason why Babachir Lawal, known as “cash and carry” in Abuja power circles for his corruption, still has a job as the fifth person in the constitutional line of succession.

When a leader is too loyal to his appointees, they misbehave; they become lazy; they become complacent and reckless. When they become lazy, corruption, plagiarism, and other kinds of sloppiness occur. The culprits know that nothing will happen to them.

They recently watched as budget padders were simply redeployed instead of punished. They saw those who perpetrated the corruption of illegal recruitments at FIRS and CBN keep their jobs. There is no reason to think that Buhari will start reneging on his fetish of personal loyalty now. Those who plagiarized Obama’s speech were enabled–and emboldened–in their act by Buhari’s history of sticking with loyalists no matter what they do.

There is a final element in our analysis. Buhari’s problem of personal loyalty is compounded by an almost Trumpian reluctance to go back on decisions, to accept that he made a mistake, to reverse himself, and to undo his appointments. The flip side is an inexplicable propensity to stand behind his decisions and appointments no matter how bad they are shown to be.

It is a kind of hubris. But it is also a sign of insecurity, a belief that reversals and the firing of incompetent aides and appointees may portray him as weak, error-prone, and scatter-brained, and give his adversaries an opening. Only insecure, blustery leaders conduct themselves and take decisions (or refuse to take them) because of how they will be perceived or what their enemies may think.