by Pius Adesanmi

There is this email group I was added to about 3 years ago. It is basically an assembly of the owners of Nigeria. As far as I can tell, only Segun Adeniyi and I are the “young” people there. The rest: former Presidents, present and past state Governors, present and past Ministers, present and past Senators, retired and serving diplomats, retired Generals, etc. Personally, I have hardly ever posted there. Others occasionally post and circulate my op-eds and updates there.

A few weeks ago, one very respected senior Nigerian posted. He eulogized Nigeria’s status on the world stage and appealed to the former Presidents and the retired senior Diplomats in the house with direct access to President Buhari to implore him to leverage Nigeria’s great status on the world stage to try and resolve the issue of North Korea. People listen to Nigeria. Nigeria should summon the parties – South Korea, North Korea, Japan, China, Russia, the US – etc to some sort of summit in Abuja and resolve the crisis. He concluded with a few paragraphs on President Buhari’s status in the world I almost mistook the Nigerian President for Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King Jnr.

To the best of my knowledge, there was no response to the post so it did not become a thread. However, you never can tell which former President or Governor or statesman in the house thought it was a great idea and began to make moves to approach the President along with the author of the post.

I began to think seriously about how the psychology of a President or a Governor is manufactured collectively by the Nigerians who surround him.

If a President who cannot resolve Boko Haram, cannot address the substance and the foundation of the discontent in the south-south and southeast, has little to offer on the Fulani herdsmen front, believes the hype about Nigeria’s greatness on the world stage and the hype about himself and spends his time in New York this week working to resolve the crisis in North Korea and the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar, there will be a lot of blowback and criticisms from us.

We will not realize that beyond his own agency and personal responsibility, the psychology and sociology of the leaders of Nigeria is a collective effort. A Nigerian leader is surrounded by inner and outer rings of such impenetrable sycophancy and blind support that it is impossible for reality to penetrate through to him.

Because of aides, advisers, supporters, foot soldiers, inner and outer rings of political heavyweights and opinion shapers, a Nigerian state Governor or President standing before a mirror sees an infallible giant, at least ten-feet tall, God’s only gift to humanity forever and ever.

This is why folks will tell a President running a dysfunctional African state that can hardly summon South Africa and Kenya to a summit to summon North Korea, South Korea, Japan, the US, China, and Russia and have them parley in Abuja in a room powered by a Mikano generator.

If you hear the things that enter the ears of a Nigerian president from his sycophantic constituency, you go swallow spit o.

Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

Op-ed Editor