How will Buhari move to heal a divided nation?

by Alexander O. Onukwue

President Buhari has returned to Nigeria from London after a three-month medical leave, fully re-energised and ready to hit a long streak of change, it can be hoped.

That energy and refreshment is expected to be expressed in his national broadcast on Monday morning, August 21. But should he choose to make a brief sentence that will re-focus him in the mind of Nigerians as their able leader, he only need re-read his 2015 notes, with a minor edit:

“I am back, hale, hearty and with my humor. I still belong to everybody, I still belong to nobody”.

A lot has happened in Buhari’s 103 days absence from Nigeria, severally quoted in media sources around the country that it will be cumbersome to re-enumerate them here. However, some stand out for the particular challenge they have posed to the unity and stability of the country, and for their attachment to the person of the President, regardless of whether he has enabled it or not.

What will Buhari direct to the group of Northern youth who have fixed Independence day for the evacuation of all Igbos from the North, and how will he balance that with the response by the Coalition of Niger Delta Agitators who added Yorubas to their own October 1 deadline for eviction?

As Commander-in-Chief, it is the prerogative of the President to trigger the State’s monopoly of violence but how will he employ tact in reaching out to these groups stirring tension that the country is worth fighting for?

Local citizens who leveraged their democratic rights to organize protests seeking the President either resume or resign were not allowed to see their cause to the end. On Buhari’s behalf as president, the State police interrupted them, while traders in a popular market intervened on his behalf as their person. But unlike the gaffe that was his Eid-el-Fitr message rendered in Hausa, the President cannot afford to equivocate in his declared will to assure the freedom and safety of all Nigerians under his watch. Anything less would naturally spell disappointment.

Nigeria, at this point in history, is Buhari’s responsibility as leader. His ailments this year have not helped him fulfill that role to what was assumed to be his ability in 2015. He has been away from the country for more than a third of the year in total, putting him in an untenable situation with relation to making any promises or expecting justified massive support in 2019.

But before then, there are these other matters: the ASUU strike, stabilizing the EFCC, and bringing closure to that Babachir Lawal Panel report. He will have his hands full, but he is back and therefore he is ready.

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