Who Wants Buhari Dead?

May 7th was the date when President Buhari proceeded on his second medical mission to the United Kingdom for the year. The change ‘poster boy’ has been bedeviled by an undisclosed ailment that has derailed his attention away from presidential duties. The hue and cry that have trailed the absence of the president smacks of the reality that is the social media age. In an era where every Nigerian is armed with 140 twitter characters, and creation of sensational memes is no one’s prerogative, the hysteria has been unbelievable. Some have lampooned the ailing president; others have carried out prayer campaigns for his recovery. The reaction has been surreal.

The general consensus is that the acting president, Yemi Osinbajo has done an okay job in the president’s absence. He has steadied the ship at the least. The reality is that the constitution for all its flaws, envisaged such a scenario and made provisions to ensure that there is no power lacuna. In a sane society, the business of running government will simply continue while the president recuperates in peace in a society with better healthcare. But ours is a society far from sane; a country where everything is politics and politics, everything. A nation that simply never learn from history.

The tale of ‘The Cabal’ is not a strange one in Nigeria’s political narrative. While their form differs from one dispensation to another, their DNA is basically the same. Men and women who loiter in the frontiers of power, poised to guard their interests irrespective of the cost. It was the cabal who stage managed the shenanigans that greeted the pain and eventual demise of late president Umaru Yar’Adua. Strangely, it feels like déjà vu now. Since the departure of president Buhari, this group of sinisters have been on overdrive in their quest to ensure that the president is ‘seen’ to be recuperating, ‘seen’ to be fit, ‘seen’ to be fine. All these to their clandestine interest. In their desperate bid, they have done very stupid things that makes one shudder. One of such bad shot was the president’s voice note that was sent across to Nigerians on the celebration of Eid-El-fitr. The voice note has gotten its own fair share of media analysis and diatribe but it goes without saying that the idea was a foolish one. Yes, it was wrong for the president to address the nation in an ethic dialect that is not the lingua franca but the whole idea that he has to address Nigerians on that occasion was a charade in itself. This is especially so as the vice president was hosting a gathering of Muslim faithfuls in commemoration of the celebration at the time. Again, this feels like déjà vu.

The truth is that hardly anyone wants the president dead. It is not a humane thing to wish death on someone else. More so, his ‘death’ will not quell the yearnings of the average Nigerian on the street. The reality is that the president’s handlers have made a caricature of the whole thing. Their actions emit crude desperation and have made matters worse for the absent president. They have put a strain on him in their attempts to portray him as ‘recuperating.’ In fairness, it is the cabal that wants the president dead by their actions. The ones that Aisha Buhari described in her Facebook animal kingdom analogy. Perhaps, it is true as she noted that the ‘weaker animals have been answered and that Hyenas and Jackals will be kicked out of the kingdom’.