OPINION: What Is Presidential About The Media Chat?

Editor’s note: The media chat with President Buhari that took place on Wednesday, December 30 was suppossed to provide answers to the questions that had been worrying Nigerians for a long time. However, Jude Ndukwe, political analyst and Naij.com guest author, is of the opinion that a lot of questions have remained unanswered. In a contribution to Naij.com he recollects the moments that, in his opinion, turned out to be the most embarrassing in the yesterday presidential media chat.

After months of addressing Nigerians from outside the country on the issues that are largely local, granting interviews to the foreign media outfits and neglecting the local media, President Muhammadu Buhari was finally convinced to host a presidential media chat in Nigeria. Before now Nigerians have expressed strong reservations on why the president has chosen to always make policy statements concerning the country only when he travels abroad. To those who might not understand why, the media chat has shown it.

READ ALSO: #PMBMediaChat: Top Eight Questions For President Buhari

Apart from the fact that the chat was drab and largely patronising to the president, it exposed Buhari’s unbelievably shallow understanding of the national issues and the lack of skills to answer the questions in a way that gives hope to the people in the face of the social-economic challenges. With the benefit of hindsight, one now fully understands why the president has always shied away from such important engagements with the people. Apart from lacking the finesse of a modern-day president, Buhari confirmed the fears that he did not understand the elementary issues confronting the country.

It is most unfortunate that Buhari still thinks for naira to be devalued it has to be against a particular foreign currency. When asked about his thoughts on this issue, he addressed the panellists asking which currency he should devalue naira against; would it be the US dollar, the British pound, the French franc, or the German mark, as if the naira devaluation would relate to only one foreign currency without considering the other. Buhari does not understand the simple economic issues as this, however, to drive the Nigerian economy he needs to understand the much more complex ones! Does this not explain why our economy considered the biggest in Africa under Goodluck Ebele Jonathan is now among the worst in the continent just seven months after Buhari and the All Progressives Congress  took over the power?

It is quite alarming that the president did not know, or feigned not to know that the domiciliary account holders could not withdraw £200 for their needs. On impulse of magnanimity, Buhari promised to ask the CBN governor why that was so! While ordinary Nigerians were denied access to their accounts, Buhari must have been receiving his own foreign income without any qualms; hence, he did not know what the Nigerian domiciliary account holders had been passing through all this while. It was in the same manner that the president, when asked if he had intelligence that the Chibok girls were still alive, retorted quite regrettably: “We are still waiting for a credible Boko Haram leadership to tell us that.”

Furthermore, President Buhari is expected to take a stand on the Shi’ite/military issue after the army has conducted an investigation into the issue, being made a judge in its own case.

My recommendations are the following: when another media chat is arranged for Buhari, his handlers should not forget to come with the CBN governor, the army spokesperson, the confirmed leader of Boko Haram and any other individual that might be considered useful for the chat, so that they can consult our president on the certain questions that are beyond his understanding and learning.

Being the president who is proud of having no minister with any corruption case in court, Buhari has forgotten to inform Nigerians that the party he presides over has fielded two governorship candidates (Timipre Sylva for Bayelsa state and Abubakar Audu for Kogi state) having their corruption cases in court running into humongous billions of naira. Going by this scenario and ratio, it means that in future the criteria for being an APC governorship candidate will include having a corruption case in court; being convicted will makes one’s chances brighter. That is the party whose leader is celebrated as an anti-corruption crusader, the party whose leader is our president!

Nnamdi Kanu on his part told Justice Ahmed Mohammed of the Federal High Court in Abuja that he would rather remain in detention than stand trial as the DSS had shown disdain for the judiciary by disobeying the earlier orders, saying there was no need for any trial since there was no guarantee that the court orders would be obeyed, thereby expressing lack of confidence in the court. Agreeing with the position of Kanu despite the vehement opposition of the prosecution, the judge had to exempt himself from the case telling the prosecution that if they were in Kanu’s shoes they would do the same.

The same scenarios have played out in the other cases as well. Instead of expressing regrets over these unfortunate developments and promising Nigerians a better deal, Buhari confirmed our worst fears that the brazen lawlessness of the DSS was ordered by him as he declared that allowing these individuals to go on bail would allow them to run away. He even expressed dismay at Nnamdi Kanu holding dual passports of Nigeria and Britain as if that was a crime in itself.

While expressing his readiness to dialogue with Boko Haram, the world deadliest terror group, whose true leadership he cannot confirm, Buhari thinks that Nnnamdi Kanu should be crushed by all means including disobeying the court orders concerning him simply because he has brought in the sophisticated radio transmitters into the country.

In conclusion, President Buhari’s first media chat was nothing but a charade and a waste of time as nothing new, nothing incisive, nothing instructive, nothing informative, nothing hopeful, nothing real came out of it. It was just a reminder to Nigerians that this “one chance” will not “change”!

Follow Jude Ndukwe, author, political analyst and essayist, on Twitter via @stjudendukwe.

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