Let us begin as usual with short takes from the news of the week. All being well, the President of Senate, David Bonaventure Mark, will return next year to Senate for the fifth time. If you reckon that Mark who will be 67 next year held political office as a military officer, then you will begin to appreciate what it means to age gracefully and resplendently in public office. But that is a matter for another day.
There was this alert raised on Monday by former Vice-President Alhaji Abubakar Atiku that Boko Haram insurgents have not only redrawn the map of Nigeria, but that they are probing the nation’s underbelly with the intention of overrunning the country. To buttress his warning, Atiku insists that Boko Haram has excised from Nigeria two local governments in Yobe State, five in Adamawa and nine in Borno. Ominously, he adds that not one inch of the captured territories has been recovered by the Nigerian Army. Again, this writer will defer this issue to another day.
But let us get to grips with the topic of the day namely, the raging controversy about the “age factor” as it pertains to Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari’s return for the umpteenth time to the presidential race. The issue was given currency recently by influential journalist and Special Adviser on Media to the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, Olusegun Adeniyi, when he advocated for the All Progressives Congress, a “Tambuwal option”. Adeniyi thought it might be refreshing for the party to consider Tambuwal as its presidential candidate rather than the much recycled if not jaded Buhari. Following closely on the heels of Adeniyi’s intervention was the death of the Zambian president, Michael Sata, at the age of 77. Sata was 74 when he was elected president in 2011.
This writer, of course, wishes Buhari longer life than he already had. However, it will be idle to pretend that his age – he will be 73 next year – is not an important factor in his presidential ambition. Despite the vocal assurances of his key supporters such as Prof. Tam David-West that his age can be waived aside, it is an ever recurrent decimal. To return to the Zambian example, it is interesting that Sata who died in a London hospital last week was rarely seen in public and was certainly ineffective for most of his presidential tenure. Predictably, state officials perpetuated running denials of his ill-health, attributing his numerous disappearances to “medical checkups” abroad. Global attention was drawn however to his worsening health when in September he failed to make a scheduled appearance at the United Nations General Assembly. There is no doubt that Zambia’s history of smooth presidential transitions will be tested to the limits, given for example the emergence as acting president of Guy Scott who has now become the first white man to rule in Africa since the end of apartheid in South Africa.
Nigeria has a history of sleepwalking into avoidable crises. A ready instance that relates to our current discussion is the poor medical record of Yar’Adua, who died in office after several months of incapacity and agonising uncertainty for the nation he was elected to govern. Could that situation have been averted? Certainly, if there was due diligence by both the political class and civil society and if there was openness about his frequent medical trips abroad when he was governor of Kastina State.
It is important therefore to focus on the age of Buhari in order to avert a possible political crisis in the event of his being endorsed by his party to contest the Presidency and in the event of his winning the election. David-West dismissed the age factor recently arguing that: “People came up and said he is too old to contest. He is very young when compared to President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe who is 90 years old.” Obviously, this is an example that does not strengthen the case considering the ravages of predatory rule in Zimbabwe and the capture of the state by politicians close to the aged autocrat.
The trend in the older democracies at least judging by Britain and the United States is towards national leaders who are relatively young. David Cameron is the youngest British prime minister in 200 years. He was 43 when he became prime minister. In the same vein, Barack Obama is the youngest American president alive, having being voted into the exalted office at the age of 47. A recent study revealed that more than half of American presidents at inauguration were between the ages of 51 and 57. The same study informs that Americans tend not to vote for presidential candidates who are over 64. There are of course exceptions, the most notable being that of Ronald Regan who began office a few days to his 70th birthday. But obviously, in matters like these, it is unwise to bank on the odd chance.
Another side to the debate concerns the difference in life expectancy between Nigeria where it hovers around 50 and the industrial democracies where it is above 70. If age is considered a factor in countries where the average citizen can expect to live above 70, it is all the more so in our part of the world, where nasty and brutal conditions conspire to make life short. In other words, it is unwise, whatever the vaunted or acclaimed virtues of Buhari, to pin the nation’s destiny on such an aged politician.
Constructed as a redeemer with the magic wand by his admirers, Buhari is said to be the disciplinarian par excellence that the nation is waiting for. I have no doubt that a nation like ours, stuck in the grooves of entrenched corruption could use some of Buhari’s self-denying qualities. That notwithstanding, a nation must first survive before it can make progress. British philosopher, Edmund Burke’s refrain about preferring injustice to disorder because disorder in the shape of wars and violence kill faster than injustice is obviously conservative but it has a ring of truth for a nation whose survival hangs very much in the balance. Compelling as the image of Buhari, the disciplinarian is, it is countervailed, some will say cancelled out, by that of Buhari, the religious fundamentalist and as argued in this write-up, his age throws even more uncertainty into the calculus.
There are of course other dimensions to the Buhari factor such as the question: Discipline for what? This speaks to the unarticulated character or nebulous nature of Buhari’s social vision. Is he a right wing reformer? An authoritarian populist? What exactly is his take on the vexed issue of lifting Nigeria’s teeming underprivileged out of poverty? Interesting as these questions are, they are not the focus of this write-up which is specifically to query the logic in the light of our national experience and global factsheet of returning to a 72-year-old man for answers to Nigeria’s myriad challenges.
No one has the power or the right to dictate to any political party who to present as presidential candidate but if history constitutes a handbook of prudent conduct, then Buhari’s age is a howling factor for his elimination by his party from the race.
Culled from The Punch.
Meanwhile, this newspaper clipping serves as a trip down memory lane, to the not-so-distant year of 2001.
Meanwhile, this newspaper clipping serves as a trip down memory lane, to the not-so-distant year of 2001.
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