Atiku and el-Rufai’s body bag nationalism

What could have prompted Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai to make such very volatile comment attributed to him on a Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) interview programme last week? Knowing fully well that he is one of the lickspittles of President Muhammadu Buhari’s All Progressive Congress, (APC) was el-Rufai on an assignment like a typical insurgents’ errand boy who, strapping a detonating device round his body, lets loose his fuse, caring less if the fierce bomb tears him into mounds of flesh in the process? Simply put, was El-Rufai on an assignment to bite the bullet for the APC? Or, was he a mirror of the political frustration of the government in power about the likely result of the presidential election that will take place this Saturday?

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Curious and curious still. No one can claim to understand what drove the governor of Kaduna State that Tuesday, or what he was driving at. It is becoming curious by the day why el-Rufai chose that frightening path and what emboldened him. At the NTA interview, el-Rufai had warned foreign governments not to intervene in the forthcoming elections, warning that anyone who does that would go back to their country in body bags. “We are waiting for the person who will come and intervene,” he had begun. “They will go back in body bags”

If this un-guardedness has the capacity to make any sane person shudder, it is of no weight in comparison to what emerged from Nigeria’s Seat of Power shortly thereafter. “We have taken note of the clarification to a reported earlier statement by the Governor of Kaduna State concerning opposition call for foreign interference in our domestic affairs and to say that latest statement by him should rest the issue for good. There is nothing more to sneeze at. The governor spoke strongly in defense of national interest,” President Muhammadu Buhari had replied.

This brings me to a very critical intersection in the analysis of that el-Rufai body bag statement. No one can claim not to know Nasir as a certified bootlicker of power. He grovels before powerful men like ants cling round the pee of a diabetic. He is a fawner of office, deploying his miniature stature to meander past contours of power like a salamander slithers past the contour of darkness.  As I asked earlier, could el-Rufai be reflecting a manifest apprehension and fear?

Like el-Rufai, every Nigerian should be apprehensive of what fate will befall Nigeria this weekend. Last week, I frowned at Prof Wole Soyinka’s standpoint on where Nigerian voters should migrate this weekend, taking pains to suspect that where the Nobel laureate belongs may actually be a covert attempt to populate where not many people think the Ake-born literary giant belongs. Innumerable times, I have acquainted Nigerians with how none of the two dominant electoral theses, one of which is likely to gain ascendancy on Saturday, is desirable for Nigeria. To be specific: I acquainted Nigerians with my belief that neither Atiku Abubakar nor Muhammadu Buhari is good enough to pilot Nigeria further at this critical point. Some people have labeled this standpoint defeatist, escapist and pacifist as even the dumbest political watcher of Nigerian polls knows that one of these two will carry the day on Saturday. For the last time before the election, reasons for my standpoint desire restatement. And I state it under-leaf:

My first premise is to state that, for a country that needs a personal example in leadership and taking into consideration the level of rot in the polity, Muhammadu Buhari, comparatively, is the most desirable leader that Nigeria needs. If you check his antecedents, especially his ascetic disposition, you cannot compare his uprightness with any Nigerian leader, dead or living. He came into power vowing to confront the incubus of corruption, security, economy and install good governance. My take however is that Buhari failed woefully on all the scores.

My second premise is that, since 2015 when he became president, Buhari has critically injured the moral thesis above in very most devastating ways. One is through his health, which is however due to no fault of his. Today, what we have in Buhari is a mere specimen, going by his recent disgraceful interventions in the public. Health-wise, no country should parade that specimen currently on display as its leader. In saner countries, the system will not allow a man of that level of mental grasp or health situation to go for an election; it will adopt political euthanasia to get rid of him from the list of the contestants; or else it will be accused of attempted murder.

Second critical prong is Buhari’s irredeemable nepotism. For a country as diverse and vast as Nigeria, an ethnically biased leader of Buhari’s hew can fire the salvo of a civil war. Third is that, unless as a propaganda weapon, corruption cells are multiplying in the corridors of power under Buhari, far more than ever. Except for some shows labeled corruption fight, as recently confirmed by Transparency International itself, the cancerous cells have wriggled themselves into the marrows of Nigerian elite and governments, with a rapacious finish almost unknown in the history of this country.

Fourth is that, insecurity is perhaps at its zenith in Nigeria today, going by government’s feeble response to Boko Haram insurgency. And let no one be persuaded to believe that barren epistle of people who bifurcate Nigeria’s socio-political problem as having been heaped on the country by either APC or PDP. The mix of the maggots is so clinical that to say sweepingly say that PDP destroyed Nigeria or that APC is redeeming the country is a vacuous argument. Which PDP or what APC? The PDP of Rotimi Amaechi, or the APC of Audu Ogbeh? The distinction is either tenuous or non-existent, its advice being that we should be more comfortable as a country with judging individuals by their involvement in the collapse that stares us in the face.

This election, rather than a vote for any candidate or party other than the APC and Buhari government, is a referendum on Buhari’s performance. It will snigger at his cardinal programmes of 2015.  It is what is giving fillip to and propelling Atiku Abubakar and his candidacy. Many who couldn’t stand Abubakar a few months ago, today think that he should be allowed to prove his mettle. On all scores of governance indices, Abubakar holds greater hope for Nigeria than the current assemblage under Buhari. His recent interview on Kadaira Ahmed’s NTA show reveals a leader with greater mental promise who is alert to issues, far more than Buhari. He has demonstrated greater readiness for office than Buhari has ever done. With a network of friends and associates all over Nigeria, Abubakar is not likely to reinvent that level of dangerous nepotism demonstrated by Buhari in the last four years. The only score that we should fear in Atiku Abubakar is his pedigree and disposition towards corruption.

 If you place a leader who mouths anti-corruption but who is surrounded by Rottweiler and sharks for whom national budget is comparable to fresh flesh and sweet-smelling blood, side by side another leader who will most probably come on board to prove his mettle, especially about his disposition to corruption, my personal opinion is that the second option will be most desirable. To avoid this Hobson’s choice, leaders like Soyinka should have roused the nation up to a Third Force before now, so that we would not be in this kind of bind of having to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea. Buhari is a No No; not because he is not a comparatively desirable moral example but because he is too immorally in dalliance with immoral kingpins of corruption that his moral blade is dead. Can you imagine a president who lifts up the hands of Abubakar Ganduje, in spite of global recrimination against his alleged corruption? Buhari is undesirable for Nigeria at this critical juncture. In this dilemma, I will grudgingly but surely seek out Atiku Abubakar from the ballot paper.

 Glo’s charity that begins at home

The fact that communication giant, Mike Adenuga’s Globacom is the pride of indigenous entrepreneurs has been an overkill in analyses of commerce in Nigeria. His Glo network has substantially bailed out Nigerians from the tyranny earlier associated with the monopoly of communication in Nigeria. It is a major reason that Nigerian users of the network who understand the pride which the organization has brought to the African and the Nigerian in particular, at this time when the belief in our individual selves as Nigerians is going down the drain, thumb it up as worthy and worthwhile.

The controversy over per-second billing, which Glo intervened in, is a notable instance of this intervention. However, it has since moved on into some other landmarks in communication. The most recent is its Glo Healthcare, a digital health assistant which it designed to help Nigerians in their quest to access best global healthcare directly on their phones. It is one package of all it announced recently which seems to attract this writer the most. According to the organization, Glo Healthcare connects 300 specialized doctors worldwide and its layout is to ensure that customers get information that have to do with common medical conditions through clicking the buttons of their phones.

Unveiled at a recent media parley will surely neutralize challenges faced in doctor-patient communication and thus reduce the dangers of lack of access of the latter to the former and even vice versa. A number of health challenges get promoted to mortality of the patients due to late or insufficient access to information and quick connection to doctors. The Glo Healthcare is said to provide access to users on information available on common health challenges, as well as health advice on public health. More than this, the package provides entire information available on each ailment that can afflict a human being. This is translated into all the major Nigerian languages. Specifically, those who suffer diabetes can track key health parameters of their blood pressure and sugar level via information on their phones. This is indeed a reason to celebrate this indigenous network. A worldwide database of doctors which can be located at the click of apps on mobile phones made available by the network also helps patients to be in constant touch with their doctors and to book appointments through video consulting on their smart phones.

For those who are interested in what I call digital socializing, the Glo Entertainment portal is the organization’s single point of access for all digital contents through which users can connect with international record labels. According to the organization, over two million local and foreign songs can be accessed on this Glo Café, where “over 12,000 Hollywood, Nollywood, Bollywood movies on Glo movie café” can be found, as well as “access to more than 10,000 games from top gaming developers across the globe” and “music, comedy, sports and short videos from top music channels.”

Other packages which the network proudly advertises as marking it out are Glo Mobile Money, Glo Call Connect Services and World Connect. But perhaps the other most striking innovative package of the outfit is the Glo TITI, (Artificial Intelligence Service) which it designed to revolutionize customer experience, through the provision of a “highly interactive and engaging” package which will assist customers procure information on data plans, prepaid plans, postpaid plans and information about data plans, prepaid plans, as well as postpaid plans.

Deployment of artificial intelligence in businesses globally has been rather slow and is very far between in Nigerian corporate world. Glo’s announcement recently that it will flag off this package in its telecommunications business signals a major revolution in this regard and which needs commendation. It is designed as a highly interactive and engaging package. According to Glo, the product “will enable conversation in English and Pidgin through voice and text.” We should all allow this charity which begins at home an opportunity to flourish the more.

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