There is another marathon essay on the President spiced with another interesting GMB story from my TBO archives, but this time coming at its tail end. Right now, let us go on with the agenda of the discussion: PMB’s health, how it affects his function as our President, and what should be done about it.
Crisis
It is becoming clear that PMB has an illness which is a bit graver than the ear problem he suffered before. I have no idea of what it is but unequivocal facts point directly to that. His stay away from his seat is taking longer than ordinary. The Senate President and Speaker of the House are both in London to see him, as have done many high ranking politicians, friends and family members. He has not granted an interview to any media organization. Waiting for the physician’s report—the alibi for his prolonged stay—is also taking long.
Yet, there are two encouraging tidings in the present situation of PMB’s health. One is that the President is alive and his condition presently looks milder to the outsider than that Yar’adua—May God have mercy on him—who worked into the Villa from day one with a burden of a terminal illness. By the time Yar’adua left for a final trip to Saudi Arabia, apparently for a more acute illness, it was all sudden and never to return.
We comfort ourselves at least for now that Buhari will return, God willing. Nevertheless, given the Yar’adua experience we must invest in handling his health better. We must not kill him with the burden leadership neither must he kill himself with the overwhelming sense of our trust. Both of us must take things easy, cool. Nigeria does not need a martyr former president buried in the semi-arid sands of Daura but a living one in Aso Rock at least up to 2019 when his mandate expires. “And do not kill yourselves; God is surely merciful with you.” (Women: 29)
How?
Let me be blunt with us here: The truth is that given a combination of his age and state of health, PMB must work less and delegate more, except if we want to send him to grave prematurely. And this truth must be pushed down the throat of the President because he knows no limits when it comes to work. Send him a letter of ten pages, Buhari will read it even as the President line by line to the end. He did not change even as a President. Haba. Now take the hundreds of memos that await his approval combine them with his penchant for detail and cast it against the background of his age and illness, the outcome will almost certainly be ugly.
In fact, nothing has aggravated his benign condition more than his effort to work as a thirty or forty-year old—to recall my unavoidable prediction on him in 2010. How can he stay in office past midnight, then attend subh congregation at break of dawn, jog a little in the morning, sip some tea with Malam Mamman in Glass House and report to office at 8am, at the age of 73, in Nigeria? Impossible! But that is his routine. He must be stopped.
Previous Presidents who worked past midnight used to sleep all morning and report to office only in the afternoon and for more than half the time they were in office, it was chats with friends, politicians and extra-official “adventures” to relieve their systems of the stress of office. Buhari does not indulge in any of these. If he could work 24/7 thirty-two years ago, he must not try it now. His ageing clock will run quicker than usual, a situation we may be battling with now. To any impartial observer, the last two years have seen his body aging faster. To remain longer, he must listen less to his heart and more to his physician.
Delegation
Fortunately, I have the full hope that he will go by this advice and fairly weather the storm of his health condition. The secret lies in delegation. And here comes the second good news. The President can delegate to a fault that may even be interpreted as abdication. If there is any time this trait in him needs to manifest, it cannot be better than now. You can see how he takes an annual leave with comfort. Never in the past forty years have we witnessed that in our leaders, kai, perhaps, since the departure of Balewa. You can see how PMB saved us from a serious constitutional crisis by following the rule: he duly informed the Senate on both occasions and designated the Vice-President to act in his capacity while he is away. If he had not done that, the sensationalism in our papers would have been terrible today. That alone could kill him before he returns.
Well, that is while he is away. What happens when he returns should be our immediate concern. I am suggesting further delegation. Simple. If I were the President’s physician, I would recommend work for not more than 4 hours a day. He would come to office around 10am and leave latest by 4pm, with a two hour in-office break between 12am and 2pm, except on meeting days. While in office, unless he it becomes very crucial, he must not attend to long memos but only to brief ones which are summaries reduced from the long ones and carrying only the essence of the matter. If possible, he should avoid meetings except the crucial ones—the Federal Executive Council, the Council of State and the like. Official visitors too should be limited only to the most essential. Think of it. Why must the President work for 18 - 20 hours daily when the official, daily average is just 8? Just for the sake of power at the expense of his health?
The target in my suggestion is to reduce his present workload down to 20% or so, the remainder should be carried out by the Vice-President, his ministers, advisers and personal staff. I cannot see a better alternative. Two things are involved here. Most of the work that preoccupies our Presidents is actually not theirs; it is misappropriated from the schedules of their subordinates in order to maximize the power of the presidency, reminiscent of our military era.
Take even for example the appointments in various boards of MDAs. Most of the enabling laws of these bodies empower the minister, not the President, to make such appointments. But Obasanjo continued with the military practice of nominating the members and only directing the ministers to sign and issue the appointment letters. Then how can the minister be responsible for what is happening under his ministry?
It is sad that even under Buhari, ministers are begging to be allowed to nominate, even if partially, the heads of parastatals under their ministries, which is their statutory duty anyway. To date, a full list is not finalized by the President as most of the appointments are left undone, halfway into his tenure. Yar’adua was equally deliberate; he died with so many appointments waiting.
Fear
The second is the fear of the outcome if so much power is delegated away from the President. His vision may be tampered with. Most of his appointees so far are people unknown to him prior to the 2015, as correctly pointed out by his wife. I do not think he knows much of his Vice-President by the time he picked him as running mate better than he was someone going to sitt in for his sponsor—Chief Bola Tinubu, just as many of the ministers and MDs appointed so far who are nominees of the SGF, Chief of Staff and our big oga, Malam Mallam or Samaila Isa Funtua and the likes.
Given this fact, the fear that the delegation will be abused is real. But this is the moment of truth for the President and indeed for the country. There is no better alternative to delegation, as we said earlier. The only advice here is to ensure that the people on whose shoulders the work will rest—whether it is his deputy, his kitchen-cabinet or his ministers—will become awake to the burden of trust the new circumstance will repose on them.
The President himself will help matters if he takes a sincere review of these appointments in order to make the delegation successful. He may consider some changes, something he often finds difficult to do, but which has now come knocking on his door. For example, he may need to post Babachir, the SGF, out to a ministerial position and bring in a better hand. He may need to draw Hamid Ali and Adamu Adamu closer to add his stamp into the kitchen cabinet. He may also consider reshuffling his cabinet to reflect the individual competencies of each minister and appointing more ministers to reduce the workload of some like Fashola who has proven that there is limit to what even a person of high competence can do. He may find these suggestions necessary in order to reduce the fear of what delegation may portend.
Mind
So far, we have addressed the President’s body stress arising from a heavy workload. What about his mind, whose health is equally crucial to his survival? What does he do with the remaining 20 hours? If I were the President, I would donate them freely to rest, leisure and worship. I will sleep as long as possible. I will indulge in any leisure that used to bring me happiness in my earlier days including reading, watching documentaries, reconnecting with my early surviving friends and classmates, whom I would be inviting to the Villa to spend some quality time with in its spacious gardens and parks, as well as my children and grandchildren, relatives and so on—while I give Osinbanjo an hour daily to brief me on the donkey work I would assigned him.
2019
Then, if I were the President in his present condition, I will rid myself of all sources of anxiety, especially the fixation with 2019. If I must think about that year, it will only be about supporting a befitting successor. I would myself: Muhammadu, what is it that remains or you have not seen in the past 73 years? What sense of accomplishment is there better than being entrusted with the position of Head of State by my colleagues at 42 and thirty years later, at 73, with the Presidency by a popular vote from my people?
Also, I would shun the mistake of my predecessors, who fell captive of their political beneficiaries that told them that power is forever, thus luring them into the misadventures of second and third terms. If I had the sufficient health, I would definitely exercise my right to seek for a second term in office. But given my condition of health, I would prefer to hand over the baton of my struggle to a competent successor. I would convince myself—in opposition to the wish of the beneficiaries of my Presidency—that I cannot be the last President; that others must succeed me; that I must leave one day while Nigeria survives me.
As a trust, I hope this will be the thinking of people around the President—his family, relatives, friends and political beneficiaries. We sincerely hope that they resist the temptation of sacrificing his health and life for their selfish ends.
It is a pity that the law of nature must overcome us sooner or later. I say this in contemplation of my own situation even now at the age of 56. Whenever I watch the pictures of the ailing President and remember the image of the vibrant 60-year old I worked with in 2002, I am gripped by fear of the obvious, that if I am lucky to live that long, I would be confronted by the same or worse degree of frailty. An incident with which I will conclude this essay keeps coming back to me these days.
The Suspended Tea Cup
It was sometimes in September 2002 when GMB, as he then was, received in his Jabi Road office some University of Jos students’ union officials. They wanted him to attend an occasion coming up three weeks later or so. He thanked them for the invitation and replied that “Dr. Tilde”, pointing at me, “will represent me at the occasion, if you don’t mind. I am sure he is known to you.” Ah! You know students, they could not take that. They nagged and nagged until he conceded to attending the occasion personally.
The day came and a Samaritan offered us a small plane. Along with Sam Nda Isaiah, we left the old Kaduna airport that hazy morning. Halfway, the pilot confronted a very bad weather and the journey got really bumpy. I was sitting directly behind GMB—as I played the role of his personal assistant that day. At a point, suddenly, the small plane quickly dropped its altitude and I saw GMB’s cup of tea suspended in the air, separated from the small saucer it was resting on. It was spectacular to watch a cup hang that way in the air. I concluded that the dress of “Oga” will get messy. But to my relief, it did not. More spectacular than the scene of the suspended cup was how GMB swiftly lifted his hand to grab it while it was still airborne before it would return to the armrest—and without a splash on his dress. Wao. Wao!
It was so when I first saw him in 1975 during a visit to our school at Ganye as the Governor of defunct Northeastern State. As he walked fast from the Assembly Hall where he addresseed us to inspect the staff quarters under construction some 400 meters away, our principal, staff and members of his entourage were literally running to keep pace with him. Mhm. I would witness his same agility 27 years later.
It is pitiful that such an exceptionally agile person even at 60 today tarries in distant London while we debate how he will manage his life as the President when he returns. It something we cannot help though; but we can wisely manage for some time. This is not peculiar to him, surely. All of us are treading the same path ordained by our indomitable mother nature, and only to God, Most High, will remain all knowledge and power:
“It is God who created you in a state of (helpless) weakness, then gave (you) strength after weakness, then after strength, gave (you) weakness and hoary head; he creates as He wills and it is He Who has all knowledge and power.” (Rome: 54)
I wish the President a happy return and long life.
And our last prayer is “Praise be to God, the Lord of the worlds.”
Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
16/2/17
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