Buhari’s presidential media show or his bye, bye to democracy?

WATCHING the first President Muhammadu Buhari presidential media chat show was quite an experience. It was like we were revealing our­selves in the mirror and posting that out to the world. TV in these times of cable transmission is, perhaps, the first viral tool. So, the world saw us too.
Of these mirror images of who we are, there are two parts. The first and, perhaps, the least important is what Buhari showcased. This inci­dentally was in spite of his alleged makeover, as a practising democrat. A practising democrat, re­ally? So, let us deal with that first.
Buhari was proud and was fond of making references to the era and circumstances of his conspiracy for the illegal, nation ruining armed seizure and hijack of state and the dictatorship that followed. That was about 30 odd years ago. The records are that he led that dictatorship or sto­len powers for a while, before he was dispensed out of power and history. For him, the period that he was in charge of hijacked state powers was a golden era of his, and Nigeria. That is to him his period of dictatorship was finer and superior to that of democracy.
For instance, he spoke of the constraints [con­straints really?] he now suffers in tracking the sus­pects, who may have allegedly stolen a penny or a billion off our national tills. For him, matters were simpler and impliedly more glorious, in his days of dictatorship. Then those he suspected or inter­dicted for corruption and held under [protective]custody, were first and summarily assumed guilty. The suspects were thus required to prove their in­nocence or perish in his dictator’s dungeons.
In his media chat show, he almost visibly mourned that one was now on the contrary as­sumed innocent till he is proven guilty. So, to him, it is a question of competing and, perhaps, equal justice systems. And he gestured and or stated his preferences for the judicial wisdom of dictators, which he once was. Yes, he said it. Accordingly to him, the fancy of judicial innocence before the law was what our military suppliers and interna­tional partners demanded as a minimum condi­tion for their support or collaboration with him. That is but for the subtle pressures of America and other world powers, our judicial processes under APC and Buhari would have reverted to the old tested and tyrannically tasteful ways of the dicta­tor. Alas, we run our democracy not because we willed it, but because Americans demanded it. This is the homily Buhari supplied, inadvertently?
However, the truth must be told that guilty be­fore proven innocent and innocent before proven guilty are not competing judicial sub-systems. The one is a more humane, more evolved and most holistic, fair and equitable system.
But not one of the journalists challenged him on his denaturing of the innate rights of citizenry in a modern age. What it means is that we, as rep­resented by a makeover democrat, and our journal­ists, have not grown culturally, to be democratic. We have not grown into the cultural enlighten­ment and position that innocence is an inalienable right of and innate in a citizen, whatever it is as­sumed he is done. And that this right must subsist until the said citizen is adjudged otherwise by a court of competent jurisdiction. And this is a basic and minimum precondition of modernity. And it is not to come from outside, the Americans say. It is and must be homegrown, domesticated, if it is to take root and stand. If it is not domesticated and taken ownership of by locals, the least tension will see a dictatorship being wheeled in – a false messiah. That is the [undomesticated democracy]basis of all coups and the madness that follow.
However, the greater error was how the jour­nalists conducted themselves. They went to Bu­hari as a man goes to his messiah, to a false god. They went as pity seeking and pitiable minions. They did not go to him as a co-equals, joint-heirs and common workers in the Nigerian vineyard, political and otherwise. Perhaps, their psychologi­cal and moral weakness in this respect is a throw­back to their background of traditional tyrannies. For many, our ideas and ideals of the leader is forged in the images of an oba, obi or emir. These men, whatever else they were, were tyrants. And they had [and have?]nothing in their ways, to rec­ommend them to democracy or even modernity.
Modern democratic order assumes the follow­ing. First that the president and or prime minister are merely first amongst equal citizens. Thus in America, an Obama is the first citizen. His ‘first­ness’ is not in weight but for ease of count, of cen­sus. He is the first to be counted and not the most important American. The most important Ameri­can is the citizen, for whom Sam is a universal uncle.
So, an American president [and that much has since been copied all over enlightened world]is just another man at his task, no more no less. He is above all a citizen. And being a citizen is the highest state of being an American.
Protocol is not constitutionality and does not enhance citizenship. Constitutively, the citizen is the highest American and this is worth repeating. And when citizens meet, they do so as equals. This is important and is a minimum condition for democracy.
So, when American journalists interview Obama, they do so as co-and equal citizens. And, above all, they do in remembrance that they rep­resent a larger public, which they are reporting to. So, they don’t go to Obama as groupies wanting to halo in his presence. They go to Obama as fel­low professionals, here in the media, as an Obama is in politics, and in joint need for one another. No party in the bargain is dispensing favours to the other, journalist or politician. Obama needs the journalists to communicate to the citizenry, and the journalists need him to fill up their broadcast time or earn a fare.
That is both Obama and the journalists are just about their jobs. But what did we get in the first media chat? The journalists almost to the last man were all supplicating as if before their superior, perhaps their democratic emperor?
Dr. Ngozi Anyaegbunam, for instance, started with thanking the president for giving them the privilege to talk to him? Privilege? Rubbish. It is a part of the president’s job order to communicate with the citizens. So, his talking to journalists is not a privilege; it is a part of his schedule and he doesn’t need to be thanked. If he is too busy to talk to the citizens, then he is not worthy of the job and it’s time to replace him. He was not talking to Anyaegbunam; he was talking to the citizens via her. Anyegbunam was channel not party in issue.
And this fawning of Anyaegbunam was re­peated severally, universally, amongst that gang of four interviewers. It was so silly that they all grew verbose and were asking leading questions – out of fear, lack of self-confidence in their worth, as both citizens and professionals.
For example, Anyaegbunam asked of the president’s visionary dedication to the eradication of corruption. And she began her rigmarole with; President, Sir. That is tautology. It is more like an oriki, and she sounded like a praise hawker. One wondered, is she [and the rest of the gang]part of the president’s media team, or she/they were applying to be one? And if she spoke in such man­ners, perhaps, Garba Shehu will speak of the pres­ident as divine. It was so belittling. No American journalist or citizen will bend that low to denude her own person.
It is due to ‘errors of renderings’ like these that it is indicated we shall all fail at being democratic. Democracy to be, must first and above all be made a cultural staple, an achievement, not a mechani­cal institution or imported delicacy. If democracy is not self and mass cultured, it cannot endure or be grown in a given jurisdiction. To exist democ­racy must be willed by the people. Democracy is not an elite concession, which is what this gang of four turned Buhari into granting them.
Thus in a democratic order, a president is not a messiah, is not a special person, definitely not a Jose Mourinho. We need those in soccer not poli­tics. The president is just a regular guy doing his job, for which he applied and for which he is be­ing well remunerated.
So, the greater task is not in giving Nigerians votes, but in getting them, their journalists and all, properly educated. Americans have done a great job of this. The foundations of American litera­tures, for instance, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass are monu­ments to the proud independence, sense of self-dignity and worth, and the democratic order of the citizens, whatever it is you are at. The individual, the citizen, is almost made a sacred order. At bot­tom that is all democracy is.
The greatest point in all this is that without these cultural software, of the citizen as a sacred order, no amount of the democratic channels or hardware will give us democracy. Democracy is not grafted. Democracy is a way of life, a cultural state of grace and development. It is not a con­cession of elite to toadies, who are journalists or citizens.
That is, to have democracy, we must have a president, a Buhari or whoever else, as first citizen and no more, never as a supreme citizen, a Presi­dent and a Sir, or is it Presidential Czar? He must only be first amongst equals and nothing more. He shall never be president and sir or czar, save we are culturing him into an ogre, a power monster.
Perhaps, one should single out the Premium Times Ibanga Isiwe. Lean and poor as he looked, he was our Nigerian Melville or Whitman, the most self-courageous. He came to do a job, just like the president also. No citizen hierarchies here, we are in a democracy please, he tried to gesture all the way. Ahiazuwa.

Source: Daily Sun