Understanding the Mindset of a Typical Buhari Supporter By Nasiru Suwaid

“You must at all times remember that the APC is a party with several qualified people for all the positions that will be contested, including that of the president.”

– General Muhammadu Buhari, while stating his intention to contest the 2015 presidential elections [emphasis mine]

Ask any student talk less of a scholar of the social human theory, a sociological study of human social existence, about which of the distinct human character that could turn an highly intelligent being into a senseless buffoon, without much equivocation, division or dissension, the universal chorus and consensus would be it is the base human emotion, which creates the unusual heart condition of pure love, be it to an individual, a deity or monetary materialism. Indeed, in many a literature of the past and present, it was the aching craving of the heart, which has led a celebrated hero into perdition, in fact, rather than the often erroneous perception and attribution of either money or women being regarded as the root of all evils, actually, those two or the need to possesses them is premised on that purely irrational and irresistible fervor of following the dictates of the heart called love.

For the lover of religion, if not much circumspection is done in matters of faith, such emotion mostly breeds a vicious and vile terrorist, for the lover of money, if not much care is imbibed, it is usually the route to deviant criminality of corruption, theft, extortion which eventually leads to prison custody. However, for the love between individuals, it is actually the platform upon which the institution of marriage was built. Thus, it is mostly relationships that are outside its canopy which results in dangerous deviance, but, it is also under such emotional feeling of affection towards an individual, the love of a politician falls, which is mostly known as the cult of personality. Within the context of Nigerian politics, only few politicians were privileged to ever enjoy such genuine fervor of support, perhaps the first republic party leaders could legitimately claim such honor, but as at the present time, only General Muhammadu Buhari could be undisputable said to possess such loyalty, as even his politics foes have acknowledged his fanatical supporter base, whom they never fail to finger point as convenient cannon fodder for destructive post election violence.

Thus for a typical supporter of General Muhammadu Buhari, his or her love for the man is a heart controlled exercise, as such, it is blind to reason and cold heart calculations that a mental rational logic inspires, they see almost everything from a single dimensional prism of us versus them, mostly, they hardly comprehend why any normal human being could be against such an individual, when it has been agreed by all, that corruption is the single most important ailment afflicting the nation. Thus, why would anyone that wants the nation to conquer corruption, refused to be on the side of the one universally acknowledged as its supreme enemy. The fact that corruption but most especially fraudulent character has become such an accepted Nigerian norm, would seem not to matter to such a supporter, indeed, it is because such a behavior has become inculcated and assimilated socially into our collective public psyche, that it thrives within governmental circles, which literally means enforcing honesty in today’s Nigeria is almost an impossible task and clearly a feat beyond a single individual, even if his name is Muhammadu Buhari.

The basic problem with such mindset is that the heart is only allowed to see, what it so desires in a fairy tales belief, where a single person achieves what is before now an impossible reality, which is the attainment of a widespread national appeal and followership, a fact unheard of in a certified disparate nation like ours. It is just the way the country was conceived and formed, from the divisive canopy of a federation of opposing and competing regional peers, indeed, tried as they could and despite an overwhelming mass appeal, distinctive ideological base and tireless effort to become accepted, none of our founding fathers was ever able to achieve a widespread national mandate, based on a personal acceptability to represent an aggregated national ideal. Despite the time taken and the effort made, Nnamdi Azikiwe never achieved a national consensus, Obafemi Awolowo was seen as nothing more than a conquering ethnicist, the likes of Ahmadu Bello and Tafawa Balewa were simply seen as obnoxious and unapologetic regionalist, Aminu Kano was often regarded as irritating provincial leftist, while Odumegwu Ojukwu was widely acknowledged to have lived and died a violent separatist.

Yet, despite all this historical reality known to one and all, a typical Buhari supporter would wishfully think, their hero has breached the barrier his political forebears have not attained, but statistically, no Nigerian has been able to popularly breach the established narrative of becoming a national icon, in being accepted outside the region of birth, just as Awolowo’s cult began and ended in the South-West, Buhari’s popularity has its tip and zenith in the Middle-Belt region. While discountenancing the 2007 presidential elections for obvious reasons, as even those who benefited from it regarded it as a sham, the ever popular retired military general got as much vote in 2011 as had in 2003, which is something in the region of twelve million votes, signifying the attainment of a peak in a very divisive and blackmailing nation like Nigeria.

It is pertinent to ask the question why that is so, here, the reason is very simple, which is that politics in this part of the world is practiced on ethnic terms and from the prebendal logic of religious differences, thus, each contestant’s tool of appeal is usually regional cum religious affinity, even if it is not shouted out to the high heavens atop raised campaign platforms. That safeguard of a voting home base is usually complemented with the going to opponent areas of strength to poach for support, principally, to satisfy the need of meeting the basic constitutional minimum of getting one-third of votes, in two-third of the states of the federation. Generally, that is how a national government is formed in Nigeria, after all, it is how such a similar-type alliance happened in the first republic, while for the second republic, the alliance is more compact one, which is of a merger dissolution that formed the National Party of Nigeria, just as well as it happened with the People’s Democratic Party in 1998.

It is also the same-type of alliance and merger which had created the All Progressives Congress, but an alliance anywhere in the world is a congregation of mistrust, because, had the other parties believed in the visionary ideal of your party, they would have abandoned their party and joined yours. Perhaps, the reason why the truly honorable general warned his supporters in the statement of interest speech, not to castigate, question the right of others to partake in aspiring to any political office or even merely tolerate a segment of the party, by seeing them as simply a bunch of conniving corrupt people that are to be ridden to power and later to be abandoned, to do that is to see an alliance partner as an idiot and play into the hands of the opposing ruling party. Many would question my impression of Muhammadu Buhari, well, I don’t love the man but I like him a lot, it is what makes me to rationally assess him with my head, rather than blindly love him with my heart, to know he is just a man, albeit a good one, who can never get angels as partners but imperfect Nigerian souls like me and you, thus if you love the man, you have to also ‘like’ him, if you really want him to be a president again.

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