FOREIGN TRIPS: President Buhari And His Endless Trips

President Mohammadu Buhari

PRESIDENT Mohammadu Buhari has certainly toured around many countries in the world since his assumption of office raising diverse questions from citizens on account of cost implications of such presidential trips vis-à-vis the economic crisis which has negatively affected all sectors at the moment.

In just nine months post inauguration, Buhari has visited not less than 26 different countries, to wit: Niger Republic (May 2015; Chad (June 2015); Germany (June 2015); South Africa (June 2015); Cameroon (July 2015); United Kingdom (May 2015); USA (July 2015); Benin Republic (August 2015); France (September 2015); Ghana (September 2015) and India (October 2015).

Others are; Sudan (October 2015); Iran (November 2015); France (November 2015); USA (November 2015); Malta (November 2015); South Africa (December 2015) and concluded the previous year with Benin Republic in December 2015.

In 2016, the President has also visited UAE (January 2016); Kenya (January 2016); Ethiopia (January 2016); France (February 2016);

United Kingdom (February 2016); Egypt (February 2016); Saudi Arabia (February 2016) and Qatar in February 2016.

Incontrovertibly, most people have wondered the sensitivity and sensibilities on these incessant trips of the President putting into consideration that Nigeria as a sovereign nation already has treaties with the countries and therefore certainly maintains ambassadors and liaison offices all over those countries.

Another school of thought smartly argued that the President may be tactically dodging his responsibilities and the concomitant stresses by opting to cool his head in the western world thereby transferring the workloads to the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo (SAN) and the ministers.

Critically, this development cannot afford to be politicized if truly the President who was entrusted with the economy could perversely disregard the mandate given to him to be flying around the world aimlessly while the nation is groaning in pain over the maladministration of the previous administrations.

Ostensibly, all the promises of change rhythmically offered to the teeming masses during APC campaigns are still far from reality. Besides, the prices of goods and services expected to come down immediately Buhari was inaugurated also seemed opposite, and above all, even beyond the reach of average Nigerians.

However, the President like all other persons equally deserves a fair hearing by dissecting the situations on ground analytically so as to arrive at logical conclusions, thus the usefulness or uselessness of the Buhari’s endless foreign trips.

As clearly noted, the three cardinal agendas of the present administration are; the fight against corruption; insecurity and restructuring of the economy.

On the security of the nation, it is apparent the Islamic insurgent group, Boko Haram sect has caused excessive damages to the nation particularly the intermittent loss of lives in the northern part of the country which the President put at above 10,000 lives including children yesterday during the joint press conference with a visiting President of South Africa.

Strategically, to get rid of terrorists’ master-plans and deadly missions as that of Boko Haram requires the collaboration of the international community and all stakeholders. Similarly, to lead a war against corruption among public officeholders though mostly resident in Nigeria also requires the cooperation of the foreign countries where these loots and funds are kept.

From revelations so far, most of the nation’s stolen funds are transferred in the foreign accounts and therefore cannot be accessed without memorandum of understanding with the governments of those countries. To display government’s sincerity on its war against corruption, the President cannot but be in the fore-front, and not put himself in a similar position as the erstwhile President who made his appointee the supervising Minister of the economy.

On boosting of the economy, the federal government has made it clear that the country can no longer remain a mono-dependent oil economy, and professionally came up with the concept of the diversification of the economy to agriculture and mining at the meantime.

In view of this, a good lesson should be learnt from the present two-day official visit by the South Africa’s President, Mr Jacob Zuma to Nigeria on Tuesday which concludes today, Wednesday.

By virtue of the joint press briefing after a closed-door meeting between the two African leaders, no one would be far from the truth to conclude that the SA President visit was fundamentally anchored on the crisis between Nigerian Communication Commission, NCC and MTN Nigeria, a South African company.

Many had anxiously waited to know the reason for the visit until the cat was let out of the bag later. Amazingly, President Zuma personally visited Nigeria to intervene over a faceoff between a private business organisation belonging to some citizens of his country outside its shores. Indeed, that's phenomenal.

This emphatically puts it on record that a President of any country is obviously the face of the country. Most people would have expected a high powered delegation from South Africa to represent the President among his appointees but he was believably considered to be physically involved due to its importance to the economy of South Africa.

Now, relating it to Nigeria which is undergoing economic and security challenges as well as anti-corruption drives, could the Nigeria's President reasonably and comfortably sit back and delegate some high powered delegations on his behalf to shuttle around the world?  Logically, a thoughtful response cannot be in the affirmative.

Structurally, the President is the CEO of the Federation and must take the lead in all critical issues and initiatives during his administration. This is the starting point of the failures of the previous Jonathan’s administration that left important businesses of his government to his appointee as the Supervising Minister of the Economy. When Jonathan remarked that the amounts of alleged diverted funds were strange to him, most people misunderstood him. Of course, it should be strange to him since he assigned his duty post to his appointee to manage, only to get feedbacks.

The point should be quite clear that if President Zuma could leave his comfort zone in South Africa for a private business interests belonging to some citizens of his country, it means that President Buhari who cannot even boast of a comfort zone in Nigeria by virtue of the outrageous anomalies in the system particularly on corruption, security and economy in abysmal state over the years, should continually be on the move until the economy is fixed.

Learning from President’s disposition, Buhari may have to tour even to the creeks towards reviving the economy. Practically, Zuma travelled to protect MTN's business, a private concern; could our President who anchors diversification of the economy and anti-corruption drive in the economy assign his duties, business negotiations and meetings to his aides?

No doubt, President Buhari is paired with a resourceful and dependable Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, a learned Senior Advocate of Nigeria who could equally, ably represent the country. However, as an intellect, his duties will believably focus more on office-works particularly as it is undeniable the system inevitably demands urgent reforms. I strongly believe that these qualities led to his nomination as the running mate to Buhari who is apparently distinguished by political-will and principles among other leadership qualities; thus, a round peg in a round hole, and essentially, a division of labour.

Interestingly, the President having inaugurated his cabinet has adequately put in place a viable structure for executing the good policies of the administration. Hence, his concerted searchlights outside the country cannot in anyway hinder the goals of his government.

During the defense of the 2016 Appropriation Budget of the country, accordingly, all ministers, heads of agencies and parastatals of government appeared before the relevant Committees in the National Assembly for detailed blueprints, and therefore only awaiting for the passage of the budget to be in the fields. Splendidly, the budget has been slated for passage on March 17.

The targets of the citizens on this government should be on substantial changes and not on the number of foreign trips that the President has embarked on. With the cardinal policies of this administration, the President has no choice but to travel both far and near. Nonetheless, this position may be inconsistent with remarks from ACN, the then opposition party prior to its rebranding to APC against PDP’s 16 years of consecutive administrations.

Undeniably, all the PDP Presidents, starting from Obasanjo to Jonathan's administration were mercilessly criticized over foreign trips by ACN. Realistically, the criticisms were in order putting into consideration that the administrations had only few focal points; sale of crude oil, 'privatisation' and diversion of public funds to private foreign bank accounts. Most foreign trips by government functionaries then were to lodge proceeds from the fraudulent privatisations and other loots into various foreign banks across the world.

Concluding, Buhari should be encouraged and appreciated that at his age, he has been tirelessly boarding aircrafts touring the relevant nations to his government’s policies, disregarding his age simply out of his patriotism. Of course, he had a choice to delegate duties to his appointees and sit back as a boss for feedbacks but he took responsibility to continually be in the field knowing that his name is at stake as far as this administration is concerned. Above all, that the high hopes of the masses on perceptible dividends of democracy cannot be reduced to naught.