Baba While You Are Away By Jonathan Nda-Isaiah

President Muhammadu Buhari

 It’s been 35 days since President Muhammadu Buhari left the shores of this country for his medical vacation and there has been pressure on the President to publicly address Nigerians to douse the tensions in the country.
But to me, that is not necessary as it will still not stop the rumours as the enemies of the president are hell bent on declaring him incapacitated. Doubters will claim it was the president’s double or his voice was stage managed or some other ridiculous theories. When I hear intelligent people, who should know, insisting that the president is unconscious and in coma and saying all the pictures were photo shopped, I weep for this country.
I love Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s reply to
mischief makers that he denied visiting London, epic. Many hearts were broken when news filtered in that US President, Donald Trump spoke to Buhari, people demanded to see the transcript of the call, insisting it was fake as the call was not mentioned in CNN or any foreign news website. When the White House confirmed the call, the question now turned to why didn’t Trump call Osinbajo since he is the acting president insisting that the president of the most powerful nation on earth breached protocol.

But that’s not the gist for today, have you noticed that in two years, policies that President Buhari stood firmly against are being reversed, maybe it’s just coincidence but some of the reversal happened whenever the president travelled out of the country.
President Buhari was staunchly opposed to the increase in fuel price and devaluation of the Naira. According to him, those two policies would have an adverse effect on the poor who are his main constituencies. He argued that no one has been able to convince him on the merits of devaluation and even hinted that one of the reasons he was toppled in 1985 was because he was opposed to devaluation.
Last year, when the fuel price was increased, the president was out of the country. Thirdly, the forex policy of the administration, I remember Buhari saying anyone who wants to send his child abroad should go and source for his forex. But last week, the Central Bank Of Nigeria released new forex guidelines and banks are now ready to sell forex to students abroad, maybe a coincidence but it happened when the president was in London and I also heard that a further devaluation of the naira is on the cards in the coming weeks.
Maybe it’s just coincidence or my imagination is running wild or maybe the president is becoming flexible in his ways and actions.

Credit: http://leadership.ng