Failed Niger Delta Visit: Buhari’s aides have problem

Failed Niger Delta Visit: Buhari’s aides have problem

Saturday, June 4, 2016 7:28 am


Eddie Iroh

Eddie Iroh

By Eddie Iroh

President Buhari’s failure to go to the Niger Delta is not an act of cowardice as some suggest. After all he was a five star general who had seen combat as a young officer.

Besides, being commander in chief does not warrant taking undue risks. And let us be clear, if Buhari should come to any harm in Ogoni land Nigeria would be in total turmoil, to put it very mildly.

But rather, the non event in Ogoni land was a failure of Presidential advisory and management ethos as conducted by aides many of who have no extra-territorial knowledge of let alone cognate acquaintance with how a modern Presidency functions especially in times of armed conflict.

If they were wiser, they would have learnt from contemporary experience of how the USA handles similar situstions. On the the many occasions Presidents Bush and Obama visited the battlefronts of Iraq and Afghanistan neither the American public nor their very inquisitive and intrusive media knew about the trips. They all heard about them after the fact.

But when you confuse propaganda with need-to-know and well manged communication, what you get is this sort of embarrassing fiasco. But then the president chose his advisers, so the buck still stops at his desk. No be so?


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